Child - Area 2 Flashcards
What the stages of brain development ?
Pre-natal, childhood, adolescence and adulthood.
What is the limbic system ?
Contains amygdala, ventral striatum and nucleus accumbens. Helps to process emotional experiences and regulates emotions.
What is the cerebral cortex ?
Thinking is divided into cortices. Frontal cortex controls higher cognitive function and executive function. Does not reach full maturity until late adolescence.
What is synaptogenesis ?
Process in which new synapses are formed between neurones, axon and dendrites.
What is exuberant synaptogenesis ?
Synaptogenesis that occurs before birth and continues post natally.
Why does more synapses mean better cognitve processing ?
More synapses means better neurotransmitters so better cognitive processing. Promoting flexibility means brains are open to alteration through experience and learning.
What is myelination ?
Brain weight is 25% of adult brain as a baby. Increasing hand eye coordination improves myelination as is rapid in first two years.
What is synaptic pruning ?
Genetically programmed plan where brain fine tunes brain structure after first 3 years. Neurones used more long term experience greater neurotransmitter activity strengthening the synapses.
What did Willoughby et al state about adolescence and mortality rates ?
Found mortality rates increase in adolescence across western cultures.
What did Steinberg hypothesis ?
Hypothesised that risk taking in adolescence is directed by interaction of 2 brain systems that mature at different times.
What is the ventral striatum responsible for ?
Emotion regulation system. Changed due to increased activity of neurotransmitter dopamine.
What other brain region is included in ventral striatum ?
Nucleus acumens is a reward system, which is responsible for sensation seeking behaviour and responds to new experiences.
What did Johnston state about ventral striatum ?
Changes in VS matches increases in arrests for criminal behaviour mid to late adolescence.
What is the pre frontal cortex responsible for ?
Slower to develop and is responsible for planning reasoning, decision making and ability to asses risk. Undergoes synaptic pruning.
Why cant pre frontal cortex control ventral striatum ?
It matures later so cannot assert executive control over VS and NA that rewards sensation seeking behaviour associated with risk taking.
What did Meyer and Bucci look at ?
Lab experiment to mimic system imbalance in rats.
What did Meyer and Bucci find ?
Reduced activity in PFC whilst increased activity in NA.
Rats took twice as long as control group to learn to inhibit a response to an expected reward.
What does early affects stress cause on child ?
Can predispose individuals to later risk taking behaviours.
More stress experienced, more likely they are to engage in risky behaviour in adolescence,
What did Kotch look at ?
Longitudinal study of child neglect.
What did Kotch find ?
Parental neglect of 2 year old children predicted aggressive behaviour at age 8.
What did De Bellis state ?
Neurotransmitters and hormones released may damage PFC. Reduces moderating influence on ventral striatum in adolescence.
What did Tottenham state ?
Early neglect causes lasting damage to amygdala and ventral striatum.
What is the background to Barkley-Levenson and Galvan ?
Adolescents have heightened sensitivity to reward.
Increased response to ventral striatum when adolescent anticipates and receives unexpected or expected reward.
Previously used money and maybe adolescence value money more.
What is subjective value ?
Value individual places on a stimulus (choices)
What is expected value ?
Sum of all possible outcomes multiplied by their probabilities. In adults, increasing the expected value, increases activity in ventral striatum and pre-frontal cortex.
What were aims of Barkley- Levenson ?
Adolescents are more sensitive to EV.
Adolescents show greater ventral striatum activation as EV increased.
Adolescents would show heightened ventral striatum response when matching adults on number of games.
What type of experiment was Barkley- Levenson ?
Quasi experiment that is lab based.
What were the IV of Barkley-Levenson ?
Adolescents vs adults.
What was the DV of Barkely-Levenson ?
Number of gambles in a spinner game accepted by ppt. Measuring activity in ventral striatum.
What was the sample of Van Leewan ?
19 adults and 22 adolescents. Self-selecting sample recruited through posters and online and also people who had previously taken part in research at UCLA.
Healthy with no psychiatric problem, and had no metal on them.
What was the intake session ?
Gave details of monthly spending money,+. Thought to control value they placed on monetary rewards. Given $20 to be used as playing money. Gave sense of ownership and was to prevent house money effect.
What was the FMRI session ?
Completed gambling task shown on screen spinner. One half had what they could win and one half what they could lose.
What were the trials ?
192 gambles in 4 runs.
48 were fixed to be a gain.
24 of those were fixed to be a loss.
144 remaining were mixed and distributed evenly. Ppts knew it was a gain or loss so would represent risk taking behaviours.
What were ppts told about one of the trials ?
One of accepted trials would actually be played for money as payment for participation. Thoroughly trained in task.
What were the results for aim 1 (would adolescents be more sensitive than adults to increased EV?)
Increasing EV made acceptance of gamble more likely. Greater in adolescents.
Disposable income did not affect it.
No risk trials = gamble acceptance did not change.
Adolescents behaved as adults when there was no risk.
What were the results for aim 2 (Would adolescents show greater ventral striatum activation as EV increased ?)
As EV increased, there was an increase in the Pre frontal cortex.
Reduced activity in amygdala and hippocampus.
Adolescents showed increased activity to increased EV in left ventral striatum, not for right VS.
What were the results for aim 3 (would adolescents showed heightened VS response when matching adults on number of games ?)
Difference in activation in left ventral striatum between adults and adolescents remained, when adults acted like adolescents in response to reward.
What is the graduated driving programme ?
Used un US where there is stages to your licence.
Stage 1 = driver always supervised.
Stage 2 = Drive unsupervised only in daylight hours.
Stage 3 = Full privileges at 18 y/o.
What did Dee et al state about graduated driving programme ?
Found it reduced fatalities by 5.6%.
What did Romano et al state about graduated driving programme ?
Reduced speeding related fatalities amongst white, African American and Asian adolescents. Benefited Hispanics most by reducing alcohol related death.
What are nurse visitation programmes ?
Nurse home visits to intervene early in child’s life. This is to reduce early stressors as this can damage pre-frontal cortex, which can increase risk-taking.
Who developed nurse visitation programmes ?
Olds
Developed it to target men and women expecting baby at high risk of mistreating it. Reduces parental stress by nurses doing home visits before birth and for 2 and half years after. Stressors could provoke mistreatment.
