Hormones and behaviour - SAQ

Question 1

What are hormones?

Answer 1

Chemical messengers that are transported through the blood steam and affect physiological processes and behaviour.

Question 2

Advantage of being transported through the bloodstream

Answer 2

They can reach many areas of the body as the network of blood vessels is very elaborate.

Question 3

What is the difference between hormones and the nervous system?

Answer 3

Hormones regulate long term ongoing processes such as growth, metabolism, digestion or reproduction. There is very little control over the regulation of hormones which is contrary to neurotransmitters.

Question 4

Where are hormones made?

Answer 4

Endocrine glands

Question 5

What does the endocrine glands contain?

Answer 5

Adrenal glands
Hypothalamus
Pineal gland
Pituitary gland
Thyroid
Parathyroid
Thymus
Pancreas 
Testes 
Ovaries

Question 6

How are hormones specific to certain cells?

Answer 6

Hormones can only influence cells that have receptors for this particular hormone. These cells are called target cells.

Question 7

What happens when a hormone binds to a receptor? What does it mean?

Answer 7

It launches a sequence of changes, some of which are genomic : gene activation or gene suppression.

This means that hormones do not influence behaviour directly but change the probability that a certain behaviour will occur due to a certain environmental stimulus.

Question 8

What is an example of a hormone?

Answer 8

Adrenaline

Question 9

When is adrenaline used?

Answer 9

If you experience a traumatic event like a car crash the physiological stress system automatically gets going. The body’s “fight or flight” response kicks in and your heart starts beating faster.

Question 10

How does adrenaline function?

Answer 10

Released from the adrenal gland. When adrenaline reaches the brain it activates the amygdala to send a message that something important or dangerous has happened.

Question 11

Why is the amygdala important?

Answer 11

The amygdala is believed to play an important role in emotional aspects of memory in that it attaches emotional significance to otherwise neutral stimuli.

Question 12

Why do researchers believe that emotional memory is better remembered?

Answer 12

They argue that this is because the amygdala is in communication with other brain regions when a memory is created.

Question 13

Study used for Hormones?

Answer 13

McGaugh & Cahill

Question 14

When was McGaugh & Cahill?

Answer 14

1995

Question 15

Aim of McGaugh & Cahill (1995)

Answer 15

To study the role of emotion in the creation of memories.

Question 16

How many slides were there?

Answer 16

12 slides

Question 17

What was the difference between the two groups?

Answer 17

The slides came with different stories

Question 18

What did the first group have?

Answer 18

The participant heard a rather boring story.

A woman and her son who paid a visit to the son’s father in a hospital where they witnessed the staff in a disaster preparation drill of a simulated accident victim.

Question 19

What did the second group have?

Answer 19

The participant heard a story where the boy was involved in a car accident where his feet were severed.

He was quickly brought to the hospital where the surgeons reattached the injured limbs.

Then he stayed in the hospitals for some weeks and then went home with his mother.

Question 20

What did the participants have to do after hearing the story?

Answer 20

After viewing the slides, the participants were asked how emotional they found the story on a scale of 1 - 10.

Question 21

What happened after 2 weeks?

Answer 21

Two weeks later, participants were asked to come back and their memory for specific details of the story were tested.

The test was a recognition task that consisted of a series of questions about the slides.

Question 22

What was the follow up test?

Answer 22

The procedure was repeated. But this time the participants in the “traumatic story” condition were injected with either a beta-blocker called propranolol or a placebo.

This is a drug that is used to treat heart disease because the beta-blockers block target cells for the hormone so that the heart will pump more slowly and efficiently. However, in this study, it was used to prevent activation of the amygdala.

Question 23

Results

Answer 23

In the original version of the experiment, the researchers found that the participants who had heard the more emotionally arousing story demonstrated better recall of specific details of the story.

They could also recall more details from the slides. In the follow-up study, they found that those that had received the beta-blocker did no better than the group that had heard the “mundane” story.

Question 24

Conclusion

Answer 24

They, therefore, concluded that the amygdala plays a significant role in the creation of memories linked to emotional arousal.

Question 25

What to remember for Hormones

Answer 25

Hormones
Advantage of bloodstream transport
Difference between hormones and nervous system
Where hormones are made
How hormones are specific to cells
Adrenaline
Amygdala
McCaugh and Cahill (1995)