Intro to Health Psych

Question 1

placebo effect

Answer 1

a positive effect produced by a sham treatment that can’t be attributed to the treatment itself and therefore, the benefit observed must be due to the patient’s belief in that treatment

Question 2

3 everyday examples of the placebo effect

Answer 2

• elevator door close button
• crosswalk button
• putting ointment on cuts

Question 3

for the study on angina patients, how did the placebo effect impact the disease’s biological origin?

Answer 3

placebo caused no change in the biological impairment caused by angina

Question 4

for the study on angina patients, how did the placebo effect impact the self report (psychology) symptoms of the disease?

Answer 4

the sham surgery reduced subjective reports of angina pain

Question 5

for the study on angina patients, how did the placebo effect have an impact on patient’s behaviour?

Answer 5

patients acted as if they were cured, even if they received only the sham treatment

Question 6

what is the biological basis of the placebo effect?

Answer 6

the placebo effect (psychological) causes the release of dopamine (biological)

Question 7

describe the study of parkinson’s patients with respect to the biological basis of the placebo effect

Answer 7

• patients with parkinson’s disease have decreased levels of dopamine available to the brain, results in motor dysfunction
• sham treatment (saline as opposed to a drug that acts like dopamine) shows nearly identical PET scan with greater neural signal observed in striatum
• there was a greater increase in the amt of dopamine for subjects who believed the treatment had worked

Question 8

what is dopamine?

Answer 8

a neurotransmitter involved in reward, prediction learning, and movement

Question 9

how does dopamine impact movement and reward?

Answer 9

at the synaptic cleft:

• dopamine is released from presynaptic cell into cleft
• dopamine binds to receptors which transmits AP into post-synaptic cell
• dopamine gets recycled back via dopamine transporters in the presynaptic cell

Question 10

dopamine pathways that mediate movement

Answer 10

• nigrostriatal pathway

Question 11

dopamine pathways that mediate reward

Answer 11

• mesolimbic pathway

- mesocortical pathway

Question 12

dopamine transporters

vs. dopamine receptors

Answer 12

dopamine transporters - found on presynaptic cell, recycle dopamine back into presynaptic cell from the synaptic cleft

dopamine receptors - found on post-synaptic terminal, dopamine binds to them and elicits AP in post-synaptic cell

Question 13

how does PET measure dopamine?

Answer 13

PET = positron emission tomography

• subject is injected w radioactive nucleotide (RAC) that travels to the brain and binds to dopamine receptors
• RAC will start to decay and emit positrons which interact with e- or nearby atoms
• the positron and e- are both destroyed when they interact and this generates gamma rays in opposite directions which are detectable by the scanner which tracks it back to its receptor

Question 14

what does binding potential mean in PET?

Answer 14

binding potential refers to the number of available receptors and the affinity for the receptor
- dopamine can only bind to the receptor if nothing is already bound to it so we can tell how much dopamine is present in the cell

Question 15

what does it mean to have a higher RAC binding potential than baseline?

Answer 15

• more RAC nucleotides are bound to the dopamine receptors so dopamine levels must be depleted in the brain

Question 16

what does it mean to have a lower RAC binding potential than baseline?

Answer 16

• fewer RAC nucleotides are bound so more dopamine is bound (therefore greater amounts of dopamine are in the synaptic cleft :))

Question 17

how does apomorphine differ from saline?

Answer 17

apomorphine is a drug that behaves like dopamine (synthetic)

saline is a salt water solution that has no treatment properties
- is used as a placebo in parkinson’s placebo experiment

Question 18

key criticisms of the study done with Heisz’s dad and the Q-ray bracelet?

Answer 18

• no control bracelet
• small sample size
• subject bias

Question 19

if Dr. Heisz did a PET scan on her dad, how would his dopamine levels differ in the q-ray vs no q-ray conditions?

Answer 19

he would have higher dopamine levels in the q-ray condition than the non q-ray condition since he believes that the treatment works

Question 20

nocebo effect

Answer 20

a negative effect produced by sham treatment that cannot be attributed to the properties of the treatment itself and therefore must be due to the patent’s belief in that treatment

Question 21

list 3 everyday examples of the nocebo effect

Answer 21

• healthcare provider telling patient that they may experience pain - the expectation of pain may cause them to experience it

Question 22

what is the biological basis of the nocebo effect?

Answer 22

the nocebo effect (psychological) causes activation of brain regions involved in emotional processing and anxiety - the ACC (anterior cingulate cortex) and insula

Question 23

describe the study that tested the biological basis for the nocebo effect

Answer 23

subjects shown a signal that would indicate whether they should expect low heat or high heat

• in trials, the high heat stimulus wasn’t always followed with high heat, but it was expected to be high
• patients experienced anxiety when seeing signal for high pain and so they perceived the pain to be greater than it actually was
• fMRI of these subjects showed greater brain activation of insula and anterior cingulate cortex (areas of the brain involved in pain perception)

Question 24

similarities b/w placebo and nocebo effects

Answer 24

both show a response to a sham treatment because the subject believes in the treatment/anticipates the results to be a certain way

Question 25

differences b/w placebo and nocebo effects

Answer 25

placebo - experience a positive effect

nocebo - experience a negative effect

Question 26

how do we measure type A personality?

Answer 26

meyer-briggs type inventory

Question 27

describe the study that tested the association b/w type A personality and heart disease

Answer 27

• type A, B and C individuals monitored to see prevalence of heart disease
• found that type A people had the greatest incidence of heart disease
• the type A group also consumed more alcohol and smoked - which we know cause CHD also
• limitations: control group wasn’t really a control (unemployed blind people compared to old white men)

Question 28

describe the details of Wakefield’s study that tested the assoc b/w MMR vaccine and autism

Answer 28

• subjects were 12 children (8 were autistic)
• Wakefield asked parents about when their children had gotten vaccines 4 years before
• limitations:
  sample size too small, relies on memory of parent, correlation ≠ causation, bias of parents, researcher
• media blew it up and Wakefield thinks there is a conspiracy against him
• nobody has been able to replicate this study

Question 29

describe the details of the Canadian study that tested the association b/w MMR vaccine and autism

Answer 29

• tested 25,000 children
• the prevalence of autism increases and uptake of vaccine decreases (we would think that this would be opposite if Wakefield’s study were true)