Lecture 10: Mental Health and Psychiatry

Question 1

What is the brain for? (4 bullet points)

Answer 1

• organise sensory input
• make sense of sensory + social information (predictive models)
• motivate survival (avoid harm, physical, social)
• maximise efficiency

Question 2

What is compulsion?

Answer 2

The experience of overwhelming urges to repeat a behaviour, even in knowledge that is harmful.

Question 3

What sort of disorders can our compulsive drive?

Answer 3

• anxiety
• depression
• self-harm
• addiction
• OCD
• eating disorders

Question 4

Anxiety disorder can be conceptualised as a (1)…………, arising from (2)…………………..

Answer 4

1. self-perpetuating network of positive feedback loops

2. normally adaptive responses

Question 5

What is state anxiety?

Answer 5

State anxiety reflects the psychological and physiological transient reactions directly related to adverse situations in a specific moment

Question 6

What is trait anxiety?

Answer 6

trait anxiety refers to a trait of personality, describing individual differences related to a tendency to present state anxiety

Question 7

What can influence trait anxiety?

Answer 7

• genetic factors i.e. polymorphisms of serotonergic and noradrenergic function)