Lecture 17

Question 1

Understand the graph on slide 3

Question 1

what degree of causality is a proximal cause?

Answer 1

one degree

Question 2

What happens when you try to look beyond the proximal causes for neonatal mortality?

Answer 2

if you try to get beyond the proximal causes you get outside of the health care field pretty quickly

Question 3

Why does causal complexity matter?

Answer 3

The reason causal complexity matters is because it completely determines what we do. We often say lets be solution focused but sometimes what happens when we do that is we forget the model that we’re working with.

what level of causality you look at changes the solutions that are implemented

Question 4

What is birth spacing?

Answer 4

the time between 2 consecutive births

Question 5

When you are looking at 2 levels of causality what are you trying to figure out? What do levels of causality refer to?

Answer 5

What is causing the cause?

Levels refers to consecutive connections. This can thoguht of a meta analysis.

Question 6

When are we looking at 1 level of causality for neonatal mortality?

Answer 6

when we’re looking at complications during birth

Question 7

When are we looking at 2 levels of causality for neonatal mortality?

Answer 7

When we’re looking at individual factors

Question 8

When are we looking at 3 levels of causality for neonatal mortality?

Answer 8

When we’re looking at societal factors

Question 9

UNDERSTAND THE IMAGES ON SLIDE 7

Question 10

is the number of causes related to the causal complexity? Why is it easier to deal wit more causes rather than more levels of complexity?

Answer 10

the number of causes is not related to causal complexity. Complexity is about how the causes are arranged.

when we look at more causes we can divide and conquer

the causes are independently trying to explain so it is only one cause

Question 11

What is causal complexity referring to? Why is this more difficult to deal with this level of complexity?

Answer 11

the number of levels of causality (number of successive causal relations )

more difficult because specialists have to collaborate her eand the knowledge of causes has to be integrated.

if we have 3 levels of causality A tries to explain B, B tries to explain C

Question 12

KNOW THE MODEL FROM SLIDE 9 for the FINAL

Question 13

CREATE A SLIDE FOR THE MODEL ON SLIDE 9 (i’m too lazy rn)

Question 14

How complex is this model in terms of levels of causality? This model includes:

a) no levels of causality
b) 1 level of causality
c) 2 levels of causality
a) Yes
d) 3 levels of causality
e) 4 levels of causality

Answer 14

B

This is a model of neonatal mortality and the delay to recieve medical care that is being analyzed is actual only one level of causality. They are actually only addressing the proximal cause because the other things are being considered only to enhance the provision of medical care.

the figure presents a sequence of steps for how medical care may be provided during birth in an attempt to mitigate the complications once they occur. The model is not using two levels of causality because it isn’t trying to prevent the problems that happen during birth. They are not trying to reduce the problems form happening in the first place like nutrition etc.

Question 15

Explain the pros of having only 1 level of causality

Answer 15

Easy to intuitively understand

We can consider the different causes one at a time

Does not overload working memory capacity

Question 16

What becomes more diffiuclt as there are more levels of causality?

Answer 16

The more levels, the less intuitive the causality

Question 17

What is working memory?What part of the brain is it linked to?

Answer 17

allows us to actively hold in mind and manipulate (limited amount of)
information
* linked to prefrontal cortex (PFC) functions

this is the mental capacity that helps us actival recall and manipulate info. If you are using working memory to work on something you are conscious of it. If you are not conscious of something, it is not working memory. WM has been linked to the pre-frontal cortex. Part of the way placebo and nocebo work is through working memory. This capacity for WM is linked to the pre-frontal cortex.

Question 18

What part of the brain plays a key role in working memory?

Answer 18

The lateral PFC as a whole
Plays a key role in working memory

Question 19

is the DLPFC involved in working memory?

Answer 19

yes in that it is responsible for expectations

Question 20

What is relational complexity?

Answer 20

The number of relations that need to be considered simultaneously within working memory

a cause is a special case of a relation. an expectation is another example of a relation. A relation is A and B relate to each other. If you’re thinking about how they relate to each other you are thinking of the relation. If you are thinking about the expectation and the outcome you are thinking of the relation. A cause is a relationship between one thing occurring and another thing occurring. For relations to be understood with things we don;t have experience with we have to use working memory because we have to think about the 2 things. What can happen is the number of relations can overwhelm our working memory pretty quick.

Question 21

Look at slide 13

Question 22

What is the DLPFC involved in regarding causal complexity?

Answer 22

Thinking about relations one at a time
(e.g., expectations)

(aka how it works for one level of causation)

Question 23

When is the DLPFC no longer efficient? What impllications does this have for causal complexity?

Answer 23

When there are multiple relations that need to be considered simultaneously, DLPFC is no longer sufficient

In this circumstance of 3 levels of causality, you are holding 3 items in mind, 3 relations, and 1 meta relation so the DLPFC is no longer sufficient to help you understsand that.

Question 24

What is the rostral prefrontal cortex? RPFC?

When does this become necessary?

Answer 24

Becomes activated when relational integration is necessary.

When 2 relations must be considered simultaneously.

this becomes necessary when you have 2 causes and you are trying to understand how these causes relate to each other.

Question 25

What happens when 3 relations must be considered simultaneously?

Answer 25

we run out of space after the RLPFC so we have to recruit our long-term memory. We have to have semantic memory containing a lot of concepts.. We need the help of our long-term memory

Question 26

KNOW SCHEMATIC ON SLIDE 18

Question 27

Are things above 2 relations intuitive?

Answer 27

no

Question 28

What is the max number of relations that we can hold in working memory?

Answer 28

2

Question 29

why is the fact that we can actually have 2 things in working memory not as bad as it seems?

Answer 29

The ability of relational integration
* Unique to humans
* Occurs fairly late in child development

This is a pretty big evolutionary improvement

Question 30

What is the evolution of the frontal lobe in primates?

Answer 30

the PFC becomes larger proportionally across species. If you compare the brain of a chimp to a human, it doesn’t look that different.

Question 31

KNOW IMAGES ON SLIDE 21

Question 32

What takes up a lot of the human frontal lobe that is not as large in other primates?

Answer 32

Area 10

RLPFC is the lateral portion of Area 10

Question 33

UNDERSTAND THE INFO ON SLIDE 23 (VERY IMPORTANT)

Question 34

How much of our capacity for relational complexity do we use when we think about birth?

Answer 34

For the most part we tend to be stuck at 1 relational complexity because we tend to be stuck in mitigation

Question 35

Read and think deeply about this quote.

“The argument for helmet use rests on safety and injury prevention, but at least one study found that mandatory laws and increased mass use of helmets have had no discernible effect on reducing the number of cycling injuries and fatalities in Canada.”