Lecture 5: Biological Models Flashcards
Proximate mechanism
How is mood controlled in the brain or the endocrine system
Adaptive function
What is the survival value of having a mood system and how does it regulate behavior on the natural environment
Explain the smoked detector principle
There are individual differences in the likelihood of detecting something (specifically threats), detection levels can be higher or lower —> some people detect threats easier
What does the likelihood of potentially acting on threats in the environment depend on
- probability of event
- cost of false negative
- cost of false positive
- (cost of true neg/true pos)
- changes in the environment
Detectors
Mechanisms whose function is to identify situation X and deliver cognitive/physiological/motivational changes Y that are useful to deal with X
Detection threshold
How much info the detector needs to receive before mobilizing Y
Explain double effects
Framework suggests that experiencing punishment/reward will influence the threshold and that physical condition influences how well we can deal with experiences
—> double effects is the phenomenon that experiencing a lot of punishment will make you expect more in the future and will make you more tired as well, which enhances the effect it can have
Cognitive bias
Depressed/anxious people are more likely to interpret ambiguous stimuli as negative
Explain the framework mentioned in the article
X-axis; threshold for responding to possible rewards, left is high, right is low (= respond easily to reward cues)
Y-axis; threshold for responding to possible punishment, down is low (= readily interrupts activities to focus on potential danger), up is high
We can place depressive disorders on the left on the x-axis ranging from low to high on the y-axis and anxiety disorders on the down side on the y-axis ranging from low to high on the x-axis
What is a possible reason posited for the comorbidity between depression and anxiety
Deteriorations in physical condition make both false negative threat detections and false positive reward approaches more costly —> anything with negative impact on physical conditions might entrain both anxious and depressed mood
What is the epigenome
Second layer of structure of chemical tabs on the DNA, responsible for making certain genes inactive/active, epigenetic tabs react to signals from the environment and adjust genes accordingly
Imprinted genes
Genes on which epigenetic tags remain through reproduction
What are passive, reactive/evocative and active gene-environment correlations
Passive = parents pass on genetic make-up to their child but also a certain environment —> if you have depression as a parent this may influence the environment —> passive bc child plays no role
Reactive/evocative = genetic make-up lead to certain behavior and this interacts with the environment —> environment reacts in a certain way to the behavior that is a product of the genetics
Active = based on your genetic make-up you actively look for certain environments —> children with ADHD may look for others with ADHD which has an influence on them
Gene x environment correlations
Genotype lead to behavior, but this relation is also influenced by the environment —> some genetic make-up can be expressed differently in different environments
T/F: traits are usually caused by one single gene
False, usually traits (also for depression/anxiety/etc) are dependent on many different genes —> manhattan plots
