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BRS - Bioregulatory Systems Week 2 > Mental Health and Psychiatry > Flashcards

Mental Health and Psychiatry Flashcards

1
Q

Where does all the computing stuff happen in the brain?

A

IDk - cerebral cortex I think?

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2
Q

How thick is the cerebral cortex and what happens if you peel it off?

A

2-5mm thick area – filled with lots of stuff??

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3
Q

Why is the brain not like a computer?

A

Everytime something is done in the brain e.g. thought / experience, it changes the brain / neuronal structure to adapt – unlike circuit board = fixed

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4
Q

What are the 4 basic functions of the brain?

A

Take all info, stream, assemble into a coherent pic of reality. Make sense of the info into internal models of the world + maps, can be used ot predict what the organism does in the future in a way to maximise its survival. Maximise efficiency – use brainstem / cerebellum which is less ‘expensive’ than the e.g. motor cortex

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5
Q

What is neuroplasticity?

A

Constant adaptation + changing of the brain – v. high during infancy and childhood

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6
Q

What is compulsion?

A

Copy off slide

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7
Q

What are the 2 components of anxiety?

A

State anxiety -

Trait anxiety - exists in everyone, all at diff levels. High = v. anxious. Low = chill + laid back

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8
Q

Why does state anxiety exist?

A

Similar to pain - motivate us to withdraw or avoid things that may potentially damage us
Motivation to avoid harm

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9
Q

Why is trait anxiety important?

A

Propensity to become anxious over given
circumstances
Involves various stressors

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10
Q

Does anxiety have a genetic component?

A

Yes - has a useful genetic trait in survival

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11
Q

What is the mortality rate for high anxiety?

A

Low mortality rate than those with low anxiety - More likely to survive - good for survival

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12
Q

Why did anxiety develop as a trait in humans?

A

In response to threat for protection

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13
Q

How is state anxiety induced / kept around?

A

Through conditioning and avoidance of something fearful

Difficult to unlearn the conditioning

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14
Q

How to unlearn anxiety? And what makes you keep anxiety to certain situations?

A

By visiting what scares you / facing it to unlearn the fear response associated with that thing
Avoidance behaviour

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15
Q

What is rumination?

A

State of mind that prompts us to imagine bad things will happen to anticipate all outcomes

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16
Q

What is attentional and cognitive bias?

A

Paying attention to the negative aspects of a situation / focusing on the things that can worry you

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17
Q

Overall what are the 3 main components of state anxiety?

A
  1. Avoidance
  2. Attentional and cognitive bias
  3. Rumination
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18
Q

What causes the shift from normal / regular levels of state anxiety to developing clinical anxiety?

A

Over activation of this system - exposure to stressors that keep this mechanism activated leading to overactivation
Eventually affects every day life

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19
Q

So what is anxiety disorder?

A

Self-perpetuating network of positive feedback loops, arising from normal adaptive systems

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20
Q

Anxiety is a response to?

A

Unpredicatable, uncertain threats

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21
Q

What eases anxiety?

A

Having some means of controlling what will happen to you, even if the bad thing will happen, some control of when/ where

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22
Q

How can anxiety develop?

A

Continuous intrusive thoughts
Reinforcement
Increasingly low self-worth - develop into a depressive episode

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23
Q

What is depression?

A

Not just sadness, mixture of many emotions - anger, fear, shame, guilt - absense of feeling / numbness - inability to feel positive things, debilitating
Feels like you are separated from positive emotions
Low mood, low energy, anhedonia (inability to feel pleasure in activities), lack of motivation
Chronic

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24
Q

How does depression develop?

A

Depressogenic stressor = contributor / starter - chronic stress leads to recuperative response
Chronic stress causes you to avoid things to ‘save energy’ - withdrawal to ‘heal’ from illness /chronic stress
But this leads to a cycle of withdrawal and lack of motivation and low mood
Becomes depression due to overwhelming response …? (overwhelms homeostasis)
Leads to low self-worth - result of brain processing all this info
Leads to cognitive bias - ‘see evidence of the low self-worth’ every where they go - feeding into cycle of symptoms
Self-sustaining - social withdrawal further decreases self worth
Leads to hopelessness - feel trapped, nothing good in the future

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25
Q

What is a big factor in suicidality?

A

Hopelessness - can be picked up more easily clinically

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26
Q

What is co-morbid with depression often?

A

Anxiety
Because low self worth = screw up everything = leads to being v. anxious
Can lead to avoidance of things e.g. social situations, feeds into low self worth etc.
An ongoing cycle

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27
Q

What is self-harm? What does it encapsulate?

A

Not suicidal self-injury - not just cutting, also involves hair-pulling, scratching, skin picking etc.
Some suicidal injuries

28
Q

Why do people self-harm?

A

Belief they deserve to be punished
Alleviate pain from guilt / shame etc.
To feel something as depression makes you numb? - reprive from total emptiness felt during depression
For endorphine release - Injury response (numbs pain and fear temporarily to escape whatever injured you)
Control over something bad happening to you / control over the punishment received / inflicted, less anxiety provoking - temporary relief from anxiety
May hate themselves

29
Q

What is the stigma around self-harm?

A

Attention seeking / ‘communicate function’
Majority do it in privacy though, as a society we only see those who do it ‘publicly’ perhaps for communicative purposes - skewed vision / perception from society

30
Q

Why does self-harm become a compulsion?

A

Negative reinforcement - rewarding to feel RELIEF even if it is temporary
Negative = taking away discomfort

31
Q

What are distress reducing behaviours for temporary?

A

Self harm
Substance abuse
Disordered eating
Compulsive rituals

32
Q

Why does distress reducing behaviour stick / develop into a compulsion?

A

Conditioning - negative reinforcement for operant conditioning
Makes you feel the need to engage in this behaviour to get the temporary relief
Becomes habitual

33
Q

Why does compulsion become habitual?

A

No need to think about it anymore, a circuit in the brain, no need for conscious thinking - frees up frontal lobe

34
Q

Why are compulsions worrying / clinically relevant?

A

Unable to choose to do that action - just happens

Action is often / usually damaging and they have little / no control over it

35
Q

What is addiction?

A

Dumbass, you missed it

36
Q

What is the cocaine study?

A

..?

One drip had saline, other had v. low dose of cocaine - cannot physically tell it has cocaine

37
Q

How does cocaine act according to this study?

A

On a subconscious level

38
Q

What is the rat cocaine study?

A

Isolation Vs. social context

39
Q

What contributes / drives development of addiction?

A

Constant state of pain / lack of social support

40
Q

What is OCD?

A

Obsessions and compulsions - anxiety is a huge component
Intrusive thoughts that are mulled over and v. distressing and involuntary = obsessions
Compulsions = to relieve the state of anxiety / tension

41
Q

How does OCD develop?

A

Negative reinforcement - driven by distress caused by obsession that is temporarily relieved by the compulsion
= Habit formation
Not a conscious thought to do it again
Reinforced because at first, it does not disrupt daily life, progressively gets worse = debilitating, spirals

42
Q

What are eating disorders about?

A

States of anxiety - not just about the food or weight
Anxiety about self-image, self-esteem, etc.
Low self-worth

43
Q

What perceptions are eating disorders built on?

A

Healthy food = good, unhealthy food = bad, thin = beautiful, obese = ugly, losing weight = success
Anxiety and self-worth can take these perceptions to an extreme level

44
Q

What do eating disorders commonly consist of?

A

Restrictions on diet

Misuse of laxative etc.

45
Q

How do eating disorders develop? E.g. bulimia

A

Stems from low self-worth and anxiety
Can cause a person to restrict their diet, but then accidentally eat, intrusive negative thoughts = ‘failure’ e.g. to control / restrict diet; causes person to eat more ‘whats the point, i’m worthless, cant do this’ (binge eating / loss of control); loss of control can make a person feel intense distress (anxious and miserable); can drive a person to make themselves sick = PURGE (get rid of the food) ‘ i hate food, its making me fat’; causes temporary relief; then the cycle begins again (when they eat again)
Negative reinforcement

46
Q

How do eating disorders develop? E.g. anorexia nervosa

A

Stems from low self-worth and anxiety
Can cause a person to restrict their diet, leads to feeling of safety, control and achievement (can’t control anything else in their life, BUT can control their diet = feeling accomplished and safe); results in weight loss = further reinforcement - moving towards body type they want (perhaps get compliments which reinforces this)
Sometimes anxiety comes back stronger e.g. when others comment on it = stronger diet restrictions to try and feel safer
In anorexia, gaining weight = horrifying, catastrophic (how they feel)
Weight loss = brain starvation = cognitive inflexibility (many anorexic patients have strange rituals - v. fixed from brain starvation)

47
Q

How do eating disorders develop? E.g. obesity?

A

Stems from low self-worth and anxiety
Can cause a person to seek high calorie foods = neural reward to help temporarily fix low self worth and anxiety; cycle repeats

48
Q

What are the different components of madness?

A

Psychosis, delerium, dementia, brain injuries / strokes, schizophrenia, mania, depression, puerperal psychosis
Drugs, metabolic, endocrine
Rsult of the mind not being able to cope with all of these

49
Q

Psychosis is clinically generally composed of?

A

Hallucinations

Delusions / thought disorders

50
Q

What LEADS to psychosis?

A

Reality failure - inaccurate perception and interpretation of the world / info

51
Q

What is consciousness?

A

Modular not unitary - parallel processing, constant adaptation to make more sense of the world
Conscious awareness selected by attention

52
Q

What happens to sensory input?

A

Modified preconsciously to fit our expectations - by filling in gaps and tricking you into seeing htings that are different / incorrect

53
Q

What are auditory verbal hallucinations and why do they not automatically lead to a diagnosis of SZ?

A

hearing voices

Healthy and accepted in some cultures to hear spirits and speak to them

54
Q

What leads to diagnosis of SZ?

A

When interrupts with daily life - association with delusions

55
Q

What are delusions?

A

Fixed, false, unshakeable belief - OUT of context with cultural background

56
Q

What are the 2 types of symptoms of SZ?

A

With positive and negative symptoms

57
Q

What are the positive symptoms of SZ and what are the negative symptoms or SZ?

A 
\+ve = hallucinations, delusions
-ve = lack of motivation, speech poverty, low mood etc.
58
Q

What else is SZ composed of?

A

Disturbance in fundamental components of experience / self

Everything is about them

59
Q

Biological basis of SZ?

A

Excess dopamine

On scans, auditory centres in the brain are activated during auditory hallucinations etc.

60
Q

What is the role of dopamine?

A

Reward system

61
Q

How genetic is SZ?

A

idk

62
Q

How can there be a genetic component to SZ?

A

…

63
Q

What are the 5 potential causes of SZ / psychosis?

A

copy off slide

64
Q

What are the treatments for SZ?

A

…

65
Q

What kind of medications help with psychosis?

A

…

66
Q

What are the side effects of dopamine blockades

A

too many

67
Q

What is the perception of mental illness via the media?

A

Mentally ill people are more likely to be victims of violence rather than cause violence
Rates of violence only a bit higher in only SOME specific groups

BRS - Bioregulatory Systems Week 2 (2 decks)

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