Midterm Exam Flashcards
What is health psychology?
A branch of psych that is focused on understanding the psychological influences of how people stay healthy, why people get ill and how they respond to illness
What are the 4 main functions of the WHO?
- Give worldwide health knowledge
- Set global health standards
- Cooperate with governments for strengthening health programs
- Develop and transfer appropriate health info, tech, and standards
Describe the evolution of the mind-body relationship over time
Early times: believed mind & body were a unit and disease occurred due to evil spirits (trephination)
Greeks: Introduced the humoral theory for understanding the link between temperament an illness (imbalance of fluids)
Middle ages: religion infiltrated medical knowledge and evil spirts were sent by god as punishment (ritualistic torture)
Renaissance: improvements in biotech (microscopy & autopsy) rejected humoral and introduced the mind-body dualism movement
Dualism: The mind was an immaterial thinking thing from the body
Rise of modern psychology and psychoanalysis (conversation hysteria)
Psychosomatic medicine emerges and highlights role of emotional conflicts and personality in disease
Behavioural medicine emerges
Current view is that physical health is correlated with both the psychological and social (culture, SES, etc.) environment
What are the 4 essential fluids of the humoral theory?
Blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm
Describe the biomedical model
- Based on a single factor: biomedical or neurophysiological differences
- Assumes mind-body dualism (psychological and social factors are independent)
- Emphasizes illness over health
Describe the biopsychosocial model
BPS assumes influences of biological, psychological, and social factors (systems theory)
Considers macro (depression, social support) and micro (chemical imbalance, cellular disorder) levels
Emphasizes both health and illness
What are 3 clinical implications of the BPS model?
- Considers all 3 factors before diagnosis
- Treatment is individualized and allows for ‘team’ therapy
- Strengthens patient-practioner relationship
Identify why health psychology is needed
There is an increase in chronic lifestyle-related diseases
Increasing burden of health care expenses
Realization that psych and social factors contribute to health and illness
Importance of interventions to improve peoples health
What are the 2 main sections of the nervous system?
Central nervous system (CNS) and peripheral nervous system (PNS)
What is the CNS composed of?
The Brain - contained by the cranial cavity and protected by the skull
The Spinal cord - contained in the spinal cavity and protected by the vertebrae
What is the PNS composed of?
Somatic nervous system (voluntary)
- connects brain to voluntary muscles
- provides sensory feedback about voluntary movement
- Less protected than the CNS
Automatic nervous system (involuntary)
- connects brain to internal organs
- further divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems
Compare and contrast the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems
Both divisions of the autonomic nervous system
Sympathetic system mobilizes the body for action (fight or flight)
Parasympathetic system maintains and restores equilibrium (rest and digest)
What are the 3 sections of the brain?
Hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
What is the hindbrain composed of and what are their functions?
Medulla - mediates HR, BP and CO2/O2
Pons - Link between hindbrain and midbrain, helps control respiration
Cerebellum - coordinates voluntary muscle movement, balance, muscle tone/posture
What are the functions of the midbrain?
Relays sensory and motor information between forebrain nd hindbrain
Production of DA in substantia nigra
Controls visual and auditory reflexes
What does the forebrain consist of?
Diencephalon
Telencephalon
What is the Diencephalon?
Section of the forebrain that consists of:
Thalamus
- Relays sensation, spatial sense and motor signals to cerebral cortex
- regulates consciousness, sleep, and alertness
- Is a switchboard
Hypothalamus:
- Regulates water balance, appetite, an sexual desire
- Links to the endocrine system via pituitary gland
What is the Telencephalon?
Section of the forebrain that contains the right and left cerebral cortex
Cerebral cortex is:
- involved in higher order intelligence, memory, personality
- processing of sensory and motor info
- contains 4 lobes
What two NTs does the sympathetic nervous system secrete?
Norepinephrine and epinephrine (catecholamines)
Repeated release is linked to chronic disease
List disorders of the nervous system
- Epilepsy
- Parkinson’s tease
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Cerebral palsy
- Multiple sclerosis
- Huntington’s disease
What is the endocrine system?
A system of ductless glands which secrete hormones directly into the blood
It interacts with the NS and causes slow and long-acting changes to the body
It is regulated by the hypothalamus and pituitary gland
What is the pituitary gland?
Contains the anterior and posterior lobes
Anterior lobe secretes hormones for growth:
- somatotropic (STH), gonadotropic (GTH), thyrotropic (TSH and adrenocorticotropic hormones (ACTH)
Posterior lobe produces oxytocin (controls labour contractions) and vasopressin (water absorption in kidneys)
Where are the adrenal glands and what is their function?
Two small glands that are located on the top of the kidneys that each consist of:
- Adrenal medulla: a fast pathway that secret catecholamines (E, NE)
- Adrenal cortex: slower pathway that is stimulated by the ACTH from the pituitary gland that releases hormones (steroids)
What is the bodies physiological response to stress?
Stress is labeled by the cortex which sends a signal to the hypothalamus which activates the Sympathetic-adrenomedullary system (SAM) and Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis
SAM: Hypothalamus initiates a fight-or-flight response -> triggers the adrenal medulla to release catecholamines (increase in HR, BP, breathing, slows digestion) and impact the immune system
HPA: Hypothalamus releases corticotropin releasing factor (CRF) -> triggers the pituitary gland to release adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) -> triggers adrenal cortex to release cortisol which inhibits further CRF release, reduced inflammation, conserves carbs, brings body back to steady state