PSYCH 104 Midterm 2 (sleep and drugs) Flashcards
- Circadian rhythm
- Circadian rhythm
○ Cyclical changes that occur on a roughly 24 hour basis in many biological processes.
§ Regulated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
□ Located in the hypothalamus
□ Brains “biological clock”
□ Pineal gland releases a hormone melatonin
How much sleep do we need?
An average person requires about 7-10 hours of sleep a night
Amount of sleep needed depends on
○ Amount of sleep needed depends on
§ Age
§ Health
§ Quality of sleep
§ Genetics
§ Species
○ Sleep deprivation can result in
○ Sleep deprivation can result in
§ Difficulties learning
§ Poor attention
§ Lethargy
○ Sleep deprivation is associated with various adverse health outcomes
○ Sleep deprivation is associated with various adverse health outcomes
§ Weight gain
§ Diabetes
§ Heart problems
§ Weakened immune systems
Stages of sleep
- Awake and alert:
- Awake and alert:
○ Beta waves = over 13 per second
Stages of sleep - Calm wakefulness
- Calm wakefulness
○ Alpha waves = 8-12 waves per second
Stages of sleep - Stage 1:
- Stage 1:
○ Theta waves (4-7 per second
○ Myoclonic jerks
○ Hypnagogic imagery
Stages of sleep - Stage 2:
- Stage 2:
○ Sleep spindles
§ Short bursts of neural activity
○ K-complexes
§ A large waveform that occurs intermittently
Stages of sleep - Stage 3 & 4
- Stage 3 & 4
○ Delta waves 1-2 per second
○ Stage 3: less than 50% are delta
○ Stage 4: more than 50% are delta
○ “deep sleep” required for feeling well rested
○ Time spend in deep sleep declines with age
Stages of sleep - Stage 5 (REM sleep):
- Stage 5 (REM sleep):
○ Rapid eye movement (REM)
§ Darting of the eyes under closed eyelids durring sleep
○ REM sleep
§ Stage of sleep during which the brain is most active and during which vivid dreaming most often occurs
□ Approx. 20% of sleep is REM sleep
□ Rebounds when REM sleep is lost
Why do we sleep?
Why do we sleep?
- Energy conservation
- Adaptive for avoiding predation
- Restorative (body has a chance to heal)
Insomnia (What is it?)
Insomnia:
- Difficulty falling and staying asleep
○ Regularly raking more than 30 minutes to fall asleep
○ Waking too early in the morning
○ Waking up during the night and having trouble returning to sleep
○ Factors such as age, drug use, exercise, mental status and bedtime routines can contribute to insomnia
Insomnia (Treatment Behavioral)
○ Make sure you have a consistent wake schedule
○ Go to bed only when you are tired
§ If you are in bed and not sleeping get out of bed
○ Only use your bed for the purposes of sleeping
○ Exercise regularly
○ Avoid drugs like alcohol and caffeine in the evening
Insomnia (Treatment Pharmacological)
○ Can be addictive
○ Have adverse effects
○ Can lead to rebound insomnia
Narcolepsy (What is it?)
Narcolepsy
Disorder characterized by an irregular control of wake sleep cycles
Narcolepsy (Symptoms?)
- Symptoms:
○ Sleep attacks
○ Cataplexy: lose voluntary control of muscles but are awake
§ Triggered by strong emotions
○ Hypnagogic (sleep onset) and hypnopompic (sleep offset) hallucinations
○ Sleep paralysis: when we cant move but are conscious
○ Disturbed nighttime sleep
Narcolepsy (Causes and treatment)
- Possible causes
○ Insufficient hypocretin producing neurons in the hypothalamus - Treatment
○ Stimulants
Behavioral strategies
(Obstructive) sleep apnea (What is it?)
(Obstructive) sleep apnea
- Disorder caused by a blockage of the airway during sleep, resulting in daytime fatigue
(Obstructive) sleep apnea (What can it cause and treatment?)
- Creates health problems:
○ Night sweats
○ Weight gain
○ Hearing loss
○ Irregular heartbeat
○ Raises risk of death - Treatment
○ Weight loss
○ CPAP air mask
Night terrors
Night terrors
- Sudden waking episodes characterized by screaming perspiring and confusion followed by a return to a deep sleep
- Lasts a few minutes
- Stages 3 and 4 (not REM)
- Harmless
- Treatment
○ Getting older
Sleepwalking
Sleepwalking
- Walking while fully asleep
- Occurs during deep sleep stages
- Usually harmless
- Person is often not aware they have done it
- Occurs more often in children
- Contrary to popular belief it is perfectly safe to wake up a sleepwalker
Dreams (Facts)
Dreams
- Most people dream but a large number of people typically cant recall or forget their dreams after waking from a nights sleep
- Lab studies that wake individuals during REM sleep show that self-reported “non-dreamers” do actually dream
- Only 0.38% of people have been found to never experience dreams
Dreams (Cross cultural similarities)
- Cross-cultural similarities
○ Dreams are typically more negative (emotionally and thematically) than positive
○ Ratio of male to female characters within a dream
§ 1:1 for women
§ 2:1 for men
○ Dream content is often continuous with past or present pre-occupations of the individual dreamer
Freud’s Dream Protection Theory
(Where did it come from?)
Freud’s Dream Protection Theory
- “The interpretation of dreams”
○ Published by Sigmund Freud in 1899
○ Dreams reflect “wish-fulfillment” of unconcious desires
§ Prevents unconscious urges from ruining sleep
○ Primitive unconscious urges/desires are expressed symbolically within the dream and require “interpretation”
§ Manifest content: the raw facts and details about the dream
§ Latent content: the underlying meaning about details within the dream
Freud’s Dream Protection Theory
- Problems
Freud’s Dream Protection Theory
- Problems
○ People with brain damage who cant dream will sleep soundly
○ Dreams are often not wish-filling
§ Mostly negative
§ Consist of benign people and activities
§ Can be nightmarish
○ Most dreams involve no sexual themes
Activation synthesis theory
Activation synthesis theory
- Theory that dreams reflect inputs from brain activation originating in the pons, which cortical regions of the brain then attempt to weave into a story
○ REM is induced by increased Acetylcholine in the pons and reductions in serotonin and norepinepherine
- Out of body experiences (OBE)
- Out of body experiences (OBE)
○ The sensation of our conciousness leaving our body
○ Occurs in aproximately 10% of the general population
○ People who experience OBE’s often report other strange experiences as well
○ OBE’s often occur in conjunction with near-death experiences:
§ Out of body experience reported by people who’ve nearly died or thought they were going to die
Déjà Vu
Déjà Vu
- Feeling of reliving an experience that’s new
- Lasts approximately 10-30 seconds
- May be due to
○ Excess levels of dopamine in temporal lobe
§ People with small temporal love seizures will report déjà vu prior to the seizure
○ Resemblance of past events poorly remembered
Hypnosis (what is it?)
Hypnosis
- Set of techniques that provides people with suggestions for alterations in their perceptions, thoughts, feelings and behaviors
- People are chosen to be “hypnotized” on the basis of their suggestibility. They are not “hypnotized” to be suggestible
Hypnosis Myths
- Myths:
○ Puts people in a “trance”
○ People can be made to do things they don’t want to
○ People are aware of their surroundings
○ People forget what took place
○ Hypnosis can give you special abilities- Hypnotism enhances memory
Hypnosis - Regression therapy
Hypnosis
- Regression therapy
○ People are hypnotized to remember events from childhood (where their psych problems originate)
○ Problems:
§ Reports of age-regressed individuals often cannot be corroborated by individuals present at the time
§ Poggendorf illusion
EEG responses
○ Past life regression therapy
○ Past life regression therapy
§ People are regressed to remember events from a past life
§ Problems
□ Claims of regressed individuals often prove false when fact checked
□ Ability to be regressed to a past life is dependent on a brief in reincarnation
- Psychoactive drug:
- Psychoactive drug:
○ Substance that contains chemicals similar to those found naturally in our brains that alter conciousness by changing chemical processes in neurons
○ Alter how we think, act, and feel
○ Effects of the drug depend on
§ Type
§ Dose
Drugs:
- Depressants
Drugs:
- Depressants: decreased activity of the central nervous system (initial high followed by sleepiness, slower thinking, and impaired concentration
○ Alcohol, barbiturates valium
Drugs: Stimulants
- Stimulants: increased activity of the central nervous system (sense of alertness, well-being, and energy)
○ Tobacco, cocaine, amphetamines
Drugs: Opiates
- Opiates: sense of euphoria, decreased pain
○ Heroin, morphine, codeine
Drugs: Psychedelics
- Psychedelics: dramatically altered perception, mood, and thoughts
○ Marijuana, LSD, ecstasy
Drugs and the Blood brain barrier
Drugs
- Blood brain barrier
A physiological mechanism that alters the permeability of brain capillaries, so that some substances, such as certain drugs, are prevented from entering brain tissue, while other substances are allowed to enter freely.
Diagnosis of substance use disorder (SUD)
Diagnosis of substance use disorder (SUD)
○ User has significant recurring impairments in their life as a result of drugs
- Tolerance
- Tolerance
○ Reduction in the effect of a drug as a result of repeated use, requiring users to consume greater quantities to achieve the same effect
§ Often an attempt of the body to maintain homeostasis
- Withdrawal:
- Withdrawal:
○ Unpleasant effects of reducing or stopping consumption of a drug that users had consumed habitually
- Depressants:
- Depressants:
○ Drugs that create a decrease in nervous system activity
Depressant (Alcohol)
○ Alcohol
§ Increases GABA
§ Decreased glutamate
§ At low doses inhibitory control centers in the cortex are “depressed”
□ Creates a release of inhibitors
□ ‘upper’ phase of drinking
§ At higher doses other regions are “depressed”
□ Loss of motor coordination
□ Impaired judgement
□ “downer” phase of drinking
® Alcohol myopia: not thinking through what you do and the inability to pay attention
® Alcohol myopia
® Alcohol myopia: not thinking through what you do and the inability to pay attention
Depressants (Barbiturates and tranquilizers)
- Depressants:
○ Barbiturates and tranquilizers
§ Sleeping pills and sedatives
§ Increase in GABA activity
§ Very addictive
§ At high doses can lead to depression, a loss of motor coordination, and memory impairments
Stimulants (Amphetamines)
○ Amphetamines
§ Reduce sleep, fatiuge, appetite, and depression
§ Increase dopamine and norepinepherine
§ Injections, can lead to massive spikes in blood pressure causing a stroke
§ Amphetamine Psychosis:
□ Schizophrenia-like hallucinations that occur when the brains dopamine activity is artificially increased far beyond normal levels and by heavy and/or continuous amphetamine use
Stimulants (Methamphetamines)
○ Methamphetamines
§ Inhaled via smoking
§ Ingredients to produce it are very accessible
§ More potent than standard amphetamines
□ Increased probability of OD and dependance
§ Can cause aggression, paranoia, acne, “Meth mouth”
Stimulants (MDMA)
○ MDMA (Ecstasy)
§ 3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine
Stimulants (Cocaine)
○ Cocaine
§ Grows from a south American plant Erythroxylum coca
§ Was a common curative in the 1800s
§ Can be injected, snorted, or inhaled
§ Has analgesic properties
§ Creates excitement and euphoria
§ Blocks the reuptake of dopamine and norepinepherine
§ Has (relatively) mild withdrawal symptoms that are accompanied by strong cravings for the drug
Stimulants (Opiates)
○ Opiates
§ Drugs that bind to opioid/endorphin receptors and produce analgesic and euphoric effects
§ Derived from the opium poppy
§ Can produce increased levels of dopamine leading to euphoria
§ Can be administered in a variety of methods
§ Well known examples:
□ Morphine
□ Codeine
□ Heroin
□ Fentanyl
□ Oxy-Contin
Stimulants (Hallucinogens/Psychedelics)
○ Hallucinogens/psychedelics
§ Drugs which cause dramatic alterations of perception, mood, and thought
§ Can enhance, distort, and intensify sensory experience
§ Effects are often unpredictable leading to paranoia, violence, and anxiety in some people
§ Cannabis
□ Usually smoked, but can be consumed in a variety of forms
□ Comes from the leaves of hemp plant (cannabis sativa)
□ Primary ingredient THC
® Stimulus in cannabinoid receptors
□ Myths
® Causes amotivational syndrome
® Acts as a “Gateway drug”
