Stress Flashcards

1
Q

What is stress?

A
  • Anything that throws your body out tof homeostasis balance
    (Sapolsky., 1994)
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2
Q

What are three sources of stressors??

A
  1. Environmental (temperature, noise)
  2. Physiological (food, water)
  3. Psychological (social, novel situations)
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3
Q

What is considered stressful?

A
  • An interpretation of the individual
  • Something that is stressful to someone, might not be to another person
  • Stress causes arousal that is considered adversive
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4
Q

What is the HPA axis?

A

Adaptational responses that help our bodies come back to homeostatis

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5
Q

What is the HPA axis split into?

A

1) Acute stress response
2) Long term stress responses

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6
Q

What are the stages of the HPA axis?

A

Hypothalamus (CRH) -> Pituitary (ACTH) -> Adrenal gland (cortisol, adrenaline, noradrenaline)

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7
Q

What type of loop is the HPA axis?

A

Negative feedback loop
- cortisol regulates a negative feedback loop
- high cortisol means less CRH and ACTH is released

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8
Q

What is the acute stress response?

A
  1. soemthing bad happens
  2. hypothalamus sends a neuronal signal
  3. activates teh adrenal medulle
  4. secretes adrenaline and noradrenaline
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9
Q

What is adrenaline?

A

Only released when you are stressed. Prepares body for an acute stress response
- Increases heart rate and blood pressure
- brings more blood flow to brain and muscles

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10
Q

What is noradrenaline?

A

Always present in the body
- Continuously released into the blood stream
- Narrows blood vessels to increase blood pressure

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11
Q

What do adrenaline and noradrenaline do?

A

Gets body ready for energetic release
- Raises blood glucose levels
- Stimulates respiratory and cardiovascular systems

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12
Q

What is the energy used for in fight or flight?

A
  1. contronting the stress
  2. run away
  3. stems from our evolutionary past
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13
Q

Tell me about the parachute jump study **(Benschop et al., 1996) **- adrenaline and noradrenaline

A
  1. Studied parachute jumpers
  2. Measured both adrenaline and noradrenaline before jumping out the plane (baseline), the point they jumped and hours after (post-baseline)

**Results **
- Stress responses are adaptive
- The more teh system learns that it is not a survival sutuation, adrenaline levels do not increase as high as the first jump

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14
Q

Describe the long term stress responses…

A

ONCE the stressor has occured - our body deals with long term stress responses
- Once the body has released adrenaline = CRH released which stimulates ACH from pituitary gland
- **ACTH **travels to **adrenal gland **and stimulates cortisol

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15
Q
A
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16
Q

What type of loop is the long term stress responses?

A

NEGATIVE!!

17
Q

What is the role of cortisol?

A

Shuts down any function that may get in the way of fight or flight response
- Its a steriod

18
Q

What does high cortisol over a long period of time mean?

A

SLOWER recovery from stress

19
Q

Give me two acute stress response adaptations.

A
  1. Increased oxygen intake
  2. Decreased pain percpetion
  3. Enhanced cognition
20
Q

Give me two pathologcial states associated with chronic stress

A
  1. Fatigue; Steroid diabeties
  2. Inhibited growth and reapir process of the body
21
Q

Does cortisol have activational or organisational effects?

A

BOTH!
- cortisol has both activational and organisational effcts on brain and behaviour

22
Q

What are organisational effects?

A

Long lasting, estbalished in the critical period
- These effects organize the brain’s structure and function in a way that influences behavior later in life

23
Q

What are actiavtional effects?

A

temporary - alter pre exisiting behaviour
- depend on current hormonal environment and are reversible

24
Q

What happens if there is a high level of cortisol in critical periods of developement?

A

During critical periods of development, if there is a high level of the steriod hormone…
- Can permenatly change a person’s ability to cope with stress (irreversible)

25
Q

Describe the two studies to display Pre-natal stress
1. in rats
2. in humans x2

A

**In rats **
1. Stress a pregant rat = permenantly changes offspring HPA axis
2. a normal stress response should have a high peak then drop down
Results
1. The response to a rat who experienced high levels of stress prenatally inside the womb were blunted

In humans (1)
Van Os and Selten (1998)
1. Invasion of Netherlands by Nazis
2. Time where women were highly stressed
3. Mothers in secind trimester = children grew up with schizophrenia

In humans (2)
Weinstock (1997)
- Women who are stressed in pregancy were more likely to have smaller babies
- Growth hormones were suppressed - bc of cortisol

26
Q

Describe the studies to display neonatal stress
1. In rats
2. Humans

A

Rats
2) Rats (Lui et al., 1997)
- early stressful experience can positively influence rats
- Presenting rats with mild stress after birth (separation from mother)
- They were better able to deal with stressors
- Dont know about this concept in humans (mild - harsh threshold)

Humans
Romanian orphan study
- Experienced higher levels of stressors

Gunnar et al., 2001
- Comparison of cortisol concentraions 6-12 years later after leaving orphanage
CONTROLS CANADIAN BORN CHILDREN
= Childrens adopted out at 8 months old mirror canadian chldrens cortisol concentartions
= After - strong positive correlation with high cortisol levels

Suggests that the window is 8 months

27
Q

What is the direction between stress and behaviour?

A

Bi-directional
- Stress affects behaviour, but behaviour can also affect stress responses

28
Q

What are the 4 things stress response can be coped with?

A
  1. Control
  2. Predictability
  3. Outlets for dealing with frustration
  4. Habituation
29
Q

What does control involve to cope with stress?
Weiss (1968)

A
  1. Put rats into containers
  2. Given mild electric shocks
  3. Predicted that both rats should feel equally stressed
  4. One rat had a lever in box which could turn shock off
  5. Turn off = lower stress levels
30
Q

Predictability to cope with stress
(Sapolsky., 1992)

A
  • Same rat paradigm as control
  • When a light came on (signal) to instigate that a shock was coming
  • These rats did not have gastric ulceers compared to rats who did not get the warning signal
31
Q

Describe outlets for frustration to cope with stress

A

Sapolsky., 1992
- Giving rats a piece of wood to chew on reduced stress levels

Soussignan & Koch., 1985
- Leg swinging in children has been shown to reduce stress levels

32
Q

Describe Habituation as a way to cope with stress

A
  • Getting used to the stress
  • By doing the same thing which is causing the stress - body gets used to it
33
Q

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