The biological approach Flashcards
what is assumption 1 evolutionary influences?
- Snakes and spiders are poisinous and they are able to kill within one bite
- people who are predisposed to avoid these animals are less likely to then get bitten and die
- They will then survive longer and be more likely to then reproduce passing there genes onto there offspring
- Human’s have began evolving around 2 million years ago to 100,000
- evolutionary pyschologists argue that human’s are adapted to the enviroment that there ancestors would have faced
What is assumption 2 Localisation of brain function?
- localisation of brain function is where certain areas of the brain are responsible for different functions
- The cerebal cortex is divided into 4 regions and they have different function: frontal, parietal,temporal and occipital
- Frontal is in charge of thinking and creativity and involved in our personality, parietal lobe is receiving is receiving sensory information like the temp, occipital is visual processing and receive information directly from our eyes
What is assumtpion 3 neurotransmitters?
- neurons are nerve cells and they form our nervous system
- the flexibility of our nervous system is formed by have branches at the end of each neuron called dentrites so the neurons are connected
- they communicate with eachother by the synapse - the message is relayed by neurotransmitters
- neurotransmitters are released by the presynaptic vesicles in one neuron, and it will either stimulate or inhibit receptors in the other neuron
example: anxiety is caused by low levels of dopamine so you would have to increase the levels of dopamine - fight of flight response we have too much adrenaline so we need to decrease the levels of adrenaline
How would you go about answering a 6 mark question about how the approaches can be applied to the drug therapy?
medical model - having a physical cause so then treating them in a physical way
neurotrasmitters - changes in the brains neurotrasmitter system it can have different impacts on the system - for example pyschotheruputic drugs can be used to alter the way our neurotransmitters work increasing or blocking there availability
Localisation of functions - targeting specific brain areas that may be involved with certain pyschological disorders - for example limbic system regulating emotion and this part of the brain may lead to causing problems with individuals mood
what are anti pyschotic drugs ?
- The patient is losing touch with reality and they are not aware of there conditon, for example skitzophrenia
- They have symptoms and can be negative(these then might stop happening) or positive(they might start happening):
Positive - disorganized speech, hallucinations
negative - reduced speech, flattened effect(no emotion)
conventional antiphyschotics - these are tackle to positive symptoms of skitzophrenia (hallucinations, disorganized speech), they are blocking the action of the neurotransmitter dopamine - they bind to but do not stimulate the dopamine receptors
Atypical antipyschotics -They temporarily occupy the dopamine receptors, and they rapidly dissociate to then allow normal dopamine transmission - this may then explain there low level side effects for example a dry mouth and dizziness
What do the antidepressant drugs do?
- depression is caused by insufficient amount of neurotransmitters being produced in the synapse
- In normal brains neurotransmitters are constantly being released from the synapse to stimulate the neighbouring neurons
- to terminate action they are reabsorbed into the synapse and broken down by enzymes - they work by reducing the rate of reabsorbtion or blocking the enzyme that breaks down the neurotransmitters - this increasess the amount of neurotransmitters - an example would be SSRI like Prozac
How do drugs like prozac then further work?
- They are working by blocking the transporter mechanism that has the job of reabsorbing serotonin into the presynaptic cell after it has fired - more serotonin is left in the synapse so it can act for longer and encourage the next neuron to fire it’s electrical impulse
What do Antianxiety drugs further do?
- They often make the use of benzodiazapan to be treating stress - sold under names like librium - BZs slow down activity of the CNS - they do this by enhancing the activity of GABA (neurotransmitter)
- BB are used to reduced anxiety - they reduce adrenaline and non adrenaline - they bind to the receptors on the cell or the heart or other body part that have sympathetic arousal - blocking the recceptors it is harder to stimulate in this part of the body, so heart beat slower and blood vessels do not contract so easy, fall in blood pressure less pressure on heart and has a calmer feeling
The evaluation of this therapy?
strength:There is alot of evidence in order to then further support the effectiveness of drug treatments. When making use of the drug vs placebo studies the drug was found to be more effective - Somoro et al had found that reviewing 17 studies using SSRIS with OCD patients they had found the drugs to be more effective than placebo’s up to three months treatment
However, they had further found that most of the studies are only for the duration of three to four months and therefore we have little long term data, this suggest we further then do not know the effects of the drugs within the long term. Kohoron et al
While the drugs are extremely effective when then trying to treat pyschological disorders they have found them to then be causing more serious side effects - nausea, headaches and insomia for SSRIS - this may often make a patient not want to take the drug - Trycilic antidepressents have more side effects, hallucinations and irregular heartbeat so they might be used when SSRIS are not effective, this further suggests that the drugs could then further have more serious side effects than the actual disorder has.
It does not further adress the underlying cause of the disorder - if someone is suffering from depression becuase of trauma from there childhood, they may only give the short term solution but the long term will not be dealt with - “revolving door syndrome” as they will be at the doctors as there has never been a cause
Drug therapy may be considered as being cheap for the client as they are pescribed by the NHS - they only need to be meeting with the patent every couple of months after consultation to discuss whether the drugs have had a positive effect - therefore this type of therapy can be considered as being easier to administrate
Is it further being considered as being ethical when they are doing clinical drug tests and the one group is given the active drug while the other group is being given the drug with just a pyscholgical effect, this may imply to others that the group being further given the active drug are further then receiving inferior treatment.
There may also further be ethical issues with valid consent, some of the patients may not then further remember the side effects of the drug when they are then offering to take the drug, some doctors may then further exaggerate how much the drug may then help to try and get someone to then take it and some may keep there info that they have about the drug to themselves.
what is the classic research Rain et al methodology?
- It was quas experiment - matched pairs - IV is Not guilty for reasons of insanity or not, the DV is the differences in brain
- 41 murderes - 39 men and 2 women - mean age of 34.3 years - charged with murder or manslaughter and pleaded NGRI or incompitance to stand trial
- Reffered too Uni of california to get proof of there diminished capacity - they all had a mental impairment:
- 2 PD, 3 history of hyperactivity and learning disorder, 2 epilepsey, 2 affective disorders, history of pyschoacitve drug abuse 3, history of head injury or brain damage, 23, 6 skitzophrenia - they were med free and checked with urine scan two weeks prior the bran scan
control group:
- The murderers were matched with a normal individual of the same age and sex - they had matched six skitzophrenics with 6 from the mental hospital - they had no history of pyschiatric illness - not in any relatives - no physical illnes and no taking meds
What were the procedures of the Rain et al research?
- Opportunity sample - PET scan to measure active brain
- They were given a “tracer” injection - taken by brains active areas and they were a to compare the NGRI with the control group
- They were asked to do a CPT(continuous peformance task) - activate brains target areas so they could see how they functioned
1) They were practicing before they received the FDG injection
2) 30 seconds before the FDG injection participants started the CPT so the initial task novelty wouldn’t be FDG labled
3) 32 minutes after the FDG injection a PET scan had been done - 10 horizontal slices of the brain were recorded - using the cortical and peel box technique- article provides details of scanning so could be replicated
What were the findings of the Rain et al research?
- they had found reduced activity in brain of NGRI in areas that were linked to violence: corpus callosum, prefrontal cortex
- The study found increased activity in the brain of the NGRI participants in areas that were not linked to violence: cerrubulum, right hemisphere thalums and hippocampus
They found no difference between the NGRI group and controls in the areas that were not previously linked with violence: putamen and the midbrain
summary:
- reduced activity - in the areas that were linked to violence
abnormal assimiteries - reduced on left - greater on right - applied to some of the areas linked to violence
brain differeneces in the brain structures - notably structures associated with mental illnes but no violence
CPT peformance
- peformed similaly, brain differences not related to task
differences in control group was noted:
- 6 were left handed - less amygdala assimatry - higher medical prefrontal activity than right handed
- ethnicity -14 were not white - no difference in brain activity
- head injury - 23 - did not differ from the ones that had no previous links to head injury
Conclusions?
- past research that had further identified links between aggression and brain areas - like the lymbic system - for example abnormal emotional response, prefrontal could link to agressive behaviour and is linked to impulsivity
- From findings they murderers have different brain structures
- violence is complex and cannot be reduced to a single brain mechanism - could be explained through interacting brain mechanism might not cause violence but predispose someone to violence
- They did not rule out the head injury and IQ as a factor
This is what the results do not mean:
1) violent behaviour is just determined by biology
2) the results do not show they are not responsible for the actions they have committed
3) the results do not show that violence can be fully explained via the results
Evaluation of the Rain et al research?
- this is an experiment due to IV and the DV - IV was an existing condition and not manipulated - this suggests that it was a quasi experiment - casual conclusions not justified - in findings he says that violent behaviour is not determined by just biology and other factors play a role in the violence predisposition - no casual conclusions can be drawn and readers could misinterprit the findings and think violence is predetermined
They have made the use of using PET scans - they are able to study the brain that was only possible recently - in past relied on post morten examinations - brain pyschology and behaviour could not be linked - we are able to study detailed brain regions - brain in action can be examined - raine et al could further see how different individuals brains differed when they were then trying to process info
A strength of making the use of PET scans would further be that it would be providing more evidence for Rain et al’s research into the way the violence and brain structure has a link this could further mean that raine et al’s classic research could then be considered as being more scientific.
The mudereres were not all typical violent individuals - findings do not show all violent offenders have brain dysfunctions - only draws conclusions about that type of violent offender - the crime is only murder and there are many other forms of violent crimes - restricted conclusions to one group of people
What are the evaluation points for Rain et al’s research for the ethical and social implications?
Group of participants were murderes who pleaded NGRI - they may have not been in right mental state to then be giving out valid consent - may not have understood fully what they would have to do - some of them could have found the CPT difficult which could have caused pyschological harm by lowering self esteem
They might not have realised what would be involved in a PET scan - this could have become a distressing experience - could not have understood they have a right to withdraw - they may not have knew that they could have a choice if they then did not want to take part anymore
There are social implications for the reseearch - this is when it has consequences for a large group of the participants that were members - an example is if the research is suggesting that criminals are being born they may have disadvantages and could imprisoned with then having no trial
What are the strengths to the biological approach?
- A strength of it would be it has scientific research that can be used to support the biological explanations looking at the assumptions to biological approach - neurotransmitters and localisation of brain function - they have clear variables that can then be measured, tracked and examined - they can conduct scientific research through studying the variables - an example would be the research on drug therapy - investigated links between pyschoactive drugs and the production of certain neurotransmitters(like dopamine and they had then linked this to behaviour - they are scientific as they fuffill the aims
What is another strength to the biological approach?
That it is deterministic - a strength is we know what predetermines our behaviour, we are more likely be able to treat people with abnormal behaviour - they want to understand neurotransmitter functioning so they can predict the effects of neurotransmitters on normal and abnormal behaviours - like dopamine has a link with skizophrenia - we have evidence from loads of sources - a drug amphetamine increases dopamine levels which can lead to skitzophrenia symptoms - another line would be that we have antpyschotics which reduce dopamine levels - high dopamine levels are then causing the symptoms
What is another strength to the biological approach?
there has been successful applications - there has been research about relationship between abnormal levels of neurotransmitters has implications as they have offered pharmisutical treatments for criminals recidivism(a convicted criminal commiting a crime again) rates lowering so then societies being safer - an example would be Chereck et al - males who had conduct disorder and criminal behaviour had reduced impulisivity and aggression after a 21 day cause of SSRIS compared to a control group using placebo’s.
What is another strenghth for the biological approach?
It has led to different forms of treatment for mental disorders, like drug therapy and also pyschosurgery - an example of this would be the effectiveness of capsulotomy in OCD treatment - cosgrove and rauch had found reported 67% recovery rates - drug therapy produces mixed results but it allows people with mental disorders to be able to live outside of hospitals, for example bipolar disorder has been treated with drugs - vigeura et al 60% of bipolar patients improve when taking lithium
What is a weakness of the biological approach?
A weakness would be that it is reductionist. Reducing complex behaviours to simple explanations, reducing stress to just being caused by adrenaline - we could lose the real understanding of what we are trying to be investigating - for example biological approach suggests that skitzophrenia is just a complex physical chemical system that has gone wrong - RD laing said it ignores stress with mental illness so is not complete
What is another weakness of the biological approach?
it focuses on just nature and ignores life experiences like how people may feel and think - explaining skitzophrenia they are concerned about abnormal levels of neurotransmitters rather than how they may feel - biological treatment is then just about adjusting the abnormal biological system rather than then talking about there feelings
What is another weakness to the biological approach?
It takes the nomothetic approach - generelasing individuals and then just trying to find similarities - when stressed some people may then produce higher adrenaline levels which then affects the long term affects of stress
