Week 4 - 7 Oefenvragen

Question 1

Describe the neural circuitry involved in fear conditioning.

Answer 1

Fear conditioning is mediated by the ventral hippocampus, the basolateral amygdala, and the mPFC. The pathway from the basolateral amygdala to the ventral hippocampus also regulates social interactions.

Question 2

What are the differences in brain structure among people with social anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder?

Answer 2

Social anxiety disorder: Larger grey matter in the dorsal striatum, reduced frontal lobe volume, increased amygdala volume.

Generalized anxiety disorder: Reduced PFC volume and hypothalamus volume.

Panic disorder: Less grey matter volume in the amygdala, hippocampus, PFC, and bilateral striatum.

Question 3

What is the Health Paradox in adolescence?

Answer 3

Adolescence is one of the healthiest periods but is associated with a doubling increase in mortality compared to childhood and adulthood, with most traffic accidents and crimes caused by adolescents.

Question 4

How is risky behavior related to binge drinking in adolescents?

Answer 4

Adolescents who show more risky behavior start binge drinking earlier, and the more active the striatum, the earlier they start binge drinking.

Question 5

What are the two physiological processes involved in puberty?

Answer 5

Adrenarche (1e, activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis) and gonadarche (2e, reactivation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis).

Question 6

How do sex hormones affect brain structure during puberty?

Answer 6

They impact the production and proliferation of new cells, cell death, and influence the complexity and organization of neural dendrites.

Question 7

What are the key brain regions associated with anxiety disorders?

Answer 7

Amygdala, prefrontal cortex (PFC), hippocampus, bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST), striatum, and hypothalamus.

Question 8

How does the amygdala function in anxiety disorders?

Answer 8

The amygdala shows stronger activation when watching scary scenes in young people with anxiety disorders compared to healthy controls. The basolateral amygdala regulates anxiety-like behaviors after fear extinction.

Question 9

Q: What role does the prefrontal cortex (PFC) play in anxious adolescents?

Answer 9

The mPFC shows stronger activation during negative emotion processing in anxious adolescents compared to healthy controls. High levels of anxiety symptoms are related to delayed development of the neural circuits including the PFC.

Question 10

What are the effects of adrenarche and gonadarche on physical development?

Answer 10

Adrenarche leads to hair development, body odor, oil skin and hair, acne, and skeletal maturation, while gonadarche triggers the broader processes of puberty.

Question 11

What differences are found in reward-related brain activation between men and women?

Answer 11

Men show more monetary rewards-related activation in the putamen, while women show more social reward-related activation.

Question 12

How do sex hormones affect brain structure during puberty?

Answer 12

They impact the production and proliferation of new cells, cell death, and influence the complexity and organization of neural dendrites/

Question 13

What is the difference in cortical gray matter peak volume between boys and girls?

Answer 13

Girls achieve the peak volume of cortical gray matter about 2 years before boys.

Question 14

How does the amygdala function in anxiety disorders?

Answer 14

The amygdala shows stronger activation when watching scary scenes in young people with anxiety disorders compared to healthy controls. The basolateral amygdala regulates anxiety-like behaviors after fear extinction.

Question 15

What role does the prefrontal cortex (PFC) play in anxious adolescents?

Answer 15

The mPFC shows stronger activation during negative emotion processing in anxious adolescents compared to healthy controls. High levels of anxiety symptoms are related to delayed development of the neural circuits including the PFC.

Question 16

What is the significance of the hippocampus in anxiety disorders?

Answer 16

A: The hippocampus is activated during fear conditioning and is essential for anxiety and defensive behaviors. A decreased hippocampal volume is a risk factor for anxiety disorders.

Question 17

Q: What is the function of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) in anxiety?

Answer 17

A: The BNST is involved in anxiety maintenance and chronic anxiety, mediating the regulation of neural circuits of the HPA-axis and substance abuse, and it plays a role in the anticipation of what might happen.

Question 18

Q: How is the striatum linked to anxiety symptoms?

Answer 18

A: The striatum contributes to anxiety symptoms and anxiety-related bias in emotional, motivational, and attentional processes.

Question 19

What impact does the hypothalamus have on anxiety disorders?

Answer 19

The hypothalamus, part of the HPA-axis, is responsible for regulating emotions, defensive behavior, aggression, and the stress response. Dysregulation caused by circadian rhythm disturbances, stress, and caffeine can lead to anxiety disorders.

Question 20

What are the two possible patterns of age-related change in learning parameters?

Answer 20

1) Developmental changes in the “settings” of learning parameters (static adaptation). 2) Changes in the ability to adapt to different learning environments (environment-dependent adaptation).

Question 21

How do learning rates change with age?

Answer 21

There is an age-related decrease in negative learning rates, meaning that children are more likely to switch responses after an incorrect choice compared to adult

Question 22

How does the ventral striatum respond to reinforcement learning?

Answer 22

The ventral striatum is crucial for learning from feedback, responding to the timing of reward-predicted stimuli, unexpected reward magnitude, and prediction errors.

Question 23

What role does the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) play in reward processing?

Answer 23

A: The OFC processes outcome values, becoming active when the actual reward is received.

Question 24

How does the functional connectivity between the ventral striatum and mPFC change with age?

Answer 24

It becomes stronger with age and is larger in response to positive prediction errors than to negative prediction errors.

Question 25

What are the key components of the Dual Systems Model?

Answer 25

A: The brain has an emotional neutral, strategic and flexible system, and a system driven by fears, desires, and reflexes.

Question 26

What does the Triadic Model of Motivated Behavior describe?

Answer 26

A: It describes the brain having an emotional neutral, strategic and flexible cognitive system, and also a reward and an avoidance system controlled by the ventral striatum and amygdala.

Question 27

How is self-control measured and what influences it?

Answer 27

It is measured using tasks like the delay-of-gratification task and is influenced by the amygdala, PFC, and ventral striatum. Self-control improves steadily from childhood to adulthood.

Question 28

How do fear learning and extinction change across development?

Answer 28

Fear learning develops early, but the capacity to express and suppress fear memories changes with development. Adolescents have higher brain activity in response to potential threats and diminished capacity to extinguish fear associations compared to children and adults

Question 29

What are the components of emotion according to the emotional response model?

Answer 29

A: Subjective feeling, neural responses, physiological reactions, emotional expressions, and desire to take action.

Question 30

Q: What are the different phenomena associated with extinction in conditioning?

And explain them.

Answer 30

A: Spontaneous recovery, renewal, and reinstatement.

Spontaneous recovery is the return of an extinguished conditioned response with the PASSAGE OF TIME

In the renewal effect, an extinguished response returns whenever the subject is tested outside the extinction context

Reinstatement is the return of an extinguished conditioned response after RE-EXPOSURE to the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 31

What changes in hormone levels that effect boys, not in girls, that impacts the development of the nucleus accumbens.

Answer 31

changes in testosterone levels

Question 32

Name the two possible patterns of age-related change

Answer 32

> there are developmental changes in the “settings” of learning parameters. This can be a shift in how much an individual weighs the feedback from someone or an action and therefore they can change their behavior or beliefs. This is sort of a static way of adaptation, in every situation the adaptation is the same.

> there are changes in an individual’s ability to adapt to the demands of different learning environments. For example when someone’s environment is rapidly changing, they may value feedback more than when their environment is relatively stable. Here the adaptation is dependent on the environment.