Biological Approach Flashcards
(23 cards)
Scanning Techniques Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
TECHNIQUES such as MRI and fMRI are NON-INVASIVE NEUROIMAGING METHODS used to investigate the STRUCTURE and FUNCTION of the brain in relation to BEHAVIOUR. MRI (MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING) produces high-resolution static images of brain STRUCTURES by using MAGNETIC FIELDS and RADIO WAVES to align the protons in water in the brain, and measure the waves re-emitted during their realignment. It is often used to detect STRUCTURAL ABNORMALITIES or observe BRAIN VOLUME and GREY MATTER DENSITY. fMRI (FUNCTIONAL MRI) measures BRAIN ACTIVITY by detecting changes in BLOOD FLOW (BOLD SIGNALS) in response to cognitive tasks, allowing researchers to link specific brain regions to MENTAL PROCESSES. These techniques support research into LOCALISATION, NEUROPLASTICITY, and the effects of NEUROTRANSMITTERS, offering insight into the BIOLOGICAL CORRELATES of behaviour. MAGUIRE AND DRAGANSKI SUPPORT THIS THEORY.
Localisation of Function Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
LOCALISATION OF FUNCTION is the theory that specific areas of the BRAIN are responsible for specific FUNCTIONS and BEHAVIOURS. This idea is supported by neuroimaging and case studies where damage to certain brain regions results in targeted deficits. For example, BROCA’S AREA, located in the LEFT FRONTAL LOBE, is associated with SPEECH PRODUCTION, while WERNICKE’S AREA, in the LEFT TEMPORAL LOBE, is involved in LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION. The HIPPOCAMPUS plays a key role in MEMORY FORMATION, while the AMYGDALA is associated with EMOTION, particularly FEAR. Support for localisation comes from LESION STUDIES, BRAIN SCANS, and natural experiments, reinforcing the concept that complex behaviours can be mapped to specific NEURAL STRUCTURES. MAGUIRE AND DRAGANSKI SUPPORT THIS THEORY.
LTP
Neuroplasticity Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
NEUROPLASTICITY refers to the brain’s ability to REORGANISE ITSELF by forming new NEURAL CONNECTIONS in response to LEARNING, EXPERIENCE, or INJURY. It includes both STRUCTURAL PLASTICITY (changes in the size or number of synapses) and FUNCTIONAL PLASTICITY (shifts in function from damaged to undamaged areas). NEUROPLASTICITY is especially evident during DEVELOPMENT but also continues into ADULTHOOD through processes such as LONG-TERM POTENTIATION and SYNAPTIC PRUNING. It explains recovery after BRAIN INJURY and the effects of environmental enrichment or deprivation on COGNITION and BEHAVIOUR. Modern techniques such as fMRI allow researchers to visualise PLASTIC CHANGES over time.
Neurotransmitters Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
NEUROTRANSMITTERS are CHEMICAL MESSENGERS that transmit signals across SYNAPSES from one NEURON to another. They play a fundamental role in regulating PHYSIOLOGICAL and PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESSES. For example, SEROTONIN is associated with MOOD and EMOTIONAL REGULATION, and low levels have been linked to DEPRESSION. DOPAMINE is involved in REWARD, MOTIVATION, and ADDICTION. ACETYLCHOLINE is implicated in MEMORY and LEARNING. Neurotransmitters can have either EXCITATORY or INHIBITORY effects on POST-SYNAPTIC NEURONS. Abnormal neurotransmitter function is often investigated in connection with MENTAL DISORDERS, and their effects are studied using DRUGS, LESIONS, and BRAIN SCANS to understand their influence on BEHAVIOUR.
Hormones Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
HORMONES are CHEMICAL MESSENGERS released by ENDOCRINE GLANDS into the BLOODSTREAM that influence PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES and BEHAVIOUR. Unlike neurotransmitters, hormones act more SLOWLY and over a LONGER DURATION. Key hormones include CORTISOL, which is released in response to STRESS and affects MEMORY and IMMUNE FUNCTION; TESTOSTERONE, linked to AGGRESSION and SOCIAL DOMINANCE; and OXYTOCIN, associated with SOCIAL BONDING and TRUST. Hormones interact with the brain via TARGET RECEPTORS, influencing EMOTIONAL and SOCIAL BEHAVIOURS. Their effects are often studied using DOUBLE-BLIND EXPERIMENTS, NATURAL EXPERIMENTS, and CORRELATIONAL DESIGNS.
Pheromones Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
PHEROMONES are CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES secreted by an individual and detected by another individual of the same species, potentially influencing SOCIAL and REPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIOUR. Though their role in HUMAN BEHAVIOUR remains controversial, evidence from animal studies and limited human experiments suggests that pheromones may influence MATE SELECTION, SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR, and AGGRESSION. Two proposed types are ANDROSTADIENONE (AND) and ESTRATETRAENOL (EST), found in male and female secretions, respectively. The VOMERONASAL ORGAN (VNO), which detects pheromones in many animals, is vestigial in humans, raising questions about their relevance. Research often uses DOUBLE-BLIND CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS, though replication and ecological validity remain concerns.
Genes Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
GENES are SEGMENTS OF DNA that encode instructions for the development and function of ORGANISMS, including the BRAIN and NERVOUS SYSTEM. Genetic expression can influence traits such as PERSONALITY, INTELLIGENCE, and SUSCEPTIBILITY TO MENTAL DISORDERS. The study of GENES AND BEHAVIOUR often involves identifying GENETIC VARIANTS associated with specific behaviours or disorders (e.g., the 5-HTT gene and DEPRESSION). Gene expression is also influenced by the ENVIRONMENT through EPIGENETIC MECHANISMS, meaning the interaction between genes and environmental stimuli shapes BEHAVIOURAL OUTCOMES. Research methods include TWIN STUDIES, FAMILY STUDIES, and GWAS (GENOME-WIDE ASSOCIATION STUDIES).
Genetic Similarities Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
GENETIC SIMILARITIES are used to infer the degree to which BEHAVIOURS may be INHERITED. TWIN STUDIES compare MONOZYGOTIC (MZ) and DIZYGOTIC (DZ) twins to estimate HERITABILITY, which reflects the proportion of observed variation in a trait due to GENETIC FACTORS. ADOPTION STUDIES further isolate environmental influence by comparing children to their BIOLOGICAL and ADOPTIVE PARENTS. A high concordance rate among MZ twins suggests a stronger GENETIC COMPONENT. Studies often focus on traits such as INTELLIGENCE, AGGRESSION, or MENTAL ILLNESS. While these studies offer correlational insights, they cannot definitively prove causation, and shared environments may still influence results.
Evolutionary Explanations Theory? Including key words? What two studies support this?
EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY explains human behaviour as the result of ADAPTIVE TRAITS shaped by NATURAL SELECTION. BEHAVIOURS that enhanced SURVIVAL and REPRODUCTION in ancestral environments—such as FEAR RESPONSES, MATING PREFERENCES, or COOPERATION—are thought to be genetically encoded and expressed today. Traits such as JEALOUSY, SEXUAL SELECTION, or KIN SELECTION may be interpreted as EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATIONS. The ENVIRONMENT OF EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTIVENESS (EEA) is used to contextualise these behaviours in ancestral settings. Evolutionary explanations are often supported by CROSS-CULTURAL STUDIES, yet they are criticised for being DIFFICULT TO TEST EMPIRICALLY and for relying on POST-HOC REASONING.
What is the APFC for Maguire (2000), and what theories does it support?
Aim - Investigate if extensive spacial navigation experience alters hippocampus structure.
Procedure - 16 right-handed male London taxi drivers with 1.5+ years of experience and 50 matched control participants who were non-taxi drivers. MRI scans of all participants were taken to measure hippocampus volume using voxel-based morphometry (VBM) for 3D analysis and pixel counting for 2D comparisons. Researchers correlated hippocampus size with the number of years spent driving to assess the relationship between spatial experience between spatial experience and structural brain changes.
Findings - Taxi drivers had a larger posterior hippocampus and a smaller anterior hippocampus volume.
Conclusion - The hippocampus demonstrates experience-driven neuroplasticity, adapting to spatial navigation demands.
THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR TECHNIQUES, LOCALISATION AND NEUROPLASTICITY.
What is the APFC for Draganski (2004), and what theories does it support?
Aim - To study structural brain changes resulting from learning a new motor skill.
Procedure - 24 volunteers were split into a juggling and control group, with no prior juggling experience. MRI scans were taken as a baseline, 3 months prior to learning juggling and 3 months after that, having forgotten. The juggling group practiced at least 60s a day. The researchers analysed changes in grey matter using MRI scans.
Findings - There was increased grey matter in the mid-temporal area and intraparietal sulcus after juggling practice, and there was also an observed reduction.
Conclusion - Neuroplasticity occurs in response to skill acquisition but may regress without continued practice.
THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR TECHNIQUES, LOCALISATION, NEUROPLASTICITY, NEURAL NETWORKS AND SYNAPTIC PRUNING
What is the APFC for Antonova (2011), and what theories does it support?
Aim - Explore the role of acetylcholine (Ach) in encoding spatial memories using a virtual reality task.
Procedure - 20 healthy male adults participated in a double-blind, repeated measure design. Participants were injected with scopolamine (Ach antagonist) or a placebo. They completed a virtual reality ‘arena task’ where they navigated through a maze to locate a pole. Participants ability to recall the pole’s location after being displaced within the arena was assessed.
Findings - Scopolamine impaired spatial memory compared to the placebo.
Conclusion - Ach is essential for encoding spatial memory. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR NEUROTRANSMITTERS, EXCITATORY NEUROTRANSMITTERS AND AGONISTS
What is the APFC for Rogers and Kesner (2003), and what theories does it support?
Aim - The aim of the study was to determine the role of acetylcholine in the formation of spatial memory.
Procedure - 30 rats acclimate to a Hebb-Williams maze by placing food in one of the corners. Once the rats were familiar with the maze and no longer afraid of the environment, the experiment could begin.
The rats were randomly allocated to one of two conditions. The rats were either injected with scopolamine or with a saline solution ten minutes before running the maze. Scopolamine blocks the acetylcholine receptor sites and thus inhibits any response. The saline solution was a placebo injection. This was done to make sure that the fact of getting an injection alone was not responsible for a change in memory. An injection could result in an increase in adrenaline which would be a confounding variable. The injections were made directly into the hippocampus. Encoding of memory was assessed by the average number of errors made on the first five trials of Day 1 compared to the last five trials of Day 1, whereas the average number of errors made on the first five trials of Day 2 compared to the last five trials of Day 1 was used to assess retrieval.
Findings - The findings were that the scopolamine group took longer and made more mistakes in the learning of the maze - that is, there was a higher average number of mistakes made on the last five trials on Day 1. However, it did not appear to affect the retrieval of memories that had already been created. It appears that acetylcholine may play an important role in the consolidation of spatial memories.
Conclusion - Ach is important for the encoding of spatial memory. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR ANTAGONISTS AND NEUROTRANSMITTERS
What is the APFC for McGaugh and Cahill (1995), and what theories does it support?
Aim - To investigate the role of emotional arousal on memory.
Procedure - 18 undergraduate student participants were divided into 2 groups. Group 1 heard a neutral story about a boy visiting his father in hospital. Group 2 heard an emotionally arousing story about a boy involved in a car accident. Two weeks later, participants were asked to recall specific details about the story using memory tests. A follow-up experiment included the use of β-blockers (propranolol), which inhibits adrenaline, to assess its impact on emotional memory.
Findings - Emotionally arousing stories are remembered significantly better than the neutral ones. The propranolol group showed no memory enhancement for emotional details.
Conclusion - Emotional arousal enhances memory consolidation, likely mediated by adrenaline’s activation of the amygdala.
THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR HORMONES
What is the APFC for Newcomer et al (1999), and what theories does it support?
Aim - To investigate the effect of cortisol on verbal declarative memory.
Procedure - 51 participants were assigned randomly to one of three groups, being the high cortisol group (160mg/day (major stress)), low cortisol (40mg/day (mild stress)) and a placebo. Participants listened to a paragraph and were asked to recall its contents repeatedly over 4 days. Memory performance was evaluated accuracy and completeness.
Findings - The high cortisol group showed significantly worse recall compared to the placebo group. Low cortisol showed no significant memory improvement.
Conclusion - Cortisol impairs memory function, likely due to its effects on the hippocampus. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR HORMONES.
What is the APFC for Zhou et al (2014), and what theories does it support?
Aim – To measure the effect of AND and EST on sexual responses from homosexual and heterosexual men and women.
Procedure – 4 groups of 24 healthy, non-smoking heterosexual males and females, and 24 bisexual/homosexual females and males were used. They were asked to observe a point light walker simulation (PLW) and asked to identify the simulation’s sex. They did this over different days, exposed to either cloves and androstradienone, cloves and estratetraenol and a control (placebo). These smells were counterbalanced daily to prevent order effects.
Findings – Homosexual males and heterosexual females exposed to AND identified the PLW as male, but AND had no significant effect on heterosexual males and homosexual females. The Inverse occurred for EST as expected.
Conclusion – AND and EST may play a part in sexual behaviour depending on sexual orientation. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR PHEROMONES
What is the APFC for Wedekind (1995), and what theories does it support?
Aim - To investigate whether MHC genes influence male choice based on body odour.
Procedure - 49 female and 44 male students participated, where men wore the same T shirt for 2 nights, avoiding cigarettes, spicy foods and deodorants. Women tested in the middle of their menstrual cycle (when their sense of smell is the best), smelling 6 T shirts and rating them for pleasantness. 3 T shirts were from men with the same MHC gene, and 3 with dissimilar MHC genes.
Findings - Women preferred the scent of men with dissimilar MHC genes, especially if not on contraceptives.
Conclusion - MHC based body doors may influence mate selection to enhance immune system diversity. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR PHEROMONES, EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATIONS AND GENES
What is the APFC for Caspi et al (2003), and what theories does it support?
Aim - To determine whether there is evidence for a gene-environment interaction (G x E) for a mutation of the serotonin transporter gene - 5-HTT.
Procedure - A sample of 847 new Zealand 26-year olds. All were members of a cohort that had been assessed for mental health on an every–other year basis until they were 21. Participants were divided into three groups, having two short alleles of the 5HTT gene, having one short and one long and having two long alleles.
Findings - Participants with at least one copy of short allele exhibited more depressive symptoms, diagnosable depression and suicidal ideation in relation to stressful life-events.
Conclusion - Short alleles could indicate vulnerability to developing depression after undergoing stressful life-events. However, those who are genetically predisposed to depression does not mean they will develop depression. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR GENES, GENETIC SIMILARITIES, MDD TREATMENTS AND BIOLOGICAL AETIOLOGIES
What is the APFC for Kendler et al (2006), and what theories does it support?
Aim - To investigate the heritability of MDD using twin studies.
Procedure - 15000 from the Swedish Twin Registry were called. They were tested by trained psychologists using DSM-IV criteria. They compared the concordance for MDD between MZ and DZ twins, being genetically different. Data on depression diagnoses were also obtained from clinical records.
Findings - MZ twins had a 44% concordance rate, whereas DZ twins had a 17% concordance rate.
Conclusion - MDD has a significant genetic component, but environmental factors also play a role, as MZ concordance is not 100%. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR GENES AND GENETIC SIMILARITIES.
What is the APFC for Buss (1989), and what theories does it support?
Aim - To test evolutionary explanations for partner preferences across cultures using a large-scale survey.
Procedure - The participant pool consisted of 10,047 individuals aged 19-28 from 33 countries. Self-report questionnaires (translated meticulously) asked participants to rank traits like financial prospects, ambition, and physical appearance.
Findings - Females prioritised financial security (97%) and older partners.
Males valued physical appearance and youth. Western samples viewed chastity as irrelevant, while some cultures prioritised it.
Conclusion - This supports evolutionary theory, being that gender differences in partner preferences align with adaptive strategies (females seek resources; males seek fertility cues). THIS STUDY SUPPORTS EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATIONS (INCLUDING FOR RELATIONSHIPS)
What is the APFC for Ronay and Von Hippel (2010), and what theories does it support?
Aim - Investigate whether male risk-taking behaviour increases in the presence of an attractive female.
Procedure - 96 male skateboarders were observed performing tricks in two conditions; a male or an attractive female experimenter. Risk taking was measured by the likelihood of attempting more difficult tricks, successful landing aborted tricks. Cortisol levels were measured via saliva samples after each condition.
Findings - Men took significantly more risks in the presence of the attractive female and showed higher testosterone levels.
Conclusion - Male risk-taking behaviour increases as a mate-attraction strategy, driven by evolutionary pressures. THIS STUDY CAN BE USED FOR EVOLUTIONARY EXPLANATIONS (INCLUDING FOR RELATIONSHIPS)
What is the APFC of Weissman (2005), and what theories does it support?
AIM - To investigate the GENETIC TRANSMISSION of MAJOR DEPRESSIVE DISORDER (MDD) across THREE GENERATIONS and determine if having depressed parents and grandparents increases the risk of depression in grandchildren.
PROCEDURE - A LONGITUDINAL FAMILY STUDY for people from Columbia and Yale involving 161 grandchildren, their parents, and grandparents.
The original sample was made up of depressed and non-depressed patients and their children.
The third generation (grandchildren) were assessed using clinical interviews and psychological testing.
Researchers compared depression rates based on whether parents and/or grandparents had MDD.
FINDINGS - The highest rates of depression were found in grandchildren whose parents AND grandparents had MDD.
If only the grandparent was depressed (but not the parent), the grandchild did NOT have an increased risk.
This indicates a GENETIC LINK passed through both generations is associated with a greater risk.
CONCLUSION - MDD may be GENETICALLY INHERITED and transmitted through multiple generations.
This study supports the role of GENETIC SIMILARITIES in psychological disorders, particularly depression.
What is the APFC for Prevot et al. (2017)?
AIM:
To investigate whether gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels in the visual cortex are associated with fluid processing ability (i.e., working memory, reasoning, attention) in older adults.
PROCEDURE:
The researchers recruited 94 healthy older adults (average age ~68).
They used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to measure GABA concentrations in different regions of the brain, including the occipital visual cortex.
Participants also completed a battery of fluid cognitive tests, including memory, reasoning, and attention assessments.
The study controlled for variables like brain volume and general health.
FINDINGS:
Higher GABA levels in the visual cortex were significantly associated with better fluid processing scores.
This correlation remained even when controlling for age and grey matter volume, suggesting that GABA levels independently predict cognitive performance.
CONCLUSION:
The study supports the idea that neurotransmitter balance (specifically inhibitory control via GABA) in the visual cortex plays a functional role in maintaining cognitive abilities in aging populations.
It provides biological evidence for localisation of function and highlights the importance of chemical modulation in cognitive aging.
