IB PSYCH CASE STUDIES Flashcards
BIO LOA
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Kasamatsu & Hirai 1999
Sensory deprivation affects brain Study group of Buddhist monks 72 hour trip holy mountain Japan No food/water, no spoke, cold 48 hrs: hallu. of ancient ancestors Blood taken b/f trip & a/f hallu. Serotonin levels increase activate hypo. And frontal cortex result in the hallu.
Martinez & Kesner 1991
Determine role if neuro. Acetylcholine on memory
Rats trained to go through a maze, (received food)
Rats injected: 1. Scopolamine 2. Cholinesterase 3. Control group
- Slower and made more errors 2. Found the food more quickly than the control, fewer wrong turns
Conclude: aceto. Played role in create memory of the maze
Christensen and Burrows 1990
THEORY: depressed people may benefit from diets low in sugar/caffeine
Better diet can stabilize neuro. = stabilize mood
20 par. Via newspaper/ad/uni.
Assessment scales (BDI & CDDI) used to select par.
groups of 10 diet change 3 wks.
1. Exp. no sucrose/caffeine 2. Cnt. No red meat/art. Sweeteners
Par kept record of foods and got sample food plans
Saliva test used
1. Fewer depression symptoms
Bouchard 1990
Twins sep. @ birth
56 pairs of MZA reared apart
US & 7 countries
4 personality trait scales, 3 aptitude, interest inventories, intelligence test, checklist of household items, etc.
correlation study
Found they where 70% similar
Genetic factors appear to account for most of the variation in a variety of human char.
Jirtle & Waterland 2000
Pairs of agouti mice
See if they could change the genetic legacy
Parent mice produced a majority of healthy offspring
How? moms diet rich in methyl donors
Donors worked their way into the dev. Embryos chrom. And onto agouti gene (dimmed the gene’s effects
Epigenomes sensitive to cues from environment
Michael Meaney
Some epigenetic changes can be induced a/f birth via mom’s physical behavior toward a newborn
Compared two types of mom rats:
1. Those who patiently licked their offspring a/f birth
2. Those who neglected their newborns
Found dif. In DNA methylation patterns in hippocampus cells of each group
1. Removed dimmer switchers on gene that shapes stress receptors
Better dev. Hippocampi, released less of the stress hormone cortisol
2. Released more cortisol, less dev. Hippo campi, reacted nervously when startled
Rosenzweig and Diamond 1972
Address effect of experience on brain
Subject = rats
Animals raised in high stimulated environments demo. Dif. In brain growth and dev
Compared to animals raised in dullness
Use of 12 sets of 3 male rats
Rats random assigned to 1 of 3 groups
1. Rats stayed in lab cage with rest of colony (control)
2. Enriched environment
3. Impoverished environment
Rats lived in dif environments for a period of time 4-10 weeks
Rats sacrificed (autopsy on brain)
Various sections weighed and analyzed (set: cell growth, levels of neuro. Trans act., focuses on actycholineterase
Brains of enriched rats dif from impoverished rats (cerebral cortex, increase action of nervous system enzyme actyo., increase of Filial cells, larger neurons , DNA/RNA INCREASE, weight of cortex, synapse 50% larger
Le Doux Study on Rats
Assumption that the brain somehow pairs the tone and shock in memory = making the tone of a harbinger threat
Find where the brain stores emotional memory (pairs with tone and shock)
Began by making small lesions I’m Dif. Parts of the rats brains to derail condition response
First lesion made in auditory cortex (highest level for sound)
Rats still learned to fear the tone
Below this is the auditory thalamus -> damaged this and eliminated rats susceptibility to fear condition.
Lesion in amygdala which wipe out fear condition for the rats
Found the seat of emotional memories -> sought to characterize fear response at level of ind. neuron
Trunbull 1961
Involved natural observation (unintentional)
With the Pygmies in Intuit forest in Zaine (Congo)
Accompanied by young man Kengie
Reached eastern edge of a hill which had no trees because a missionary would go here
Distant view of Ruwenzori Mnts.
Kenge never saw this view and asked if they where hills or clouds
Turnbull took kenge over to the Mnts.
Noticed a thunderstorm visibility down to 100 yards
Reached the Isbango nt. park
Kenge called this bad country b/c of no trees
Saw buffalo on mnt. And thought they where insects
Approached them and he thought it was witchcraft how big
Occurred again with fishing boats
Perception Consistencies: not only learn via exp. but also environment and culture
To survive skills unfold over time
Brefczynski-Lewis (2007)
Brain activity that results from meditation over long period of time
Meditating activates parts of the brain that are not active while a person is at rest,
those with more most exp. meditating would show less act. In those regions than less exp. meditators b/c exp. reduces effort needed to sustain attention
experimenters compared new meditators with people b/t 10-54,000 hrs of practice
7/12 where Asian compared with untrained white par.
no confounding variable: 3rd group promised a financial incentive if their att. Regions most active.
Par. Brains scanned using fMRI while concentrating on a dot and at rest no concentration
Draganski 2004
Interest in determining whether both functional and structural changes could be detected in the human brain as a result of learning new motor skills
21 females and 3 makes par.
1/2 spent 3 months learning to preform basic juggling routine for a min. of 60 sec.
MEI scans done b/f & a/f practices and a third scan three months later (par. no practice skills)
Two areas of brain different in size: strengthen connection of the connections b/t neurons in parts of brain responsible for this activity
McGuire 2000
Fully licensed London text drivers will have structural differences in their hippocampi as a result of this learning exp.
used MRI scans of male taxi drivers
Control group was existing scans of healthy males who didn’t drive taxis
Left and right hippocampi were higher in volume in text drivers brain
Correlation b/t volume of hippocampi and time spent as a taxi driver
Found a positive correlation
Conclusion: redistribution of grey matter in the hippocampi as a result of intense dev. and use of spatial memory skills
Strengthening of connections b/t neurons
Tierney 2001
Case study on a 37 year old man with normal speech function who volunteered in a speech study
Discovered he had a lesion in his left frontal lobe as a result of encephalitis (suffered at 6 wks no long term issues)
Parents were deaf and he used sign language
Curious if this had something to do with his ability to speak even though he had brain damage that should have prevented it
Compared him and 12 control par. Who were fluent in sign Lang.
Used PET scans while par. Produced narrative speech or signs
Motor control task also completed to contrast movements required for sign Lang. And speech with movement without speech
Right hem. More active than controls during sign and speech -> Lang. Developed in right instead of left hem. As a form of adaptation
Schachter and Singer 1962
Challenge theories of emotion
Proposed that while adrenaline was able to cause emotion, the nature of the emotion caused was dep. on contextual factors
Dif. Emotions may be the same set of physiological changes in the body that are labelled by the brain
Volunteers receive vitamin injection and said it was a vision exp.
3 groups received inejection of adrenaline and 4th placebo
3 groups given Dif. Types of info on side effects
1. as increased heart rate and shaky hands 2. None 3. Some people exp. a headache and numbness or itchiness in the feet
2 confederates: 1. Euphoria, encouraged par. To join in games w/ office equipment 2. Anger, filled out mock q. But got outraged by the personal nature of the q’s
Observed and the. Asked for a q/a to be filled out on their moods
1-2. Showed more euphoric behaviors 2. No reporting, behavior data, par. Who were aware of the real expected physical changes less of angry than groups who had no explanation
Emotion occurs by a process of cog. Labeling
