week 11 Flashcards
(23 cards)
Darwinian Medicine
uses evolutionary biology to understand human health and disease
Immunocompetence Hypothesis:
Testosterone boosts sexual traits (e.g., muscle, deep voice).
May weaken immune function.
Balancing Selection
Maintains multiple alleles in a population.
Disorders as Statistical Deviance
Disorder if mental function is far from the norm.
Problem: Exceptional traits (e.g., high IQ) could be seen as disorders.
Disorders as Distress:
Disorder if it causes suffering.
Problem: Some don’t feel distress (e.g., antisocial personality disorder).
Normal distress (e.g., after loss) may not be a disorder.
Disorders as somatic lesion
disorder considered if abnormal functioning of tissues /physiology
Disorders as Impaired Functioning
Disorder if it disrupts daily life.
Harmful Dysfunction Theory (Wakefield, 1992, 1997)
A disorder must meet two criteria;
Dysfunction
Harm
Smoke Detector Principle
Better to have false alarms (anxiety) than to miss real danger.
Sympathetic Nervous System:
Activates instantly (within seconds).
Adrenocortical Response (Cortisol):
Lasts longer (minutes to hours).
Why Not Be Anxious All the Time?
Too much stress can harm the body over time.
Reactive Depression:
Normal response to loss or disappointment.
Clinical Depression:
Extreme, long-lasting, and not always linked to events.
Unipolar Depression
Alternating periods of depression and normal mood
Bipolar (Manic) Depression:
Cycles between mania (high energy), depression, and normal mood.
Reasons why Depression Still Exists
Breakdown Explanation:
Depression happens when something in the brain doesn’t work properly.
Reasons why Depression Still Exists
Mismatch Explanation:
Depression may have been useful in the past but is now a problem.
Reasons why Depression Still Exists
Persistence Explanation:
Some parts of depression might actually be helpful today.
Social Competition Hypothesis (Price, 1967):
Depression may have evolved as a way to cope with social defeat and lower status.
Genain Quadruplets
Identical quadruplets, all diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Symptoms varied, showing not just genetics, but also environmental influences (epigenetics).
Compensatory Fertility Hypothesis:
Suggests that relatives of people with schizophrenia have more kids to balance out the disorder, but research doesn’t support this.
Radical Leadership Hypothesis:
Suggests people with schizophrenia were once seen as leaders or shamans, but there’s no real evidence for this.
