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PSYC-2280: Psychological Disorders > Week 2 Part I Chapter 2 - Integrative Approach to Psychopathology > Flashcards

Week 2 Part I Chapter 2 - Integrative Approach to Psychopathology Flashcards

1
Q

What’s behind
psychological
disorders?

A
  • Nature or nurture?
  • Structural abnormalities in the brain?
  • Chemical imbalance?
  • Bad parenting?
  • Bad life events?
  • Poverty?
    It’s all integrated!
    No one thing creates a psychological disorder.
  • It’s a multidimensional integrated approach
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2
Q

One-Dimensional or
Multidimensional Models

A

One-dimensional model:
 Attributes psychopathology to a one cause
- Not really applicable to psych
 Multi-dimensional model:
 Attributes psychopathology to multiple causes

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3
Q

What’s covered in this chapter? Where will we end up?

A
  • Genetic
  • Neural
  • Behavioural and Cognitive
  • Emotional
  • Cultural, Social, and Interpersonal
  • Lifespan Development

We will end up at the principal of equafinality: there are many different ways to get to the same spot

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4
Q

Genetic
Contributions to
Psychopathology

A
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5
Q

Genes

A

Genes: long molecules of DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) at various locations on chromosomes

  • Normal human cells have 23 pairs of chromosomes
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6
Q

No psychological disorder besides ——- disease is caused by a gene

A
  • No psychological disorder besides Huntington’s disease is caused by a gene
  • This is “polygeneic” - our thoughts and behaviours are influenced by many genes not just one.

Wrong ordering of molecules results in a defective gene may lead to problems (seen in Huntington Disease)
 Genetic contributions to most psychological disorders are not typically this simple
 Environmental factors affect whether genes are turned off or on

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7
Q

Polygenic:

A

behaviours are
influenced by many genes

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8
Q

Jim Springer and Jim Lewis

A
  • Twins separated at birth
  • 39 years apart
  • Remarkable similarities
  • There are no genes that predict our preferences or specific things
  • Instead, this suggests that polygenic can predict certain traits that then increase the likelihood of encountering certain things
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9
Q

The Diathesis–Stress Model

A
  • Diathesis (vulnerability): Inherited tendency towards a trait or behaviour
  • Activated under conditions of stress in the environment
  • Vulnerability: within us
  • Stress: from environment

“The diathesis loads the gun the stress pulls the trigger”

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10
Q

Reciprocal Gene-Environment (Gene‒Environment
Correlation) Model

A

Genes may increase probability of experiencing stressful events
 E.g., divorce
Genetic vulnerability  leads to stressor  triggers vulnerability  disorder

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11
Q

Epigenetics:

A

 Genes are turned “on” or “off” by environmental factors
(stress, nutrition, etc.)
 This gene expression is then passed on from one generation to
next

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12
Q

Generational effects:

A

 Education ability is more heritable now than in the past

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13
Q

Neural Contribution to psychopathology

A
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14
Q

Neuroscience Contributions

A

Centeral nervous system:
- Brain
- Spinal cord

  1. Peripheral
    a. Autonomic nervous system
    (energy)
    a 1. Sympathetic nervous system (sympathizes for you and gives you energy)
    a 2. Parasympathetic nervous system does the opposite
    (both systems can’t be activated at the same time)
    b.) Somatic nervous system
  2. Central nervous system
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15
Q

The Structure of the Brain

A

Parts of the brain
 Hindbrain
 Cerebellum
 Performs regulatory functions
 Midbrain
 Pons, medulla
 Coordinates movements, relays
sensory information
 Forebrain
 Cerebrum
 Performs higher functions like
thinking, perception, and planning

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16
Q

Cerebral Cortex

A

Re. psych disorders, most
research focuses on
frontal lobe of the
cerebral cortex (important for down regulating) as well as on the limbic system, the
hippocampus, and the
basal ganglia
every lobe has circuits
- Must know frontal lobe (where executor lives)
and temporal lobe (important for memory)
Lymbic system (commotion) and basal ganglia (motor movement)

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17
Q

Limbic system

A

Amydala: eye almonds help determine if what’s in your environment is “scary” or not
Hippocampus: sea horse

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18
Q

BAsal GAnglia

A
  • important for movement
  • parkinton’s disease
19
Q

The neuron

A
  • dendrites: takes in messages
  • axon:
  • Synaptic cleft:

Neurons never actually touch
- This is how drugs work in the brain.

Reuptake: When a neuron sends a neurotransmitter out and it gets set back to the same neuron

Sending neuron closes the doors.

20
Q

Neurotransmitters

A

Common neurotransmitters
 Glutamate (excitatory) and GABA (inhibitory) (they do opposite things)
 Serotonin
 Norepinephrine
 Dopamine (reward neurotransmitter)

 Drug therapies work by increasing or decreasing the flow of specific NTs

  • Agonists: Increase activity of NT by mimicking effects
  • Antagonists: ecrease/block NT
  • Inverse agonists: produce effects opposite to those of NT
21
Q

Glutamate and GABA

A

Glutamate: excitatory
 Gamma aminobutyric acid (GABA): inhibitory

 Reduces anxiety, arousal

 Benzodiazepines (treat people with anxiety): make it easier for GABA molecules to attach to receptors.
- Gabba calms

22
Q

Serotonin (5-HT)

A

Low serotonin
 Instability, impulsivity,
tendency to overreact

 Aggression, suicide,
overeating, excessive sexual
behaviour

 Selective-serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)

 Used to treat anxiety, mood, eating disorders

23
Q

Norepinephrine

A
  • adhd
  • emergency reactions

Multiple pathways
contributing to multiple
behaviour processes
 Wakefulness/sleep, attention
 Emergency reaction

24
Q

Dopamine (DA)

A

Associated with schizophrenia, addiction
 Important for motor functions
 Facilitates exploratory,
pleasure-seeking behaviour

 Two major pathways:

  1. Nigrostriatal
     Motor functioning
     Parkinson’s (motor movements)
  2. Mesolimbic
     Reward
     Addiction
25
Neural Contributions
Implications for Psychopathology  Psychological factors and experience can affect brain structure and function  E.g., Rats in an enriched environment  Idea that psychological disorders are “caused” by biochemical imbalances or structural brain problems is an oversimplification
26
Behavioural Contributions: Classical and operant
Conditioning= learning  Classical and operant conditioning facilitate learning relationships among events  Classical conditioning & PTSD ex. Getting jumped by someone in grey pants. Then getting scared every time you see grey pants. Treatment: Gradual exposure. - Classical and operant conditioning (consequences of what we do) facilitate learning relationships among events  Operant conditioning & depression, anxiety, substance use disorders
27
Learned Helplessness (Martin Seligman)
- learn to be helpless as a result of doing something over and over without any reward or response. ex. dog getting shocked no matter what it does ex. systemic barriers  Having no control over what happens  Give up attempting to cope  Uncontrollable stress may lead to depression  “Learned optimism”: positive psychology - learned helplessness in major depressive disorder - if we can learn to be helpless we can learn to be optimistic
28
Social Learning (Albert Bandura)
People can learn through observing what happens to someone else following a behaviour: modelling or observational learning  Bobo doll experiments - Can learn by observing
29
Cognitive biases
Negativity bias in depression, fear-related bias in anxiety  Rumination in depression
30
Unconscious or implicit cognition
Emotional Stroop  Eating disorders, depression, anxiety
31
Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Popular model of therapy - Aaron Beck - The way that we think effects how we behave  Faulty attributions and attitudes associated with thinking in anxiety, depression, stress  Attentional biases  Automatic thoughts due to maladaptive schema  Cognitive restructuring: restructure the maladaptive schema  Behavioural tasks: exposure, increasing activity, improving social skills
32
Emotions as composite
Emotions are best conceptualized as a composite: 1. A motor output e.g., social approach 2. Autonomic activity e.g., ↑ heart rate 3. Conscious experience e.g., love, anger
33
Emotions mood and affect
Emotions: are neurally-based responses that facilitate appropriate reactions to events  Influence evolutionary success  Emotions (right now): Short-lived responses to events/thoughts Mood (extends over a longer period of time (ex. depression)): -Diffuse emotional state that endures for longer.  Triggered without clear antecedent event/thought Affect (another word for feeling or emotion) - More general term encompassing effects of emotions, mood, etc.
34
Two main dimensions to affective experience
1. Arousal 2. Valence
35
Gender Roles
Gender differences exist in rates of many psychological disorders Females internalizing Males exsternalizing  Two-thirds with major depression are women  Men more likely to self-medicate  Societal pressure to hide anxious feelings  Pressures on women to be thin
36
Racism
 Intergenerational trauma  Structural racism  Prior experience & distrust in the health system  Racism in psychological diagnosis  BIPOC individuals are more likely to be killed by police when called to a mental health wellness check  Protective factors related to race/culture
37
Protective effects of social connectedness
- Longer life expectancy, lower risk of dementia - Social phobia and depressive disorder related to (low) interpersonal contacts - People tend to live longer with more social supports
38
Experiencing poverty
 Increase risk of psychopathology
39
The Principle of Equifinality
“Different paths can result from the interaction of psychological and biological factors during various stages of development.”
40
We conceptualize psychopathology in ....
An integrated way
41
Etiology
Cause Is multiply determined
42
Heritability estimates
~50% of individual differences in personality and cognition are genetic  <50% variability of most psychological disorders  Heritability higher for some than others ( e.g., schizophrenia, bipolar disorders)  Some groups of genes have been associated with psychopathology  Adverse life events can overwhelm genetic influence -
43
What are the two major dopamine pathways
 Two major pathways: 1. Nigrostriatal  Motor functioning  Parkinson’s (motor movements) 2. Mesolimbic  Reward  Addiction
44
5 multidimensional models
Behavioural biological emotional developmental social

PSYC-2280: Psychological Disorders (9 decks)

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