Outline the clinical characteristics of one anxiety disorder
Outline the clinical characteristics of one anxiety disorder (10 Marks) Anxiety is an adaptive response, an individual with an anxiety disorder experiences anxiety that is disproportionate to threats that are presented. Phobias are the most common form of anxiety disorders. Phobias are an extreme irrational fear of certain situations, objects, people or activities; the level of fear is so great the object or situation is avoided whenever possible. Phobias are classified into three categories, specific phobia, social phobia and agoraphobia. Agoraphobia and social phobia usually interfere with the individuals' daily life, whereas specific phobia generally has less impact. Specific phobias are a fear of specific objects such as animals, the environment, a situation or blood and guts. The prevalence is 4-7% of the population. Specific phobias can be caused from direct experience, observation or from being told to fear the object. The clinical characteristic for this is for the individual with the phobia to avoid the feared object. The anxiety from the situation often results in restlessness, jumpy behaviour; in general the individual finds it difficult to relax and may experience a startled response when presented with the feared stimuli. Social phobias are due to the individual's self-consciousness of their behaviour and a fear of being negatively judged by others in social
Outline and evaluate one or more biological explanations for depression. In your evaluation you should refer to research evidence.
Outline and evaluate one or more biological explanations for depression. In your evaluation you should refer to research evidence. (8 marks + 16 marks) The biological explanations for depression centre on the mood disorder being biologically caused. Genetic factors suggest that you are born with a biological weakness which makes you unable to resist stressors, which consequently leads to depression. This is known as the diathesis stress model. The main piece of research that supports this comes from the Maudsley Hospital twin register, where concordance rates of 46% were found in MZ twins and 20% in DZ twins. This suggest that depression must be passed on through genes if there is a high concordance rate between twins which share the same genetic makeup both having depression. However, biological factors such as the amine hypothesis states that if amines such as serotonin and noradrenalin become unbalanced, they can lead to depression. PET scans support this idea as they show that low levels of serotonin are present in people that are depressed. Other supporting evidence is that drugs such as MAOI's, which work by increasing the available amount of noradrenalin in the brain, were found to be effective in alleviating the symptoms of depression. A problem with this is that it doesn't state whether it is cause or effect. Significant support for the biological explanation
Describe and evaluate the recovery/restoration theory of the function of sleep.
Psychology Essay Describe and evaluate one theory of the function of sleep (24 marks) Recovery/ Restoration is one theory on the functions of sleep. This theory is based on the concept that sleep is needed to save energy and to allow restoration of tissue. Research evidence that supports this theory focuses mostly around physiological benefits of sleep. Alison and Cicchetti (1976) surveyed 39 mammalian species to work out the amount of time spent in slow wave sleep (SWS) and in REM sleep. It was found that body weight (which correlates with metabolic rate) was the best indicator of the amount of SWS needed. Oswald's (1980) findings can relate to this; he found that during SWS growth hormones are released from the pituitary gland, stimulating protein synthesis; which is essential for tissue repair. This can explain why new-borns spend a great deal of time sleeping, due to the fact that REM sleep reflects brain recovery and the few months before and after birth are times of rapid brain growth- babies spend 50-60% of their 'sleep time' in REM sleep. Shapiro et al (1981) studied runners who had taken part in an ultra-marathon. They found that the runners slept for around an hour and a half longer than usual for two nights after the marathon. Also, there was an increase in the amount of time spent in SWS. However, this would suggest that people who do little physical activity
Discuss two biological therapies for depression. You should refer to research evidence in your answer.
Discuss two biological therapies for depression. You should refer to research evidence in your answer. (8 marks + 16 marks) Drugs are the first port of call for individuals suffering from depression and there are three main drug therapies that are used to treat the mood disorder. Monoamine-oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) are used for treating depression as they are effective in treating the symptoms of depression but they do cause unwanted side effects that can, in extreme cases, could be life threatening. Individuals that are prescribed MAOIs need to restrict their diets to exclude foods that react adversely with the drug. They are usually prescribed when other medications have proved ineffective for the particular patient. Another type of antidepressant that is used to treat depression is tricyclic antidepressants. They work by raising levels of serotonin and noradrenaline in the brain. The specific effects depend on the mechanisms targeted. They have been shown to be quite effective in alleviating symptoms of depression and have fewer side effects than MAOIs. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are drugs such as fluoxetine hydrochloride (Prozac), were originally though to be free of side effects and were prescribed extensively. In the last few years, doubts were raised about their safety and in particular, there were reports linking Prozac to suicidal behavior.
Outline and Evaluate the Biological Treatments of OCD
Outline and Evaluate the Biological Treatments of OCD One biological treatment of OCD is Psychosurgery which is a surgical intervention that aims to treat a behaviour for which no pathological cause can be established. The patient must meet certain criteria before they can be considered for this surgery, for example the illness must have persisted for longer than 5 years, all other treatments have been tested and failed to provide relief, and the patient must be between the ages of 26 and 65. The main idea of the procedure is that it attempts to interrupt nerve pathways in areas of the brain implicated in OCD. Probes are inserted through the skull into the cingulated girus, the part of the brain that allows the OFC to talk to the basal ganglia. The probe tips are then heated and the tissue is burned. The operation can also be conducted using external radiation. This procedure is known as a cingulotomy. One strength of this procedure is that research has shown that it is very effective. One supporting study of this is that Baer (1995) reported that a cingulotomy was successful in decreasing anxiety and OCD behaviour. In addition, Dougherty et al (2002) supported this as he suggested that up to 45% of patients had a reduction in OCD symptoms, therefore suggesting a casual cause and effect relationship between psychosurgery and reduction in OCD symptoms, therefore strengthening
Clinical characteristics of depression
(a) Outline the clinical characteristics of depression (b) Explain the issues associated with the classification and diagnosis of depression (24 marks) Depression is a collection of physical, mental, emotional and behavioural experiences that are more prolonged, severe and damaging. The medical model involves individuals going to the doctors and having their physical symptoms observed and questions asked about their illness/problem. To help doctors diagnose diseases such as mood disorders, the medical classifications ICD-10 and DSM-IV both define these diseases in order for doctors to follow the guidelines and diagnose the correct illness. A person is defined as having a mild depressive episode of depression by the International Classification of Diseases 10th edition by having two or three of the following psychological symptoms; lowering of mood, reduction of energy, decreased activity, ideas of guilt and worthlessness, capacity for enjoyment, interest and concentration is almost always lowered, appetite diminished, sleep disturbed and self-esteem and self-confidence is lowered. These psychological symptoms may also be accompanied by somatic symptoms such as; lowering of mood, waking hours before normal in the morning, depression worst in the morning, marked psychomotor retardation, agitation, loss of appetite, loss of libido and weight loss. To be diagnosed as
Outoline and evaluate two biological theories of dream
According to Crick and Mitchison (1983) dreaming is an opportunity of deleting unwanted information in order to make more space. During sleep our brain sifts through these parasitic memories that take up a lot of space in the cortex. By deleting these memories it will create more space in the neuron network so it will function more efficiently. This process is done by the bombardment of impulses to the cortex from the brain stem whilst the modified synapses ensures that the memories will stay unlearned in the future. Dreams also clear out memories of a pathological nature (obsessive or bizarre). Without this deletion of memories our daytime thinking would be disrupted by these bizarre thoughts. This seems to be apparent in people deprived of REM sleep when they show bizarre behaviour. Crick and Mitchinson also suggests that reverse learning provides an adaptive feature. REM allows smaller brains in mammals that sleep and larger neural networks for those that do not to absorb more information. The theory would explain why forget our dreams 95% of the time. But it would not explain why sometimes our dreams are significant and meaningful since this theory suggests our dreams are nothing but biological processes within the brain. There is evidence in which researchers found that dreams related to our current emotional problems in awake-state (Domhoff, 1996). He found that the
Depression- Biological Explanations
Discuss biological explanation of depression. (25 marks) In order for depression to be diagnosed the person needs to show at least five of these symptoms everyday for a minimum of two weeks. These clinical characteristics for depression can be emotional symptoms; this can involve sadness, melancholy, self-involvement, guilt and even thoughts of suicide. Another characteristic could be a lack of motivation including passivity, loss of interest and energy. The person could also have cognitive problems such as thoughts of hopelessness, pessimism and lack of self-esteem. Finally there can be somatic symptoms such as loss or increase of appetite and weight, and sleep disturbances. Depression is a mood disorder which can have different variations; Unipolar disorder is most common and most severe form of depression and bipolar disorder is where the condition occurs in episodes of depression, periods of normality and periods of mania. This can be caused genetics which can predispose the individual to the disorder. Furthermore we would expect to find that relatives have similar chances of developing the disorder. Evidence from this can come from twin studies; MZ twins share 100% of their genes whereas DZ twins only have 50%. If genes are to be a facto in depression we would expect a higher number of MZ twins to share the disorder. One study based on nearly 200 pairs of twins found
Describe and evaluate research into the stages of sleep
Describe and evaluate research into the stages of sleep To talk about a concept, we must first be clear on its definition. Psychologists describe sleep as an altered state of consciousness. It is a resting state in which an individual becomes relatively quiescent and relatively unaware of the environment. During sleep, which is in part a period of rest and relaxation, most physiological functions such as body temperature, blood pressure, and rate of breathing and heartbeat decrease. The amount of sleep needed depends on both the individual and the environment. With the invention of the "Electroencephalogram" or an "EEG" as it is more commonly known has made it possible to monitor the brain's electrical activity. The EEG picks up and records electrical activity through electrodes attached to the scalp. The reading of a waking person is clearly different than that of a sleeping person. The EEG pattern of our brain during waking periods is very rapid, irregular and low on voltage. This means that many neurons are firing at different intervals and at different times, with different strengths too. This type of irregular electrical activity in the brain during wakefulness is called beta waves or beta activity. When we are relaxed, sitting in the sofa watching T.V. without any mental arousal, the EEG records a waveform called alpha waves or alpha activity, slower than beta
Outline one theory of the function of sleep.
Outline one theory of the function of sleep. There are two main theories in psychology offered to explain the function of sleep. One is called the ecological or evolutionary theory. The basis of this theory is that the reason why all animals sleep is because sleep serves some adaptive function. The notion of adaptiveness comes from the theory of evolution. The idea is that any behaviour that has continued in an animal's gene pool is because it must have been naturally selected because it, in some way, has helped promote the survival and reproduction of an animal possessing that characteristic. An important consideration, when thinking about the function of sleep, is to distinguish between different kinds of sleep: core sleep and other sleep. The two most important kinds of core sleep are slow wave sleep and REM sleep. It is possible that each serves a different adaptive purpose. One of the key criticisms made, in relation to evolutionary theories of sleep, is that many of them suggest that animals sleep in order to waste time. Whereas the restoration view is that sleep is not wasting time but offers the opportunity for key functions to take place. A second criticism is that evolutionary theories may not be suitable for explaining human sleep. Sleep may have been adaptive during the environment of evolutionary adaptation but this hasn't been true for a long time and one
