PSYCH 3M03 - Test 2

How does the "anxiety dial" turn down?

Like emotions, which can be regulated; anxiety can be too - Avoid everything frightening - Improve discrimination b/w real threat and fearful cues -> increase accuracy - Habituate/desensitize - Explicitly test relationship b/w cue and feared outcome

LTP

Long Term Potentiation Makes neurons more stable and responsive (depolarize) Strong NT: Glutamate

Extinction of fear response

Requires input from the Ventromedial Prefrontal Cortex (vmPFC) Fear is not terminated, it is dampened by vmPFC, however the amygdala response to surprise stays the same

Brooding

Root Cause Analysis passive comparison of self to current situation with unachievable standards Higher levels of brooding = high levels of depression later

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

Root Causes = what caused the problem Root Cause Analysis = in what areas could preventable actions have been taken for the problem to not have happened (lol i cant english) RCA is counterfactual: using statements like "if only"; which reflects the beliefs about the root causes

Negative Metacognitive Beliefs

Rumination is bad and it makes my life harder

Positive Metacognitive Beliefs

Rumination is good and it helps me

Paul Walen & Facial Expressions

Ventral amygdala: processes negative/ harmful events Dorsal amygdala: processes unpredictable events Found that: - Surprised faces have no negative or positive expression associated with it - Fear expression information of uncertainty of the environment - Amygdala involved in processing threatening, surprised and uncertain stimuli

Why dont we know how to distinguish between normal and pathological states

We dont have a consensus of what is represents a truly pathological state of depression We may just be creating pathological reasons for normal symptoms and responses of depression The threshold in the signal detection theory is arbitrary

Evolved Pain Mechanism

Whole body response More than a reflex Analgesia helps; inc preference Aversive Altered motivational state Avoidant learning

Are negative thoughts and feelings motivational?

YES! Negative feelings are motivational, as they force an individual to engage in corrective behaviour. For example; a physician thinks they are worthless, and think of the negative consequences of if they do not correct their behaviour: If I do not fix this, I will be worthless as a physician Shown in psychiatrists as well: when they lose a patient to suicide they believe it to be a failure. In order to prevent that failure from happening again they will make changes to their practice. Such as admitting more ppl to the hospital, keep them admitted longer, getting on meds faster, removal of day passes. ONCE AGAIN SHOWING A POSITIVE ASSOCIATION WITH DISTRESS

Behavioural changes due to depression leads to...

an altered motivational state

To engage in RCA you need...

an altered motivational state feelings of - remorse/guilt - low self esteem - worthlessness - pessimism Our survival is dependant on our valuable-ness to others. If we do not feel valuable, it will give us motivation to change, and make us think where we went wrong and how to fix it (RCA)

symptoms of TI

"animal hypnosis" - inversion/ restraining = TI physical immobility muscular rigidity closes/ fixed/ unfocused gaze parkinson like tremors active processing of the environment - TI impeded when there is movement of the same species - TI facilitated by the presence of eyes (predators or experimenters) lose response to pain

Mood and processing style

1) Quick and frugal - Happy model 2) Analytical / slow/ effortful - Sad model

Adaptive vs Adaptation

Adaptive: refers to an outcome; is a certain trait currently maximizing the reproductive success of an indv inclusive fitness. Adaptation: a trait that evolved through NS and is identified by its non random and high organized state (i.e. the eye). An adaptation can become maladaptive in the modern environment; as they don't match our EEA NOTE: Even in their evolved environments an adaptation does not need to have an adaptive outcome i.e. the Soay Sheep -> anxiety is also this it is an adaptation to be cautious

What does Bateson et al. (2011): Anxiety an Evolutionary Approach believe anxiety to be?

An evolutionary mechanism that although causes distress or impairs quality of life, does not necessarily mean that it is malfunctioning in the evolutionary sense.

signal detection theory

As risk the risk of missing a threat increases (probability of threat), the anxiety threshold decreases (left). The lower the threshold the more anxious an individual is. There will be more False Alarms than there would be misses -> if fitness cost of a miss is huge, it is better to have more FA to be more vigilant. Two predictions basically: 1) Probability of threat increases, threshold for anxiety decreses 2) Relative cost of vulnerability will affect the threshold (cost of miss is high, threshold will be lower, more FA than misses)

Learning to associate sound with shock

Auditory stimuli > Thalamus + LTP > Lateral Nucleus > Basal Nucleus > Central Nucleus

Kraft et al. (2018) Findings

Brooding controlled for, positive beliefs disappeared, negative beliefs stayed Positive metacognitions predicted depression levels, but that was accounted for by rumination - positive beliefs about rumination lead to brooding Rumination and negative metacogntions had independent contributions to depression levels - rumination and negative beliefs about rumination predicts depression THEREFORE negative metacognitions explain the general susceptibility to experience depressive symptoms

Modern Cognitive Therapies

CBT - change depressive thinking Mindfulness CT - observe thoughts without emotion/ judgement Megacogntiive Therapy - change cognitive beliefs both positive and negative

How does the "anxiety dial" turn up?

Can be based on many things: - vulnerability of indv - child abuse - los SES: more bad things that happen and not enough resources to solve them

Learning & Motivation & TI

INESC chickens are more sensitive to external cues such as eyes and mobile members

Rimunation

Constant/ persistent distraction/thoughts

Anxiety, like all emotions is on a ________

Continuum, its like a dial Dial is 0 = threshold is far to the right: not afraid, even if threat is there and is missed you dun currr Dial is 5 = threshold in the middle; ration of misses to FA is equal Dial i 11 = threshold is far to the left, you have more FA than misses, more anxious/aware of environment

What is the convention with working memory and disruption, and how is it different from depressive rumination

Convention for WM is that it is very easy to disrupt, however depressive rumination is almost impossible to disrupt; theyre constantly thinking about the event

Depressed people and causal understanding

Dep ppl are obsessed with causal understanding They are triggered when their causal understanding of the world is disrupted Depressive thinking is designed to understand causal thinking

Kellar et al (2002)

Depressed vs non depressed women on their ability to understand risk of breast cancer before and after given more information on it Found that depressed women acc changed their follow up risk level - indicating that they thought out and analyzed the information given to them and came to a conclusion, it was not quick and frugal as the non depressed women as they didnt change their follow up scale much at all

RRS

Depressive Rumination Rating Response Two sub scales - Brooding - Pondering

Phases of Encounter with Predator

Detect/encounter potential predator: freeze, avoid detection Predator pursues/ attacks: try to escape; run away Cannot escape predator: Tonic Immobility (TI)

Lessons learned about anxiety being an evolutionary trait

Emotional states can be regulated like a dial Function of anxiety is not to produce an accurate representation of the world; but to protect against threats If you understand how emotional adaptations work, you gain power over them

What Triggers TI

Fear Restraint

Spontaneous remission

Found that most individuals diagnosed with depression under the DSM 5, gradually underwent remission after 60 months (5 yrs)

Bartoskova et al. (2018)

Found that: Depression promotes > causal analysis which promotes > problem solving analysis with negatively feedbacks to > Depression and reduces depressive symptoms All significant figures within 3 McMaster groups and 2 Czech republic groups

RCA and Working Memory

Hold a lot of info in working memory - all the events in causal chain Kept there through repetitive recall (depression forces you to undergo repetitive recall)

Vulnerability as defined by Bateson

How bad it would be for that individuals fitness if a real threat went undetected Literature says it is: lambda = Pnt/Pt * Wmiss/Wfa Prof says it is: lambda = Pnt/Pt * Wfa/Wmiss Where Pnt = probability when threat is not present Pt = probability when threat is present Wmiss = fitness affect of miss Wfa = fitness affect of a false alarm

Anxiety Symptoms & Their Functional Significance

Hypersensitive to noise - response to threat is easily evoked Insomnia - constant alertness Restless/ inc HR - prepared for action Attention to cues - notice threats sooner Ambiguity Aversion - Avoidance of situations whose threat level is unclear

How are depressive rumination and RCA related?

If you have a symptomatic understanding of depression there is a strong correlated with RCA Rumination is repetitive recall, RCA is also repetitive recall (Working memory of causal events)

Anxiety Life Responses (ALR)

Inc HR Stress hormones Restlessness Vigilance Fear of potentially dangerous environment Decreased exploratory and feeding behaviour

Tonic Immobility

Involuntary, evolutionary trait; cannot control Elicited after all controllable escape measures have been taken, and nothing worked

Can corrective action still be taken if you are not distressed about the situation?

No! You need distress to feel guilty, and want to remove that feeling bu fixing the problem. If you do not feel guilty, or at fault then you wont do anything to change your actions. It needs to personally affect you

He thinks that symptoms of depression are a...

Normal emotional response

How is emotional distress correlated with changes in a physicians practice?

Positively correlated They pay more attention to detail, to make sure that mistake never happens again i.e. check patient chart personally, trust judgment of others less Similar to how pain causes avoidant learning, so the indv does not suffer pain and has a change in motivational state to stay away from pain. Mistakes/ distress to physicians cause them to make changes to their practice, have motivational changes, in order to not feel that worthless/ guilty feeling again

Pondering

Problem solving analysis Purposeful turning inward and asking questions to relieve ones cognitive depressive symptoms Higher levels of pondering = lower levels of depression later

Amygdala Function

Processing emotion; responding to unexpected or harmful stimuli Fear condition has both uncertainty and fear components

What is the function of Anxiety

Protect against threats; "better safe than sorry" NOTE: the more uncertain or ambiguous a situation is the more anxiety there is

RCA requires a subjective understanding of what?

RCA requires a subjective understanding of what an indv did right or wrong, in order to understand if they need to change. Non depression ppl - have self bias, they believe they are better than average Depressed ppl - depressive realism, they have a more even handed comparison of themselves to others. Since RCA requires you to understand what you did wrong to what you did right, depressed people have more of a grasp on that as they compare themselves more even handedly. They seek more negative information/ diagnostic information to help them change what they did wrong to prepare for next time. If an indv with a self bias believes that they are above average, the problems are never within themselves, they are on other people. Making RCA less likely (?)

Two Pathways for responding to an unexpected/ harmful stimuli

Short Path - Eyes > Visual thalamus > Amygdala > Response - Reflex response Long Path - Eyes > Visual thalamus > Visual Cortex > Amygdala > Response - Understanding/ processing the information and the situation

Analytical Rumination Hypothesis

Since there is more info in WM, usually easy to disrupt. However not the case for depressive rumination, as depressive rumination is really hard to disrupt ARH states that depression evolved because there were problems that were so complex that they needed to be analyzed more to be solved. The adaptation is to promote uninterrupted analysis of a triggering problem -> SAD MOOD CREATES ARMOUR AROUND WEAKEST POINT DURING WM

Depressed people socially withdraw, T or F

TRUE! However, if social interaction will help their problem they will socially engage to resolve the issue

Individuals are more likely to express the depressed phenotype when they encounter an event that was preventable. T or F?

TRUE! There has been an event which if taken on by a different approach could have been preventable:)

Different models of ARH

Type 1: Problem > Problem solving Type 2: Complex problem > Depression > Causal Analysis > Problem Solving Analysis > negative feedback to depression

Physicians after serious mistake

feel guilt/ anger towards themselves self degrading thoughts (common with depression) physicians can reach levels of clinical depression

There is a period of ___________ when learning a condition

uncertainty