PSYC 3300 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Glucocorticoid, Pituitary Gland
Document Summary
Hypothalamus, the hypothalamus has primary control over the autonomic nervous system, stimulation of the hypothalamus produces autonomic changes. Sweating: beating heart, hunger, thirst, contains several nuclei that activate various physiological responses. Involved in regulating the stress response (hpa axis: the amygdala and the hypothalamus, connections between the amygdala and the hypothalamus controls autonomic fear. Responses: response to fearful stimuli, conditioned fear responses. Input from the amygdala (fear/anxiety) and output to sns (physiological reaction: hypothalamus sends messages to prepare the body to respond to the event. It is an indicator of priority: what requires our attention the soonest, we feel stress when we something demands our attention/effort, this feeling motivates us to deal with the situation and move on. Types of stress: the body responds differently to different types of stress, acute: short-term, clear end, less psychology, more environmental, chronic: prolonged, no clear end, psychological influence, easy to dysregulate the severity of responses to stress.
