PSY 2301 Chapter Notes - Chapter 8: Frontal Lobe, Nervous System Disease, David Paterson
Document Summary
Sids (sudden infant death syndrome): the unexplained death while asleep of seemingly healthy infant less than 1 years old (kills about 2500 babies in the u. s. yearly). Linking sids to serotonin: more recent post-mortem studies reveal that sids victims are more likely than typical babies to have a particular gene variation that makes the serotonin (5-ht) transporter unusually efficient. Normally, the serotoningeric system helps to stimulate a mechanism that responds to high carbon dioxide levels in the blood and acts to expel the gas. In babies with sids, serotonin is cleared from the synapse more rapidly than normal: this action makes serotonin less effective in regulating life-threatening events such as carbon dioxide buildup during sleep. Structural development can be studied and correlated with the emergence of behaviour: 2. Behavioural development can be analyzed and predictions made about what underlying circuitry must be emerging: 3.
