PSYC2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 28: Neurotransmitter, Prefrontal Cortex, Impulsivity
11 Sep 2018
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Document Summary
Increase cognitive inhibition: ability to control internal and external distracting stimuli. Improves from infancy (correlated with development/activity in the frontal lobe: develop attention/memory strategies. Success on selective attention tasks also requires: attention/memory strategies, emerge and are refined during 4 phases, production deficiency preschool, control deficiency early elementary, utilization deficiency young elementary, effective strategy use mid-elementary. Over one third of these persist into adulthood. Results in problems in and outside school: social problems (antisocial behaviour, peer relationships, academic problems (learning) Neurological bases: reduced electrical activity, reduced blood flow, structural abnormalities, neurotransmitter. Slowed development of frontal and temporal lobe but faster dev. of motor cortex. Decreased brain volume (esp. in left prefrontal cortex) Low levels of dopamine and ne arousal: abnormal brain/neurotransmitter functioning, genetics family/twin studies highly heritable, environment, teratogens (alcohol, tobacco, rubella, parenting styles, family stress. Why is it important to treat adhd: untreated adhd can lead to problems later on. 52% with untreated adhd will develop drug or alcohol problems.
