PSY 3391 Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Adrenal Medulla, Blood Sugar, Corticosterone
29 Dec 2017
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Document Summary
Learning, motivation, arousal, and attention interact and a ect one another. Arousal (stress) is good but to a certain level. High levels of arousal are associated w/ low performance on cognitive tasks. Average levels are good on performance on cog. tasks. Released by the adrenal medulla during exposure to a stressor. Hypothalamus detects the stressor, send the info through the blood stream and into the adrenal glands. Generally enhances memory in a dose- and time dependent manner. Low levels of epinephrine don"t have an impact on our performance of cognitive tasks. When the level of epinephrine gets too high it hinders our performance of cog. tasks and ability to form memories. Glucose is the main fuel for brain functioning. If unregulated blood glucose levels interfere with learning. Insulin is in charge to regulationg blood glucose levels. When levels are too high it will impact brain functioning. Numerous studies have shown a strong correlation between glucose dysregulation and cognitive impairment.
