PSYC-115 FA5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Black Tar Heroin, Oxycodone, Vital Signs
12 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
February 9, 2018
Opioid Epidemic
Confluence!
●Oxycontin-heading west
○Treatment of pain (bromptons cocktail and Bonica)
○1979- Porter and Jick (non-addictive)
○1986- Vital signs: free from pain
○1996- Oxycontin (purdue pharmaceutical; highly promoted as safe and
non-addictive)
●Xalisco boys- heading east
○Local, limited, cheap (black tar heroin)
○1980- drug distribution rings on west coast
○1990- Xalisco boys spread from California
●Confluence- (BTH/Oxycontin)
○2000-spread of pill mills
○2001-2010: Purdue sued and Oxycontin became tamper proof/restricted-dramatic
increase in heroin overdose deaths
●Big Pharma
○Promotion and production
■Innovation vs me-too drugs
■Bockbuster focus
■Lobbying- number 1 lobbying group in the US
■Creating diseases
■Prices
■Patent circumvention
■Off-label
●Research Issues
○There are many things that must be considered and controlled
Today’s class:
Psychology as a natural sciences
●Is the discipline subject to falsifiability? If so, what are the specific procedures used …..
●Perspectives: there are a number of pedagogical positions or assumptions that drive much
of the model and theory building in the field These include:
○Mind (non physical)/ body-> brain (physical)
○Free will (choice)/ determinism-> nature/nurture (caused)
■Free will (perception)
■Determinism (caveat)- sometimes you can’t find the cause
●Perspectives: Determinism
○Nature VS Nurture
■Intelligence (Jensen/Kamin)
■Schizophrenia (Kendler/Szsaz)
●A function of environmental challenges
■Homosexuality (Hamer/Ruse)
●Hamer focused on the genetics of homosexuality (nature)
●Ruse argued that homosexuality was a normal function of societal
rules/norms (environmental)
○Nature AND Nurture
■Genes (nature) make a biological substrate; the environment
(nurture) feeds into that substrate to produce behavior- on exam
■Behavior (extremes)
●Reflexes and instincts
●Learned behaviors
●Nature of Interaction
○Additive- like the genetic program to flex with a pin prick or copulate following a
specific signal from the female mantid; the environment serves as releasing
stimuli that activate the genetic program
○Dynamic interaction (most common interactions)- this can be seen as an
interaction where the relative contributions of each change. Such an interactionist
position has become even more prevalent with the new molecular findings of
changes in gene expression with environmental input.
●Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development
○Sensory motor stage: 0-2 years
○Pre-operational: preconceptual: 2-4 years;
○Concrete operations:
○Formal operations
●Relative Contributions
○Selective breeding
○Cross-fostering
○Transgenic manipulations
○Concordance
○association/linkage
○Gene chip arrays
February 13, 2018- Lecture 8: Nurture- Role of Environment
Perspectives:
●For our purposes, these approaches can be discussed in terms of brand and nature/nurture
○Always Nature AND Nurture, never Nature vs Nurture
Questions about Behavior
●Genes (nature)/environment (nurture)
○Nature of interaction
■Additive
■Specialized
■Dynamic
○Relative contribution
■Selective breeding *used for animal testing
■Cross fostering
■Transgenic manipulations
■Concordance *can be used in humans
■association/linkage
■Gene chip arrays
●The brain is not deterministic: genes and environment TOGETHER determine
behavior
○Mediation of Interaction
■Slide 34 will not be on exam
■DNA makes RNA, makes protein
■Gary Kandel- the slug guy
●Biological Substrate
○What is the basis for this assumption?
■One bit of support for this position comes from a specific pedagogy
examining the role of nature and nurture in behavior
■Another bit of support comes from the philosophical concept of
reductionism
○Reductionism- the philosophical perspective of reducing some phenomenon to a
lower level of analysis
■Mind-behavior-brain-brain units-nerve cells-nerve cell
parts-macromolecules-...
●Genetics, Environment, and Brain-the 3 major things we’ll be looking at for the rest
of the unit
●Role of Nurture:Environmental Basis of Behavior (WT & BFD)
●Perspectives:Environmental
○Nutrients (Alzheimer’s)
