PSYCH 3830 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Amygdala, Personality Disorder, Hypomania
9 May 2018
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Lecture 4 - Friday February 9
*personality disorders before the next exams. But don’t study the chapter. It will only be one lecture.*
Maintenance mechanisms for depressive disorders.
The Consilience Model
● Psychology located at level of individual.
● Biological factors discussed at level of brain parts.
● Causal factors also at the level of persons social environment and society.
Causal and maintenance factors of depression. All of these factors we can intervene.
Biological Level -
● Serotonin and norepinephrine (neurotransmitters) - they are both implicated in unipolar
depression (person is only down at the sad end). Medications have been developed to
try to effectively change the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine.
○ Takes a few weeks to start working.
○ Treatment: Drugs that affect these levels are effective in treating depression.
Deep brain stimulation, psychosurgery, electroshock therapy (these are severe
treatments for people who are thinking about suicide) and exercise
● Prefrontal Cortex - where most unipolar depression issues occur
● HPA Axis - super involved in physiological response to stress. People with depression
have abnormal HPA access. Is turned on easily and get stressed easily and they don’t
come down from it easily. Hypothesized that exercise may help with stress
Psychological Level - level of the Individual - what kind of individual factors for depression are
there? There are a few theories….
● Theory of Depression: People who are depressed have a negative view of themselves,
the world, and their future.
○ The person thinks, “I’m bad, the world is a terrible place, and my future is going
to suck a lot.” how do people come to think this way?
■ People don’t always start off this way. Something bad happened to them
(negative trigger) that causes these thoughts.
■ We stop and ask ourselves, “why did this happen to me?” a depressed
person will answer this question, “because I am a terrible person” or
“because the world sucks” etc.
● Another theory: people who are depressed ruminate on their depression.
○ A depressed person thinks only about the bad things of her day. Thinking a great
deal about the negatives of her day instead of thinking about the totality of her
day.
● The three major theories - the individual, the world and their future
● Does this kind of thinking cause depression? Yes.
● Does this kind of thinking come from depression? Yes
● Treatments - cognitive therapy to intervene with their negative assessment of the
individual, the world and their future. As effective as medication, more effective in long
term. This therapy has a larger intrusion on the person’s life.
Social Level - the level of the person’s immediate social environment
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Biological factors discussed at level of brain parts. Causal factors also at the level of persons social environment and society. Serotonin and norepinephrine (neurotransmitters) - they are both implicated in unipolar depression (person is only down at the sad end). Medications have been developed to try to effectively change the levels of serotonin and norepinephrine. Takes a few weeks to start working. Treatment: drugs that affect these levels are effective in treating depression. Deep brain stimulation, psychosurgery, electroshock therapy (these are severe treatments for people who are thinking about suicide) and exercise. Prefrontal cortex - where most unipolar depression issues occur. Hpa axis - super involved in physiological response to stress. Is turned on easily and get stressed easily and they don"t come down from it easily. Theory of depression: people who are depressed have a negative view of themselves, the world, and their future. People don"t always start off this way.
