PSYCH 202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 29: Learned Helplessness, Benzodiazepine, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor
22 Feb 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Learned helplessness: experience of many negative events outside of a person"s (perceived or actual) control -> general feelings of helplessness, this does not explain everyone"s experience with depression - sometimes it seems to appear from nowhere. Learned helplessness procedure can create depressed-like animals: stressful experience -> animals "give up" in other negative contexts, one study (2014, relationship between pfc activity and learned helplessness outcome (resiliency vs. helplessness, shocks to mice were unpredictable. Major findings: rats who were resilient after stress weakened synaptic strength in mpfc, lower overall neural activity, rats who were helpless after stress strengthened synaptic strength in mpfc, chemical enhancement of pfc neurons, resilience -> helplessness! Brain-related treatments: current typical prescriptions: drugs that increase availability of dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin (e. g. ssris, snris, mao-is) Ssris: affect serotonin quickly, bud mood effects take awhile (depression does not mean too little serotonin, alternately, shock/stimulate the brain (ect, tms, dbs), which results in quick relief (days instead of weeks), but frequent relapse.
