...unsettling thoughts and repetitive, ritualistic behaviors. This essay discusses the neuroanatomical, neurophysiological and neural psychological aspects of obsessive compulsive disorder. A range of studies have identified several regions within the brain thought to contribute to the disorder including the orbitofrontal cortex, important in reward based learning, the anterior cingulate cortex, important in error detection, the basal nuclei, involved in motor control, and the thalamus, involved in processing and relaying sensory information. These regions form part of larger neural circuits which could be responsible for the disorder. OCD causes a number of cognitive deficits in its sufferers, from problems in self-perception and regulation to memory and planning deficits. The Neuroanatomical, Neurophysiological and Neuropsychological aspects of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric disorder thought to affect between 2% to 3% of the population (Koprivovaa et al., 2011) marked, as its name suggests, by recurrent intrusive thoughts which produce anxiety usually with repetitive ritualistic behaviors intended to reduce or neutralize this anxiety. Compulsive actions can include checking, counting or repetition, ordering and symmetry, washing, and hoarding (Neel, Stevens and Stewart 2002). Common obsessions include a fear of unintentionally harming oneself or others, a fear of dirt or germs or a fear of losing needed possessions. According...
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...This is commonly referred to as the “fight or flight response”. When emotional abuse is persistent over time, a child’s brain adapts to a state of chronic (toxic) stress as it continues to develop by maintaining elevated levels of dopamine and norepinephrine (Black, 2016). This decreases neuron activity in the prefrontal cortex, which is the brain’s emotion regulation center, while concurrently increasing the brain’s sensitivity to psychosocial stress and further reinforcing the reactivity of the body’s stress response over time (Black, 2016). One 2010 study found that emotional abuse in childhood (ages 0-16), independent from other variables, including psychological diagnosis and other forms of child maltreatment, may lead to lower prefrontal cortex volume in adulthood (van Harmelen et al., 2010). This study was relatively small (less than 100 subjects), but the findings do infer that significant neurobiological changes may occur as a result of emotional abuse, illustrating the detrimental effects of emotional abuse on child development (van Harmelen et al.,...
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...“The Wisdom Paradox” (Goldberg, 2005) is a fascinating book about the biology of cognitive wisdom, including its unique costs and benefits. This book provides a thorough explanation of how people in later stages of life successfully undertake major cognitive tasks, as well as how this aptitude can be maximized. With vigorous and life-long mental activity in novel tasks learning new information, an aging person can gain wisdom and minimize clinical brain injury. Wisdom has intellectual, practical, moral, and spiritual facets. It can be defined as extensive pattern recognition of new information or situations as accurately being in some way similar to familiar information or situations, thus leading to successful problem-solving and reasoning abilities. There are many types of wisdom, including genetic, phylum wisdom, species or cultural wisdom, group wisdom, and individual wisdom. The wisdom of the phylum, which is contained in the amygdala, includes genetically-programmed, innate fears and survival mechanisms that have existed in all species for millions of years through evolution. This type of wisdom uses sensory and motor regions of the cortex, as well as subcortical regions of the brain. Cultural wisdom is expressed as language and other symbolic systems passed down through the generations for thousands of years. Language is made up of a self-organizing, complex neural network widely spread throughout various regions of the cortex that are not pre-wired. Group wisdom includes...
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...The brain is the largest and most complex part of the nervous system. It weighs about 3 pounds (1.3 kilograms), and contains about 100 billion neurons. Bateman, J. Fremont. "The Brain and Nervous System." The New Book of Popular Science. Grolier Online, 2013. Web. 12 Aug.2013. Cerebrum, one of the major divisions of the brain. "Cerebrum." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2013. Web. 12 Aug. 2013. Cerebrum The cerebrum, which comprises about 85% of the weight of the human brain, is involved in the ability to plan, to exercise creativity, and to store information in memory. On its surface is the cerebral cortex, a sheet of gray matter named for its wrinkled appearance (cortex being the Latin word for tree bark). Cerebral Cortex. Varying in thickness from about 0.06 to 0.2 inch (1.5 to 4.5 mm), the cerebral cortex not only receives and processes information regarding taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell but also governs muscle movement, thus allowing humans to analyze their surroundings and to respond to them as well. The cerebral cortex is divided into three areas, with two less structurally developed areas respectively processing emotion and smell, and the more elaborate neocortex processing all other functions. The three-layered archicortex is the emotional portion of the brain and is the simplest of the three. The three- to five-layered paleocortex is the olfactory portion of the brain. The neocortex is a more complex six-layered structure...
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...Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder is a common psychological disorder with a pathophysiology that is not well understood. The choice treatment is with strong psychoactive stimulants (methylphenidate), which has helped to establish much of the known pathophysiology of the disorder. Medication administration to young children is becoming exceedingly common and it is suspected here that methylphenidate has effects on neurodevelopmental processes. Much of the imaging data which suggest neuroanatomical differences observed in ADHD are confounded by the inability to control for lifetime-medication use in the sample. Animal data have demonstrated that acute methylphenidate administration can cause significant changes in juveniles. A 2 multi-level analysis of the current literature assessing the structural differences in ADHD with respect to methylphenidate administration is the focus for this review. Methods include: MR structural, MR diffusion, MR spectroscopy, Positron Emission Tomography, and Histology. Based upon this review, the current administration of methylphenidate to young ADHD patients should be reevaluated to account for the uncertainty in medication-induced neurodevelopment. Neuroanatomical Differences in ADHD Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a common psychological disorder which impacts a large number of children, adolescence, and even adults. The latest epidemiology, reported by Schmitt et al. (2009) is about 5% (70,000,000 people) worldwide, and ranging...
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...RUNNING HEAD: SOURCE MEMORY AND THE IMPLICATION OF THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Memory has a multitude of facets that comprise what a memory is and how a memory is characterized. Some memories are recollections, hazy moving pictures; some are unconscious working memories, while others are a bit more in depth. A source memory is a type of memory in which we remember who, what, where, when and how of a specific event. It is what gives our memories relative meaning to both time and the significance of the events that occurred in our life. A memory is generally meaningful regardless, but when we can recollect the sources of that memory, it fine tunes the events surrounding it as well as future recollections. The ability to source our memories comes full circle within our lifetime, developing in early adolescence throughout early and late adulthood, and eventually the ability becomes more tasking for our cortex within old age. Time is one of life’s few constants, a never ending stream of information in this space-time continuum. The ability of our mind to capture moments of this past in an almost capsule like photograph is astounding, being able to source these times shows how powerful memory is and the capture of moments in this never-ending continuum. Myriads of studies on source memory have been conducted and more recently within the past few decades. The studies herein focus on various source memory tasks throughout age groups, examining the differences...
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...AGE ON SHORT TERM MEMORY ABSTRACT: Age associated declines in cognitive processes are important to the understanding of the human mind. This study investigates the relationship between ageing and short term memory in particular, by first exploring current cognitive and neuroscientific research involving concepts such as short term/working memory, long term memory and ageing, and secondly, by means of a short term memory experiment involving verbal and numerical stimuli, that was administered to two age groups- 20 to 40 year old adults and 50 to 70 year olds. The results of the experiment were then analysed using the ANOVA statistical software programme. The results did not conclusively show age related decline in short term memory performance in all segments of the test. Memory decline with increased age was apparent in the free recall word stimuli, and in the analyses of the number of incorrectly remembered words. The serial recall digit sequence did not show any statistically significant effects. The final section of this study addresses the possible explanations for the results, as well as the limitations of the study. Contents 1.Introduction 5 2.What is memory? 5 2.1 short term memory 5 2.2 working memory 7 2.3 the relationship between ageing and memory 8 2.4 long term memory ...
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...NEUROSCIENCE OF MEMORY What is memory? It is often associated with the “thinking of again” or “recalling to the mind” of something learned at an earlier time. Descriptions of this sort imply a conscious awareness in the rememberer that they are recollecting something of the past. For example, we might remember our first day of school or some general knowledge such as who the prime minister is. On closer reflection, this is only really the tip of the iceberg when we look at the full range of human memory capabilities. Much of our memory is submerged from conscious view (e.g., skills such as driving or typewriting). Performance on complex tasks such as playing a musical instrument can even be disrupted when conscious awareness intrudes. We learn and remember how to use language often without having to be conscious of its grammatical rules. A better description of memory could be ‘the ability to retain and utilize acquired information or knowledge’. Memory is an integral part of our existence, yet it is only vaguely understood. Through empirical studies on people, the methods of cognitive psychology have lead to some useful descriptions, distinctions and theoretical advances in our understanding of different types of memory. These approaches have paid little attention to the biological substrate of memory – the brain. This is probably partly because, until recently, the tremendous complexity of the brain has hampered our ability to gain useful insights into memory from...
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...Neuron, Vol. 44, 379–387, October 14, 2004, Copyright 2004 by Cell Press Neural Correlates of Behavioral Preference for Culturally Familiar Drinks neural responses, and the modulation of both by nonodor or nonflavor stimuli—that is, the sensory problem. Ultimately, such sensory discriminations and the vari- Samuel M. McClure,1,2 Jian Li,1 Damon Tomlin, Kim S. Cypert, Latane´ M. Montague, and P. Read Montague* Department of Neuroscience ables that influence them serve to influence expressed Menninger Department of Psychiatry behavioral preferences. Hence, there is another large and Behavioral Sciences piece of the problem to understand. For modern huBaylor College of Medicine mans, behavioral preferences for food and beverages 1 Baylor Plaza are potentially modulated by an enormous number of Houston, Texas 77030 sensory variables, hedonic states, expectations, semantic priming, and social context. This assertion can be illustrated with a quote from Anderson and Sobel (2003) Summary profiling the work of Small et al. (2003) on taste intensity and pleasantness processing: Coca-Cola (Coke) and Pepsi are nearly identical in chemical composition, yet humans routinely display “A salad of perfectly grilled woodsy-flavored calastrong subjective preferences for one or the other. mari paired with subtly bitter pale green leaves of curly endive and succulent petals of tomato flesh in This simple observation raises the important question a deep, rich balsamic dressing...
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...THE USES OF REASON by Jonah Lehrer The summer of 1949 had been long and dry in Montana; the grassy highlands were like tinder. On the afternoon of August 5—the hottest day ever recorded in the area—a stray bolt of lightning set the ground on fire. A parachute brigade of firefighters, known as smokejumpers, was dispatched to put out the blaze. Wag Dodge, a veteran with nine years of smokejumping experience, was in charge. When the jumpers took off from Missoula in a C-47, a military transport plane left over from World War II, they were told that the fire was small, just a few burning acres in the Mann Gulch river valley. As the plane approached the fire, the jumpers could see the smoke in the distance. The hot wind blew it straight across the sky. Mann Gulch is a place of geological contradiction. It is where the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains, pine trees give way to prairie grass, and the steep cliffs drop onto the steppes of the Midwest. The gulch is just over three miles long, but it marks the border between these two different terrains. The fire began on the Rockies’ side, on the western edge of the gulch. By the time the firefighters arrived at the gulch, the blaze had grown out of control. The surrounding hills had all been burned; the landscape was littered with the skeletons of pine trees. Dodge moved his men over to the grassy side of the gulch and told them to head downhill, toward the placid Missouri River. Dodge didn’t trust this blaze. He wanted to be near...
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...ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR Introduction Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations. It does this by taking a system approach. That is, it interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the whole person, whole group, whole organization, and whole social system. Its purpose is to build better relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives. As you can see from the definition above, organizational behavior encompasses a wide range of topics, such as human behavior, change, leadership, teams, etc. Since many of these topics are covered elsewhere in the leadership guide, this paper will focus on a few parts of OB: elements, models, social systems, OD, work life, action learning, and change. Elements of Organizational Behavior The organization's base rests on management's philosophy, values, vision and goals. This in turn drives the organizational culture which is composed of the formal organization, informal organization, and the social environment. The culture determines the type of leadership, communication, and group dynamics within the organization. The workers perceive this as the quality of work life which directs their degree of motivation. The final outcome are performance, individual satisfaction, and personal growth and development. All these elements combine to build the model or framework that the organization operates...
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...current antipsychotic medications. One of the symptoms of schizophrenia that is least responsive to treatment is cognitive impairment of memory and attention; however, there are no adequate pharmacological treatments that able to restore the cognitive function. Cognitive deficits in schizophrenia are associated with abnormalities of prefrontal cortex and hippocampal region. Sex hormones have positive effects in both cortex and hippocampus that may affect the course of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia has a greater different in women compared with men. In women, the symptoms of schizophrenia are exacerbated when estrogen level is low, whereas the symptoms can reduce during pregnancy...
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...Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder or more commonly known as ADHD is a disorder that is common in childhood that continues into adolescence. ADHD is a neurological disorder that affects how the brain receives, processes and responds to information (The National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2014). The main symptoms of ADHD include difficulty staying focused and paying attention, difficulty controlling behavior, and hyperactivity (Brady). Many children suffer from ADHD without being diagnosed because the symptoms are different from child to child. There are three different categories of ADHD. These include predominantly hyperactive impulses, predominantly inattentive, and combined hyperactive-impulses and inattention (Brady). A child can be diagnosed with one of these three categories of ADHD depending on their specific symptoms but most children have a combination of hyperactive-impulses and inattention. The cause of ADHD is unknown but researchers are continually searching for answers. There are many different indications as to what causes ADHD such as genes, environmental factors and possibly the central nervous system (Mayo Clinic Staff, 2013). Several environmental factors have been identified as supposed risk factors for ADHD. In utero events such as maternal stress during pregnancy (Talge, Neal, & Glover, 2007), prenatal exposure to tobacco, alcohol and other drugs/environmental toxins, (Ribas-Fitó et al., 2006) (Pineda et a., 2007), pregnancy/birth complications...
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...Executive Summary Table of Content 1.0 Introduction Newth (2011) defines stress as an applied force or systems of forces which tend to strain an individual body in such a way that the particular individual experiences the feeling of ‘not being in control’. From the psychology point of view, stress can also be considered as a reaction to a stimulus that disturbs an individual’s physical or mental equilibrium (Psychology Today, 2014). Given that numerous stressful events are capable of triggering different responses in human beings, it is fair to say that stress is an event that is omnipresent in every part of life; and hence is worth exploring. Significant investigations and debates into the issues of stress, its determinants and who are generally susceptible to stress have been rife in recent decades (Langan-fox and Cooper, 2011). The general consensus is that frequent exposure to traumatic events is the vital stressor for stress and everyone is susceptible to traumatic events and stress (Langan-fox and Cooper, 2011). Externalisation of stressful behaviours as a result of being exposed to traumatic events such as severe neglect, abuse and repeated violence is clinically termed as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2013). It has been maintained that PTSD creates psychological and physical imbalances in sufferers; and affects their physical and mental well-being negatively (Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2013). From this standpoint...
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...Tiesha Cooper Trinity Christian College Basic Research Skills Dr. King Lucid Dreaming Holzinger (2009), suggests that dreams have been a major importance to cultures throughout the ages. Native Americans viewed dreams as portals to the spirit world, paths to prophecy and quests. A common phenomenon states, there is an experience in which one is aware that one is dreaming and is able to control what happens in the dream. This experience is known as lucid dreaming. Aristotle may have been the first to write about lucid dreaming, although he did not have a term for it (Holzinger B. , 2009). And some Tibetan Buddhists have been practicing something like lucid dreaming for a long time. In Tibetan Buddhism, it was practiced as a form of yoga, called dream yoga, from the eighth century. The goal of dream yoga is to examine your consciousness and bring you to a constant state of awareness. A big part of the belief system of Buddhism is recognizing the world for what it is, free from deception. A lucid dreamer recognizes the dream world for what it is, a dream (Holzinger B. , 2009). A Dutch psychiatrist named Frederik van Eeden came up with the term for lucid dreams in 1913. He claimed that there are nine well-defined types of dreams in all, including ordinary, symbolic and vivid dreams. He recorded several of his own lucid dreams, and his thoughts during them and upon awakening. He remarked that they often involved...
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