PSYCHOBIOLOGY

Balloonist Theory fluid would travel through pipe up the spine to the brain, which sends signals. Pressure would
go back down to the motor and create a reflex.
Main idea was established
Theory proved wrong reaction caused by electricity build-up of ions action potential
o Galvanis frog experiment Voltas first battery

The Neuron
Golgi method of staining distribution of neuron types in the brain can be seen via nerves (cluster of neurons)
Dendrites: receive info from other cell terminals structure reflects info on gathering
Cell body: maintains functioning of cell
Axon hillock: excitatory and inhibitory input determines whether or not the cell fires
o Axon: carries info to other neurons covered in myelin (fatty layer for effnt electrical transmission)
Nodes of Ranvier: allows electrical charge to jump to each node
Terminal buttons: passes electrical signal to dendrite of target cell upon contact
o Contain neurotransmitters (transmits info across synapses)

Synaptic Communication/neurotransmission
Continuation of action potential into the next cell

Neurotransmitters
o EPSP: excitatory post-synaptic potential open Na+ channels Glutamate inputs
o IPSP: inhibitory post-synaptic potential open K+ channels GABA inputs

Action Potential
Axon pillar determines whether there is enough action potential
o Stimulus must reach threshold i.e. EPSP > IPSP
o Depolarisation (Na+) / repolarisation hyperpolarisation (K+) channels open rushes in
equilibrium resting state = graded potentials
stimulation = frequency of action potential = neuron fires releases neurotransmitters received by
receptors excite/inhibit
o Glutamate key excitatory
o GABA key inhibitory
Modulatory neurotransmitters can or impact of other neurotransmitters released into synapse
o Dopamine reward, pleasure, motor function (anticipation of reward = no fire from brain)
Pimo anti-psychotic drug reward Amphetamine stimulator reward
o Serotonin mood, memory, sleep, cognition - excitatory (Na) and inhibitory effects (K)
Monoamine oxidase, tricyclics, selective serotonin reuptake

Endocrine Glands
Secrete hormones into blood stream for regulation
o Hypothalamus, pituitary, parathyroid, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas, ovaries/testes
Involuntary, regulated by autonomic nervous system

Smooth Muscles vs. Voluntary Muscles
Smooth: controlled by ANS muscles work automatically e.g. Cardiac muscles
Voluntary: controlled by SNS control all aspects of body movement e.g. Skeletal muscles

Somatic vs. Autonomic Nervous System
Somatic: consists of sensory and motor neurons
o Sensory receptors in skin send info to motor
neurons = executes voluntary muscle
movements (withdrawal and Patellar reflex)
o Impaired sensory/motor nerves = damage in
dorsal/ventral section of vertebrae
Autonomic: connects brain to organs and glands
o Sympathetic excitation
salivation, digestion heart rate,
breathing rate blood pressure
Blood: digestive system heart and
lungs muscles and performance
o Parasympathetic relaxation
Energy acquisition and storage
Parkinsons disease disorder of voluntary motor control
Nervous System
Provides the biological basis,
or substrate, for
psychological experience
Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
Carries information to and from the
central nervous system
Central Nervous System (CNS)
Directs psychological and basic life
processes; responds to stimuli
Somatic Nervous System
Conveys sensory information
to the CNS and sends motor
messages to muscles
Autonomic Nervous System
Serves basic life functions, such
as the beating of the heart and
response to stress
Sympathetic Nervous System
Readies the body in response to
threat; activates the organism
Parasympathetic Nervous
System
Calms the body down;
maintains energy
Spinal Cord & Brain

Hypothalamus & pituitary
Hypothalamus regulates fundamental state of physiology
o Temperature, eating (ghrelin hunger), sleeping, sexual activity and fight or flight
Pituitary controlled by hypothalamus, releases hormones into blood, makes contact with other endocrine
glands for regulation
o Connect the brain and endocrine system to control functions of the body
Homeostasis Claude Bernard, Walter Cannon
o Living body is relatively independent of surrounding/external environment
o Body mechanisms detect current state and maintain a set point = optimal condition

Dopamine and reward, Serotonin and mood, Noradrenaline and attention, Acetylcholine and cognitive function

Endorphins pain and pleasure
Blocks pain pleasure and subjective pleasure
Glutamate and learning
Crucial in learning and memory most abundant neurotransmitter in the brain
GABA and inhibition

Four main lobes of the brain (cortex)
Frontal motor cortex controls body
Parietal taste and touch
o Wernickes area ability to comprehend language
o Brocas area (extension of motor cortex)
Temporal hearing and smell
Occipital vision
o Intersection of occipital and parietal = sensory-motor dorsal-visual stream
o Hemispatiall neglect impairment in vision
Sub-cortical structures
Thalamus carries sensory information back to cortex
Hippocampus memory and navigation
Striatum voluntary action
Amygdala emotion
ANIMAL LEARNING
Continuity of species: common characteristics across animal species appearance & behaviour

Associative learning
- Pavlovian/classical conditioning - One stimulus predicts another stimulus
Pavlovs dog US, UR, CS, CR stimulus substitution
o Examples on sexual behaviour (Akins 1998) and emotional responses (Olsson & Phelps 2007)
o Contrary: opponent process CR opposite to UR (saline insulin experiment)
Activation of amygdala
Principle of equipotentiality reality some things are easier to learn than others
o Garcia & Koelling (1966) rat experiment
o Ohman human experiment (spiders vs mushroom images phobic vs neutral) covariation bias
Vicarious learning learning by observation
Observational learning in humans
Mineka observational learning in monkeys
Contiguity, contingency, surprise
o 1. CS & US temporally related delayed (best allows preparation), trace, simultaneous (worst)
o 2. US dependent on CS lack of receptors = bad predictions
o 3. Prevents blocking (US prediction = learning)
During development
o Infant memories characterised by
Hard to treat context-independent broadly generalised
o Psychopaths: activation in amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex
Extinction amplitude/frequency of CR as a function on non-reinforced presentations of CS
o Competing memory vs associative loss hypothesis learning of second memory
o Recovery Renewal Reinstatement

- Instrumental conditioning
Association with response goal directed behaviour dependent on animals behaviour
o Contingency = positive/negative Outcome = aversive/appetitive
Positive reinforcement positive appetitive (maintain/behaviour)
Negative reinforcement negative aversive ( behaviour/frequency)
Positive punishment positive aversive (terminates/prevents aversive outcome)
Negative punishment negative appetitive (terminates/prevents appetitive outcome)
Thorndikes law of effect = stimulus-response if followed by satisfying outcome
stimulus-response if followed by unpleasant outcome
Pup-in-the-cup associative learning during development

Nonassociative learning
Dual process model: changes in neural and behavioural activity

- Habituation stimulus specific (S-R pathway)
frequency of response as a consequence of repeated experience with stimuli allows ignorance of
familiar experiences (adaptive significance)
Coolidge effect males less sexually aroused by female they have had sex with in the past

- Sensitisation not stimulus specific (aggressive response to surroundings)
response frequency
Heart rate in PTSD
MEMORY & COGNITION

Introspection
Reflecting on conscious thoughts Wihelm Wundt (1897)
Observations may have been misinterpreted/false unscientific, unreliable (corroboration not possible)
Behaviourism
Reinforcer (positive) strengthens link between stimulus and response JB Watson (1913)
Computer metaphor brain and mind = hardware and software
Mental Chronometry (speed of thought time to choose) slightly different from behaviourism
Measures speed & organisation of brain processes
Subtractive methodology: Simple vs. choice reaction time (requires evaluation/deciding slower)

Cognitive psychology
Memories are made in the hippocampus
Dichotic listening task attentional selection
info is processed for semantic meaning description/identification memory
o Early selection: attention focused on single source, others ignored
o Late selection: highly salient info breaks through perceptual system = captures attention
Attention
Endogenous/controlled/internal vs. Exogenous/captured
Controlled (requires concentration) vs. Automatic (no explicit memory/attentional resource)
Stroop (1932) word meanings retrieved automatically but colours extracted take longer = interference

Memory
Attkinson & Shiffrin model of cognition (1968)
Sensory registers
(information lost)
short term/working memory
(information lost)
- requires rehearsal


Retrieval
long term memory
(information lost)

Sensory memory iconic (visual) vs. echoic (audio) capacity, duration (<1sec/a few secs)
ST memory - Recency interferes with ability to encode in LT requires rehearsal
o Phonological loop echoic: holds onto audio info and rehearses sound through inner ear and voice
Limited capacity: 7+/- 2 must look at volume of item
Miller 1952: size/length of unit = space intake
memory capacity: loop = chunked so that it links to LT memory/conjures visual image
o Visuo/spatial scratch pad iconic: holds onto visual memory
Inspecting through visual ST Shepard & Metzler mental rotation 1971
o Central executive directs the phonological loop and the visuo/spatial scratch pad
Focuses on goal-relevant info, best way to achieve, inhibits inappropriate auto responses
o Dysexecutive syndrome: frontal lobe (last to develop in brain) not functioning properly
LT memory - Primacy attn on first few items stored for later retrieval
o Von Restorff the odd one out distinctive items attn
o Declarative: episodic (remember), semantic (know) Procedural memory:(something you do)
o Ebbinghaus 1885 repetition relearn on next day(savings in learning) recall
o Subliminal working does not work consolidation requires time to set a memory in place (embedding)
Retrograde amnesia disrupts consolidation sustaining damage to hippocampus
Levels of processing
o As processing deepens retention improves (effort/understanding required) sight, sound, semantic
o Meaningful, personally relevant and info relating to pre-existing knowledge = easier encoding
Elaboration (belkowski), organisation (categories), imagery, mnemonics, rhymes

Declarative
- Context specificity learning and testing context same
= good performance extrinsic context

- Factors affecting ability to encode: manipulating
intrinsic context: environment/mood/ mental state

- Recall (free response accuracy) vs. recognition
(forced choice accuracy)
Procedural
- Implicit memory: priming makes certain response
more likely = not deliberately remembering

- No conscious effort/context known

- Amnesia does not produce deficits in priming
Retrograde failure to remember things before damage
Anterograde failure to remember things after damage

Semantic networks and false memories
o Memories can lead to activation of core concept mistakenly recorded (nodes central idea)
Schema theory beliefs and expectations (stereotypes)
o Actual details are abandoned to fit in with existing beliefs schema consistency
o Inconsistencies easily lost/changed
o Verbal labels distorts perception/memory misinterpretation
o Group polarisation reinforcement of prejudice confirmation bias
Vividness heuristic
o Thoughts/imaginations vs. actually happened tested by vividness of memory
o Imagination inflation - vividness
o Fallible

SENSATION AND PERCEPTION

-Nervous systems evolved for adaptive behaviour
-Perception interprets sensory input and helps to choose most adaptive
behaviour
-If a sensory system cannot contribute to adaptive behaviour, then it is
selected out

-Sensory perception is important in many aspects of psychology
-Sensation the faculty through which the external world is apprehended.
-Perception the organisation of sensory information
Perceptual anomalies linked to mental illness
e.g. schizophrenia can tickle themselves
Alzheimers perceptual agnosia (loss of ability to recognise objects)
Sensory and motor systems are the foundational psychological systems
Sensory motor systems adjust internal biochemical processes to environmental assault = psychological
systems

The Visual System
-Light is electromagnetic radiation (photons) physical stimulus (sensation = vision)
-The volume of photons varies enormously
-The size of objects on the retina depends on both their physical size and the viewing distance (organ and filtering)
-The eyes move continuously (Youre making micro-saccades)
Light is focussed on the back of the eye and it then hits the retina
Rods = periphery = black and white
Cones = center = colour can be divided into red green blue
Fovea = maximal sensitivity
Benefits of seeing in colour: object recognition, figure ground segregation, disambiguating shadows
-Rods and cones absorb photons and are responsible for transduction



-There is only one type of rod; so we see in monochrome in
dark conditions
-There are no rods in the fovea (predominantly in peripherals),
so in dark conditions there is no visual input in the central
1degree of vision scotopic vision (vs photopic vision in bright
llght)
-The rods and cones connect with bipolar and horizontal cells.
-Bipolar cells connect with amacrine and retinal ganglion cells,
The retinal ganglion cells form the optic nerve
Light retinal ganglion cells (fibres form the optic nerve)
bipolar rod and cone cells (photoreceptors)

-RGCs have discrete, circular symmetric receptive fields (in the
retina)
-There are on cells and off cells
-The Hermann grid illusion can be explained in terms of
RGC/LGN cells
-Trichromatic theory of colour coding (relative activity of three
receptor types)
-Opponent process theory of colour coding (outputs of three independent mechanisms)
-The optic nerve leaving the eye results in a blind spot
(Signal eye hole in eye brain)

-The optic nerve leaves the eyes, there is some crossing over at the optic chiasma so that the left visual field is
conveyed to the right hemisphere and vice versa
- After the thalamus, the visual signal arrives in V1, primary visual cortex (or striate cortex)
-As well as V1 there are several other visual areas (V2, V3 etc)

Property of orientation selectivity:
-V1 cells are orientation and sometimes direction tuned
-There are simple and complex cells in V1
-Orientation tuning is represented in an orderly, segregated fashion
-Colour, depth and motion are also processed in V1
-Visual cortex can be considered to consist of what and where pathways
Where position of objects (engagement w/environment)
What identification (Conscious perception of environment)
Damages deficits of visual processing

Auditory system
Physical stimulus = waves of air (or water/substance), condensation and rarefaction
Sensation = sound pitch, volume, timbre
-Sound is disturbances in ambient pressure
-Simple (sinusoidal) sound waves can be characterised by frequency and amplitude
Amplitude = amount of displacement at the sound source (movement = amp., frequency unchanged)
Frequency = rate of displacement (1Hz = 1 cycle per second)
-Sound intensity is in units of decibels
-Sound frequency is in units of Hertz
-The physical attribute amplitude has the perceptual
equivalent loudness


-The physical attribute frequency has the perceptual
equivalent pitch
-Complex sounds are made of multiple frequencies
(consisting of the fundamental frequency (lowest
frequency) and its harmonics)
-Timbre is determined by the mixture and extent of
harmonics, and build-up and decrease

-The ear consists of middle, outer and inner segments
Tiny bone structures in middle ear amplify vibration
for better transmission to the fluid in the inner ear
-The cochlear contains the organ of corti. The organ
of corti contains the hair cells responsible for
transduction of sound
-There is place theory (which hair cells are
responding) for higher frequencies and
- rate/frequency encoding (how they respond)
of pitch - for lower frequencies
-There is a crossing over nerve fibres between right and left
Ventral stream = identifies sounds
Dorsal = locates sounds

Olfactory system
Odorants are volatile chemicals (physical stimulus), sensation = smell
Odorants dissolve into the mucus membrane of the olfactory epithelium retina of the nose
Odorants trigger responses from the olfactory sensory neurons
Smell is thought to be encoded through a shape-pattern code
Signals are passed from the receptor cells, to the mitral cells in the olfactory bulb
and then hence into the piriform cortex
Olfaction is unusual because it is not gated by the thalamus before the sensory signal enter cortex


MINI SUMMARY
-There are five basic taste sensations
-Taste buds are situated on the papillae of the tongue and in the mouth
-The tongue is not strictly segregated into taste areas
-The gustatory pathway goes through the brainstem and the thalamus

-Weve looked at how pressure is signalled via four receptor types
-The mechanical receptors have receptive fields like in vision
-How the signal is transmitted through the spinal cord, to the thalamus and then onto the cortex
-That cortex has a representation of the body in a map
-Some parts of the body have more representation than others


-The types of pain: nociception, inflammatory and neuropathic
-The pain reflex and pathway
-Temperature sensation warm and cold receptors

- The vestibular system has two parts: the labyrinth organs (semi-circular canals) and the otolith organs
-The hair cells of the crista in the labyrinth organs detect the motion of fluid and encode head rotation
-The hair cells in saccules and utricles detect the motion of crystals and encode hear tilt
Kinesthesia is the encoding of body position
(lecture 5)

Medical evidence suggests that perception is a multi-strand process, with many analyses occurring simultaneously
We dont just see the world
The sensory input in profoundly ambiguous:
- Different objects can produce the same physical signals
- One object can produce multiple physical signals


We assume objects have size, shape and colour constancy
We employ something like Gestalt rules to group parts of the visual scene into objects. Those rules include:
Proximity
Similarity
Good continuation
Closure
Figure ground segmentation is a typical, and important, result of grouping


Sonic objects are also processed by Gestalt rules
We use:
- Interaural Intensity Differences (at high pitches)
- Interaural Timing Differences to infer the sources of sounds
Perception is ecologically tuned; it exploits patterns that occur in our visual environment
Some of the gestalt rules are related to the ecological tuning
We explore visual scenes, fixating particularly on socially important parts and on motion.
The haptic system combines sensory, cognitive and motor system information in the exploration of tactile stimuli
We use context, we combine information across systems (multisensory processing) and we use prior knowledge to
inform our interpretation of sensory input.

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY
Lecture 1- What is abnormal psychology
1.What makes a thought or behaviour abnormal?
Difficult to define
4 characteristics ( limitations )
o Statistical infrequency not all stat. infrequent are abnormal e.g. superior intellect/ability
o Violate social norms norms change over time & differs between cultures
o Cause distress Normal depending on situation & not always associated
w/psychopathologies
o Cause impairment some are highly functional e.g. Aspergers

2.What is a mental disorder?
A distinctive and recognizable cluster of abnormal thoughts and behaviours

3.How do we determine who has a mental disorder and is in need of treatment?
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DMS)
o Defines the line between normal and abnormal
International statistical clarification of diseases and related health problems (ICD-10)

Lecture 2- Causes of mental disorders
1. Biological
Limitations:
No 100% reliable biomarkers for any mental
disorders
Even the most highly heritable mental disorder
are a long way off being entirely heritable
Biomarkers for psychopathology are only
sensitive enough to distinguish between groups,
not between individuals

2. Environmental
3. Biological + Environmental interactions
4. Psychological
Psychoanalytic (freudian) unconscious conflicts
Behavioural (classical conditioning) maladaptive learned responses
Cognitive (operant conditioning) maladaptive
cognitions and beliefs



Lecture 3-
Treating
mental
disorders