human behavioral biology by robert sapolasky in standford (part 5)
to put it simply it helps to know that
the human stress response is the same
for all types of stressors while the
intensity duration varies the internal
biochemistry is the same
He mentions snipping off the connection
from the cortex to the rest of the
brain Moral of the stony a candidate
for this would be someone who has nothing
to lose in the way of pleasure because
there was no pleasure to begin with
So the brain interprets a stressful event, it release
some stress hormones that float down to the
adrenal glands which then pump out their own set
of stress hormones and the body gets ready to
fight off whatever challenges it.
While the body will respond in different ways to
heat or cold, this basic stress response is the same
to all stressors. Add in that all stimulation runs
through the brain and you can see that whether
the pain is physical or psychic, the brain starts
the cascade. So the brain is the reality center, the
stress response is the same, and you end up
having a physical stress response to a mental
event and the response is every bit as real in your
body as it would be if you'd just been assaulted).
this is the biologic element of
Depression
Thyroid hormones metabolism body tempera
energy levels some
depressions are really hypothyroidism
Nutrition hormone levels matter too
Sigman frued has
got somethinggood
about depression
mooring melancholia
ingulatomy is
cut the cortex
in brain to release
of depression
Women are at about twice the risk of
depression as men, and the worst times
are after birth, menopause, and
around the time of their period. This
is also a time of hormones bouncing
around like crazy. Additionally, women
tend to ruminate more on emotionally
upsetting things than men. Sapolsky
jokes about men and how they "can't express
their emotions." But of course there's a real
truth in that which may be a big deal for
depression - if it's at some level about the
cortex expressing emotional thoughts to the
rest of the brain, an incapacity to express
those thoughts would be protective.
welcome
to the party
glucocorticoids
these are released
by the adrenal glands
A portion of the brain known as the reticular
activating system helps focus the brain on the thoughts
and stimuli you want it to see.
For example, if you look around a room
looking for brown colors, you'll see them more
than green colors. Do the opposite and you'll
see more green. It also applies to thinking
processes.
If you ask your brain to come up with five things you
did well today, it will do so. Ask it to come up with five
things you screwed up, and it will do that too.
So these thinking processes are hardwired to direct the
rest of the brain and the body. Start obsessively
thinking things through in the wrong direction and the
These indicate that the full on stress
response is occurring. The more exposure to
glucocorticoids, the greater the risk. It's
possible these are the guys that turn
ruminating thoughts into the derailed train
of depression. Get yourself a massive
stressor, add in the thoughts, and next thing
you know they're throwing the system out of
whack and you don't bounce back.
glucocorticoid
Freud mooring melancholia Tn mourning
we bounce back in melancholia we don't
start off with mixed views lose a loved
one person goal concept dream
frevd
oxytocin
You focus on the love and sense of loss. In melancholia you
cannot put the negative in the background. Instead it grows.
And thankfully as this is going this is just when all those
helpful people in your life will start criticizing you and
telling you to get over it, thus compounding and increasing
the negativity. So you have the grief, but you also have the
guilt and loss that goes with losing the chance to make
things right.
Have 4+ major depressions, and the cycle can just
go on its own (remember the pathways).
In Cushing's, a boatload of these glucocorticoids are
secreted. Common side effect of Cushing's?
Depression. It's also seen when people have to be on
immunosuppressant drugs (these are also the
glucocorticoids) - common side effect? Depression.
But wait you say, how can the hydrocortisone I use
to reduce swelling be the same guy triggering a
massive stress response and suppressing my
immune system? Read Why Zebras Don't Get
Ulcers to find out...
Depression is aggression turned
inwards
that gets internalized fires up
the pathways
lose a parent when
you're under 104 your
risk skyrockets
Depression is also a
genetic disorder St
has some degree of
heritability 504
identical twins
25 full Sibling So again we have
the whole nature nuture in traction
Lack control and you learn to be helpless. You
give up. You aren't able to accept that this thing
is awful but it's not the whole world. Instead you
globalize it and it becomes your whole world.
Research in this area can be sad; rats who have
learned to be helpless in one area (shocks they
can't control) will no longer bother pressing the
lever when moved to a box where hitting the lever
stops the shocks. And people aren't any
different.
Have the bad gene (a serotonin one), add in major stressors and uh-oh. A 30 fold increase
in the likelihood of depression at the extreme. Oh, and glucocorticoids regulate the
expression of the gene.
O
24 part 2
Schizophrenia
Fox p2 is transcription factor that impact
language development influencing both
thought patterns the ability to express
them Fox p2 is a common gene among
many different animals with large
differencesbetween the expression in humans
other animals
when knockout mice are
created their language occurs less
frequentlyis less complex It's estimated
that humans experienced massive
mutation about 200,00 years ago the
gene was massively selected for
when knockout mice and introduce
the human version the mouse becomes more
vocal demonstrates much more complex
expression
Language is
how we
outsmart
plants
sapolsky goes on to note that linguistic
diversity is disappearing were moving
towards a time when only a few languagewill remain
Pigeon (pidgin) languages emerge when people from different cultures come
together (willingly or not) and have to develop an effective means of
communication.
The initial pidgin language will show little to no complexity but over the next 1-2
generations it will evolve the characteristics of real language (syntax, grammar,
etc.) and become a Creole language. And all of the Creoles have a similar
grammatical structure. This suggests - as Chomsky would argue - that there's a
default linguistic structure that humans use to create language which reflects
hard wiring for language within the human brain.
And of all the 6,000 languages in the world, only about 14 different syntaxes are
employed and the vast majority fit within 4 styles, again supporting Chomsky's
views.
This doesn't sound like a bigdeal
until you consider the Sapir Whorf
hypothesiswhich argues that our view of the
world is heavily influenced determined byOur language Lose language you will lose
the entire world view
At its core Sapolsky suggest that
schizophrenia is a disease of abnormal
cognitive associations of loose associations
A normal person can tell a story in a
logical sequence that makes sense
to others This sequential association is
lacking in the
Furthermore, if we consider this from the viewpoint of
Daniel Quinn's Ishmael, we're also losing a worldview
that contributed to a successful style of human life that
lasted for thousands of years (or longer). This is not
good news.
Click languages may have been the initial form of
human communication.
Language evolution is about sequence, with ever
greater complexity emerging.
schizophrenic thought arrangement
leading to loose or ostensibly confused
associations that make sense to the
schizophrenic but which are often
Puzzling to the listener
next trouble is
abstraction is
this literal A
Parable A
rumor
Schizophrenics are terrible at this they
tend to take things more corretely than
they should For example if you ask
for eomonality among an apple watermelon
Banana Schizophrenic might respond
they are all polysyllabic or use letters
with closed loops instead saying they are
fruits
Dof of the
world language
will dis appre in next century
A key element is the manner in which dual associations to a single word
(boxer, caddy, jaguar) will send the speaker off in a seemingly unrelated
manner. In some ways this suggests an overly unique perception of the
world, whereas normal folks share a more normal set of conversational
cues (this may relate to the earlier discussion on default linguistic
constructions within the brain.)
They are focused on the concrete elements of the words and
sounds instead of seeing what is to the other observer the simple
answer of them being similar types of foods.
o
one effective test for schizophrenia is
the proverb test Proverbs like birds of
in a literal fashion by schizophrenic
but if we
tie together
the concrete
mess of language
the delusions
the fact
that everyone
hears voices
The normal listener knows to disregard the
structure or pronunciation of the words because
they are irrelevant to the question, just as a normal
listener can correctly interpret the meaning of "Yes,
John resigned." from the context of the rest of the
conversation despite completely contradictory
meanings. These types of abstract linguistic leaps
are very easy for most speakers but are lost on
schizophrenics, resulting in an entirely different,
and disorganized, communication style.
Delusions are another hallmark of schizophrenia. This can include believing
one was there or came up with certain ideas of historical importance.
Paranoia is also common.
Sapolsky points out that if the world makes very little sense to you (and it
would if you were schizophrenic), then the world would be very threatening.
It's not that crazy to become afraid of listening devices in bananas if your
entire world is filled with people treating you like you're crazy and trying to
give you pills so you'll behave differently.
In a world like that, there's really no reason why the bananas aren't also out
to get you. Lastly hallucinations are another calling card. The vast majority of
hallucinations are auditory. Sapolsky notes this isn't fully understood,
fThe shout out to his
student was nice but
the notion is off if
there are more fragmented
visual image then the
proportion of visual
hallucinations would be
higher since the
opportunity is higher
MRI
Social with drawl is
also typical sadly the majority of the
psychiatric drugs given to schizophrenics
aim to eliminate the hallucinations but
do little to alleviate the more social
(bear in mind also that people have
different learning styles - some people
learn best from visual sources, some by
doing and some by hearing.
Get yourself a person that learns best by
hearing, factor in that hearing is a
neuronal process of conversion in the
brain and then add in some concreteness
in thinking that the "voice" you hear is real
and you have yourself a hallucination.)
For it to be lower in the presence of more stimuli is
backward since it requires the schizophrenic mind to
actively and correctly interpret vast amounts of
fragmented stimuli and only occasionally get it
wrong. Psychiatric disorders aren't characterized by
getting things right nearly all the time and then
occasionally goofing up. That is unless the reader
never thought they saw something they didn't. It's
more about not being able to distinguish
abstractions from realities. Stare in a mirror long
enough and you'll see something that isn't really
there. Be a schizophrenic doing that and you're
going to crap your pants because you'll take what
you see as something real.
isolation And of course the more o
estraged your thoughts beliefs will
become
t Scan
schizophrenia typically begins in the
late teen years into the early 20 s
The typical victim is someone who was
always a little odd a little isolated
who had lots of imaginary friends
at an age when others had let their
imaginary friends go
He points out that while stories of
schizophrenics gone mad and bloody make
for good news, the actual rate of violence is
low, lower than with normal folks, with the
exception of self-injury. Half of
schizophrenics attempt suicide and suicide
attempts are more common among those
that have more periods of remission/clarity
that permit them to assess how awful the
experience truly is.
This person then encounters a massive stressor and on comes the problem. This is around the same time that the
frontal cortex gets its last big burst of growth. A line of thinking is that whatever prompts the schizophrenia has to
do with this section basically getting kicked one too many times, creating a cascade of other problems.
Schizophrenia is rooted in the cortex (the cortex being responsible for coordination of thoughts, self control,
reasoning, etc.)