Psychology- Biological Approach

• Assumption 1

  Evolutionary influences.

  Adaptation

  Natural selection

  EEA- species adapt, the environment at that time.

  Example- altruistic behaviour, parents risk life to save offspring, inherited trait, enhances survival, and passing on of genes
• Assumption, 2

  Localisation of brain function

  Parietal- sensory process-pain, touch, temperature

  Frontal-thinking, creativity, problem-solving

  Temporal-memory process, smell, auditory information

  Occipital-visual processing, receives incoming information from the eyes

  Example-phineas gauge
• Assumption, 3


  Neutrotransmitters

  Neurons-cells found in brain and nervous system. work by sending chemical and electrical messages to each other at the synapse.

  Dopamine-controls body movement and emotional response, dopamine deficiency related to depression.

  Serotonin- affects emotions and motor skills the chemical that supports sleeping, eaten and digestion.

  Example-Aron et al 2008
• Relationship formation


  Romantic relationship

  Set a goal of finding a partner being driven to achieve this= hit of dopamine, gives a natural high when finding a partner.

  Oxytocin-humans bonding more trust and more loyalty

  Dopamine- finding someone physically attractive, dopamine levels rise, increased desire to form a relationship.

  Neutral transmitters are helpful to understand the above relationship
• Biological approach

  Assumes psychological disorders have a physiological cause
• The views of the biological approach are based on mental illnesses being like physical illnesses
• Changes in neurotransmitter system will affect our moods, feelings, perceptions and behaviours
• Biological approach

  Illness can be treated in a physical way
• Biological approach

  Mental illnesses are treated through direct manipulation of bodily processes
• Treatments advocated by biological approach

  • Psychotherapeutics drugs used to alter action of neutral transmitters
• antipsychotic drugs

  Treat psychotic mental disorder, such as schizophrenia

  Used to combat positive symptoms of schizophrenia, e.g. delusion and hallucinations

  Drugs, block action of dopamine by binding into, but not stimulating receptors

  Example- atypical, antipsychotic drugs= temporarily occupying receptors, and rapidly dissociating to allow normal, dopamine transmissions. Low levels of side effects.
• Antidepressant drugs

  Depression and insufficient amount of serotonin

  Normally NT always being released from nerve endings-stimulating, neighbourneutrons

  A.D. works by reducing the rate of reabsorbs/blocks enzymes, breakdown, NT

  SSRIs, work by blocking transport mechanisms that absorbs serotonin into pre-synaptic cells after fired

  More serotonin in synapse + Prolonging activity+ transmission of the next impulse easier
• Anti-anxiety, drugs

  Most common= Benzodiazopines

  Lower activity, CNS, by enhancing activity of GABA-> the bodies, natural form of anxiety release.

  Beta blockers-activity of Adrenaline+ noradeenaline, is response to stress.

  BBs bind to cells of the heart and other body parts.

  Therefore, heartbeats, slower and with less force and vessels don’t contract as easy

  So lower blood pressure and less stress on the heart= Calmer
• Side effects of SSRIs

  • Nausea
  • Headache
  • Common side effects
• Side effects of SSRIs are enough to make people not take the drugs
• Tic antidepressants

  • Have more side-effects than SSRIs
  • More likely to be used
• Placebo

  Ethical issue - no patient should be given a treatment known to be inferior. If effective treatments exist, should be used as control condition.
• Information for patient


  Ethical problem, valid consent, patients find it difficult to remember facts related to the potential side-effects. Medical professionals with some information about drugs.
• Comparison

  • Cheap
  • NHS prescribed
  • Less consultation time only catch ups
  • Efficient and easy compared to the others
• Soromo et al 2008 studied SSRI with OCD and found it effective and better than placebo in lowering symptoms of OCD
• While drugs treat symptoms

  Underlying causes aren't addressed
• Drugs may be effective but not long-term for everyone, can result in revolving door syndrome (back-and-forth from disorder never really cured)
• Study research methods

  Quasi-experiment, matched pairs
• Study-participants

  Murderers-41. Mean age-34.3 years old, all charged for murder or manslaughter.. all paid did not guilty by reason of insanity. 39 men and two women.

  Control group-matched each murderer with normal individual, same sex and age, 6 schizophrenic match with six schizophrenic from mental hospital. Non were taking medication.. murderer matched with normal person, both had the same mental disorder
• Opportunity sampling

  1. PET scans

  2. Study

  3. Active brain
• PPs

  All participants
• Procedure

  1. Injection of FDG tracer

  2. Tracer taken up by active area of the brain

  3. Comparing the brains
• Discontinuous performance tasks


  Tasks aim to activate target areas of the brain so investigators could see how different areas functioned
• Procedure

  1. PPs given to practice a CPT before receiving injection

  2. 30 seconds before receiving the tracer, they started the CPT

  3. 32 minutes after FDG injections, a PET scan was done to determine brain activity
• Horizontal slices

  Recorded using peel and box technique
• Main findings

  Reduced activity in NGRI brain and prefrontal, cortex, and corpus callosum.

  Increased activity in brain ofNGRI PPS in areas, notably the areas previously linked to violence

  Murderers, he reduced activity in some areas, notably the areas linked to violence

  Performance of CPT- both groups performed, similarly. any observed brain differences were not related to task performance

  Differences, not controlled for- ethnicity, 14 of murderers = non-white, but a comparison between them and white murderer shows no significant difference in brain activity
• Conclusions

  Prefrontal cortex. Damage to this area.= Lack of self-control and immaturity. Could cause aggressive behaviour.

  Neural processes underlying violence are complex and can’t be reduced to a single brain mechanism violent behaviour best explained by disruption by a network of interacting mechanisms does not equal the course but can predispose
• ethical/, social implications

  Ethical - Valid consent (mentally competent to consent). Risk of psychological harm.(self esteem during CPT.) right to withdraw.(did they understand study was not part of their case.)

  Social- if research suggest murderer as a born not made, this could be led to pre-judgement of others with mental disorders and no fair trials. Also is it taken away personal responsibility?