Psych 101 (4)

• Consciousness- “Is your awareness of everything that is going on around you and inside your own head at any given moment, which you use to organize your behavior”
• Different levels of consciousness

  1. waking consciousness- “clear, organized, and alert”
• Different levels of consciousness

  • altered state of consciousness- “Shift in the pattern and quality of mental activity”
• Two kinds of thought processes

  • Controlled Processes involves conscious attention
• Two kinds of thought processes

  • Automatic Process involves lower level of attention
• 2 sleep processes

  Process C “Circadian Process”- Depends on circadian

  rhythm or body clock
• 2 sleep processes

  • Process S “Homeostatic Process”- Depends on physiological regulation of sleep need and driven by sleep pressure
• sleep reduces adenosine
• circadian rhythm- body’s endogenous clock that runs approximately 24 hours
• Circadian Rhythm- regulates sleep-wake cycle, hunger, mood, and other physiological processes
• Circadian Rhythm- Partly relies on amount of light to regulate sleep-wake cycle
• Light as acts “zeitgeber” or time-giver
• The Suprachiasmatic Nucleus- A set of paired nuclei in the

  poster part of the hypothalamus that regulate circadian rhythms
• Photic information from SCN signals pituitary gland to release melatonin signal brain and body for sleep onset but is not responsible for sleepiness
• adenosine - generates sleep pressure or the desire to sleep and accumulates in the basal forebrain and cerebral cortex during wakefulness and decreases during sleep
• adenosine - amount in your brain increases the longer you are awake
• caffeine attaches to adenosine receptors
• It takes your body 5-7 hours to remove the 50% of caffeine concentration
• N1 - transitional, 5% of sleep time, decrease in awareness but we have

  subjective sense of being awake; appearance of theta waves
• N2 - presence of sleep spindles and K complexes (for memory

  consolidation)
• N3 - slow-wave sleep (SWS), deepest stage, difficult to wake the person

  up, delta waves
• Activated EEG that resembles activity in waking but...

  1. Muscle atonia

  2) Rapid eye movement

  Called paradoxical sleep
• Adaptive Theory of Sleep - Sleep is a product of evolution that help us avoid predators who are active during nighttime
• Restorative theory of sleep- Sleep restores and maintains physical health
• NREM Stages (Sleep Spindles) - Enhances retention of short-term memory to long-term memory and helps in sifting through relevant memory
• REM Sleep - Overnight Therapy Theory (Mental Health) and REM Brain Connects Distantly-related Concepts (Creativity)
• NREM Sleep and Memory

  1. The more sleep spindles during N2, the better the learning retention
  2. Pulses of action potential between hippocampus and the cortex to transfer fact-based memories
• Some Effects of Sleep Deprivation

  Mood reactivity

  1. amygdala
  2. prefrontal cortex
• Some effects of sleep deprivation

  • Problems in memory & learning - Information won’t have lasting retention
• Some effects of sleep deprivation

  • Raises the risk of Alzheimer (amyloid protein)
  • Glymphatic cells (glial cells) cleans up during NREM
  • NREM is reduced in Alzheimer’s
• theories of dreaming

  • Dreams as wish fulfillment - manifest & latent content
• theories of dreaming

  • Activation-Synthesis - other brain areas are activated by the pons; interprets those signals
• theories of dreaming

  • Activation Information Mode - brain uses meaningful parts of person’s recent experiences to explain cortical activation
• The Content of Dreams- It is not the declarative events but rather the emotional tone of the day that predicts dream content
• Psychoactive Drugs - “Chemical substances that alter thinking, perception, memory, or some combination of those abilities”
• Physical Dependence - Body is unable to function without the drug
• Signs of physical dependence

  • drug tolerance: with continued use, larger doses are needed to achieve the same effect
  • withdrawal: physical sensations experienced when deprived of drugs
• Psychological Dependence - “Belief that the drug is needed to continue a feeling of emotional or psychological well-being”
• Stimulants - Psychoactive drugs that speed up or increase activity

  in the central and/or peripheral nervous system
• Stimulants

  • Amphetamines
  • Cocaine
  • Nicotine
  • Caffeine