Biology

[equalsmcsquared.livejournal.com]

I trust all of you had a pleasant Halloween. Coffee, sodas and candy are near the back next to the roll sheet. Anyone who hasn't turned in a body farm report or the substitute report needs to do so today.

Biological psychology may be looked at as a hybrid of neuroscience and psychology. Practitioners of biological psychology may use their knowledge of the brain, from neurotransmitters to the cerebral cortex to treat their patients. Others may use this knowledge to search for biological causes for common mental illnesses, such as depression and schizophrenia.

Many psychologists focus largely on the mental processes of their patients. Biological psychologists work on the basis that there is an organic basis to mental processes, and that this requires them to understand the way that mental processes are instantiated in the brain. They recognize that treating the organic problem may be accomplished by talking as well as drugs.

In today's lab, I would like you to look at the following list of symptoms and/or incidents and reason out whether the cause of the dysfunction is biological or psychological. So long as your answer is supported with data, I will accept either.

Comments

[forlornslayer.livejournal.com]

Buffy signs in and starts getting to work immediately.

[psycho-barbie.livejournal.com]

Callisto signs in and starts working, although she does cast an occasional wary glance in Sidle's direction.

[maias-notebook.livejournal.com]

Maia signed in

Acute Stress Disorder is a psychological dysfunction. The disorder stems from a stimuli of a traumatic event not from a health disorder or malformation of a gene or the brain including chemical imbalances as with people who sometimes suffer from depression or mental health issues. Also ASD is not a permanent dysfunction and is often alleviated in 2 days to 4 weeks of the original incident.

Maia smiles at Sara warmly waiting to see what she thinks of the answer.

[equalsmcsquared.livejournal.com]

Very good, Maia. *smiles*

[deadlikegeorge.livejournal.com]

George signs in and stares blankly at the list. She's drained emotionally and physically, and nothing seems to compute.

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

*sits down, and starts working, awaiting the arrival of her lab partner*

[maias-notebook.livejournal.com]

Maia smiles back very pleased to find she is no longer tense in Sara's classroom.

[mycanonhatesme]

Chloe signs in and gets to work on the list, snickering to herself at how many of these disorders could describe people she knows.

[lovelylana.livejournal.com]

Lana signs in.

There is some disagreement about Autism. There often seems to be an organic component to the disorder, but some people also feel that there could be a psychological aspect to the disorder dealing with early socialization patterns.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*smiles at Cally as she sits down next to her, and begins to study the list*

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Hey. It's been... how long since we've actually sat down and worked on a lab together? *chuckles quietly* How are ya? I've not seen you in a while...

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*grins* Ages and ages and ages!

I'm not too bad... how about you?

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Doing pretty darn good, actually. *studies over the notes some more* Though I guess that's kinda evident, from what I hear about the radio saying about me. *blushes*

[ooc: and I'm sadly off to real class, but will be back in a couple hours.]

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*snickers* See, I was going to be nice and not bring that up

[ooc: Not a problem... I think I'm going to go and nap! Have fun!]

[12parseckessel.livejournal.com]

Han signs in and sits down, unable to even look at the candy.

"Alcohol addiction has a strong physical component. Enough addiction, over enough generations can produce a species like mine incapable of living without a certain amount every day. This has been verified in mouse experiments. There are also physical consequences to drying out. The Riots at Aluva Prison on Corellia four years ago were caused by off-world reformers who claimed that beer was not appropriate for the state to distribute to prisoners. After eight prisoners died from the drying out, the rest rioted until the daily beer ration was reinstated.

"However, the psychological causes of addiction are not negiligible by any means."

[courier-gavin.livejournal.com]

Jake gets some coffee, then sits down to eye the list thoughtfully, ending up with Huntington's Disease.

"Huntington’s Disease is a progressive disease that eventually leads to dementia. It is characterized by more motor problems and fewer speech problems than many other types of dementia. It exhibits psychomotor slowing and difficulty with complex tasks, but memory, language, and insight remain relatively intact in the early and middle stages of the illness. It is distinguished from the Alzheimer’s type of dementia by the high incidence of depression and psychosis. Huntington's disease is an inherited condition. All of this makes me conclude that it is biological in origin."

[bluemanoncampus.livejournal.com]

Hank is quite interested in this topic and listens closely and carefully to the lecture. When it comes time for him to present his suppositions, he says, "Bipolar Disorder (http://www.mental-health-matters.com/disorders/dis_details.php?disID=15") can be, in my opinion, conclusively determined to be of nuerobiological origins, due to two primary factors. First, major depressive disorders of all types, including bipolar depression, strongly tend to run in families. In fact, when screening for depressive disorders, clinicians always give extra weight to reports of depression in family members. Second, bipolar disorders are one of the few mental disorders that can almost always be 100% 'cured' with neurochemical medication, if taken on a regular basis."

[apocalypsesoon.livejournal.com]

John signs in, and seems unable to concentrate.

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* Hey, It's not like people don't know. And I saw in the paper that we're apparently the most saccharine couple on campus... which is either the coolest thing ever, or I should be worried, and I'm not sure which. *quiet giggle*

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*frowns slightly* I'm not big on gossip full stop really.

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm sorry... *frowns too* Erm, is there something wrong? You seem kinda down. Did I say something wrong?

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*tries to smile* No, I'm just of the belief that gossip is bad and can often be hurtful, that's all.

[iwasawesome.livejournal.com]

Lilly signs in, in a foul mood, and starts to work on her assignment.

(the mun has three tests this week, and can't do fake homework too- my apologies.)

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I guess so. So, erm... how are you, then? *fidgets with her pencil*

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

I'm okay. Dropped ethics last week, so I'm feeling better about that. Just had my second western literature class, which was good.

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Cool... western lit? So... Literature of places that are west, or about the west, or what?

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*grins* Literature from the western civilization, which is places like the United States, and Europe. There's a good variety of books on the syllabus

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Cool, cool. *nods* So, Europe is west of here? Or is it near hear, and we're all west of something else?

Or am I just being a stupid colonial again?

[swerval_zero]

*signs in*

Miss Sidle? About the classes I missed last week?

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

No, Europe's east of it. The western world refers to the societies of Western and Central Europe and their close genealogical, linguistic, and philosophical colonial descendants - which includes the United States, which seems to be driving country behind the modernization and globalization of the world. It's not necessarily used because of the geographical locations of these countries, although during the Cold War, the East - which was pretty much the Soviet Union and the countries in the Warsaw Pact - was obviously to the east of Europe.

It doesn't have a strict international definition, Governments do not use the term in legislation of international treaties and instead rely on other definitions. If the term is used in academic articles it tends to be reserved for use in articles about those areas and times where the Western Roman Empire had a direct influence.

*blinks, and grins sheepishly*

Okay, I think I should go out of lecture mode now...

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

*stares, slack-jawed, blinking*

You are so much smarter than me, geeze.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*blushes, and looks down at her biology notes*

It's just something I happen to know about, that's all.

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Wow, still... that's... that's a lot.

...and now I totally have no clue what we're supposed to be doing.

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*looks down at the sheet*

Biological psychology

[sogothcally.livejournal.com]

Right, right... *goes back to looking through the notes, and trying to work out the assignment*

[notcalledlizzie.livejournal.com]

*continues to work through the notes*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_jubilation_lee/]

*signs in and begins work*

mmm. brains.

[demonbelthazor]

Belthazor signs in and feigns interest in the topic. Actually, some of those disorders were kinda cool.