PTSD More

PTSD TREATMENT 

Cognitive Behavioral Treatment
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is the term used for a group of psychological treatments that are based on scientific evidence. These treatments have been proven to be effective in treating many psychological disorders. Cognitive and behavioral therapies usually are short-term treatments (i.e., often between 6-20 sessions) that focus on teaching clients specific skills. CBT is different from many other therapy approaches by focusing on the ways that a person's cognitions (i.e., thoughts), emotions, and behaviors are connected and affect one another. Because emotions, thoughts, and behaviors are all linked, CBT approaches allow for therapists to intervene at different points in the cycle.
Meidical or Drug Treatment

Medications
Several types of medications can help symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder improve.

• Antipsychotics. In some cases, you may be prescribed a short course of antipsychotics to relieve severe anxiety and related problems, such as difficulty sleeping or emotional outbursts.
• Antidepressants. These medications can help symptoms of both depression and anxiety. They can also help improve sleep problems and improve your concentration. The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) medications sertraline (Zoloft) and paroxetine (Paxil) are FDA-approved for the treatment of PTSD.
• Anti-anxiety medications. These drugs also can improve feelings of anxiety and stress.
• Prazosin. If your symptoms include insomnia or recurrent nightmares, a drug called prazosin (Minipress) may help. Prazosin, which has been used for years in the treatment of hypertension, also blocks the brain's response to an adrenaline-like brain chemical called norepinephrine. Although this drug is not specifically approved for the treatment of PTSD, prazosin may reduce or suppress nightmares in many people with PTSD.

These two type of methods can work at the same way, but if you use too much of it then there will be a problem.

mory andEmotion in real Life: PTSD

PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)
What is PTSD?
Post Traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an emotional illness that is classified as an anxiety disorder and usually develops as a result of a terribly frightening, life-threatening, or otherwise highly unsafe experience. PTSD sufferers re-experience the traumatic event or events in some way, tend to avoid places, people, or other things that remind them of the event (avoidance), and sensitive to normal life experiences (hyperarousal).
Another part of the PTSD can be a C-PTSD ( complex post traumatic disorder) resulting from prolonged exposure to a traumatic event or series afterward.Usually PTSD occurs within more than one-third of youths who are exposed to community violence (for example, a shooting, stabbing, or other assault).

What are the symptoms?
There are physical consequences of being traumatized. For example, research shows that people who have been exposed to an extreme stressor sometimes have a smaller hippocampus. Also, whether or not a traumatized person goes on to develop PTSD, they seem to be at risk for higher use of cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana.

What causes PTSD?
Any trauma may cause PTSD. Such events often include either experiencing or witnessing a severe accident or physical injury, receiving a life-threatening medical diagnosis, being the victim of kidnapping or torture, exposure to war combat or to a natural disaster, exposure to other disaster (for example, plane crash) or terrorist attack, being the victim of rape, mugging, robbery, or assault, enduring physical, sexual, emotional, or other forms of abuse, as well as involvement in civil conflict.

Briefly explain how memory and emotion relate to PTSD. 

Memory and Emotion are related to PTSD in a way of simple meanings. For example, the people who watched the World Trade Center fall down remember the day of falling down, and those memories are kept in their memories. Through this they react their emotions from the long term memory that had been inserted in their brain hippocampus. From this they have fear subscribed in their memories. 

Emotion and Memory = Flashbulb Memory?

Emotion & Memory

Nader's Story
“It was like walking upstream in a river of sorrow,” he says.
Nader has vivid and emotional memories of the September 11, 2001, attacks and their aftermath. But as an expert on memory, and, in particular, on the malleability of memory, he knows better than to fully trust his recollections.
Most people have so-called flashbulb memories of where they were and what they were doing when something momentous happened. But as clear and detailed as these memories feel, psychologists find they are surprisingly inaccurate.
Nader, now a neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal, says his memory of the World Trade Center attack has played a few tricks on him. He recalled seeing television footage on September 11 of the first plane hitting the north tower of the World Trade Center. But he was surprised to learn that such footage aired for the first time the following day. Apparently he wasn’t alone: a 2003 study of 569 college students found that 73 percent shared this misperception. His ideas are unconventional within neuroscience, and they have caused researchers to reconsider some of their most basic assumptions about how memory works. In short, Nader believes that the very act of remembering can change our memories. Memories surrounding a major event like September 11 might be especially susceptible, he says, because we tend to replay them over and over in our minds and in conversation with others—with each repetition having the potential to alter them.

BULK & KULIK Study

Aims: To Investigate whether dramatic, or personally significant events can cause "flashbulb" memories

Procedure: Using a retrospective questionnaire assessed the memories of 80 US Ps for the circumstances in which they learned of public events.

Findings: Flash bulb Memory is more likely for unexpected and personally relevant shocking events

Conclusion: Dramatic events can cause a physiological imprinting of a memory of the event

Weakness 1: Data collected through questionnaires, so it is impossible to verify the accuracy of memories reported.

Weakness 2: It could be that dramatic events are rehearsed more than usual, making memories more durable, rather than any "imprinting" process causing FMs

Seneca and Lazarus- and explanation of Emotion

An Explanation of Emotion 
The Philosophy of Seneca 

Seneca was a Roman Stoic philosopher. The philosophy of Seneca is refreshingly simple, sensible and virtuous - an obvious contrast to most modern abstract philosophy. 

So how can we correct the current confusion and absurdity of our 'enlightened' post modern philosophy? To understand the truth about Reality by describing the One Thing that exists, Space, and its Properties as a Wave Medium, Marcus Aurelius wrote;

All things are woven together and the common bond is sacred, and scarcely one thing is foreign to another, for they have been arranged together in their places and together make the same ordered Universe. For there is one Universe out of all, one God through all, one substance and one law, one common Reason of all intelligent creatures and one Truth. Frequently consider the connection of all things in the universe.
We should not say ‘I am an Athenian’ or ‘I am a Roman’ but ‘I am a citizen of the Universe. (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations)

Lazarus Theory 

On the other hand the Lazarus Theory states that it builds on the Schacter-Singer theory, taking it to another level. It proposes that when an event occurs, a cognitive appraisal is made (either consciously or subconsciously), and based on the result of that appraisal, an emotion and physiological response follow.

So what does Seneca's theory and Lazarus theory have in common it has both the obvious controls, it gets what the procedure needs, and states the appraisals. I personally don't think they have a conflict between each other, but it just that it both has it 's own theories of knowledge about their philosophy. In my opinion I think that we should just live with how we feel about the emotions and situations. 

Sights and Sound of Emotion Trigger Big Brain Responses

Sights And Sounds Of Emotion Trigger Big Brain Responses

A brain that responds to both facial and vocal expressions of emotion. The researchers of the New York University used the MagnetoEncephaloGraphic scanner in order to response in a region of the brain known as the posterior superior temporal sulcus. The researchers found out that this part of the brain responds so strongly to a face plus a voice that it clearly has a 'multimodel' rather than an exclusively visual function. The researchers also thought that the study would help in th study of autism and other neuro-developmental disorders which exhibit face perception deficits. From this experiment we could figure out that Sights and Sounds of Emotion effect the facial expressions in one's face. 

The reason I chose this article is because I totally agree with the part that Sounds and Sights will affect the emotion of one's situations. For example, if a person hears foot steps behind during night while going back home the person would be covered in fear and probably appear in one's facial expressions. This example is also called as the James-Lange Theory which is the arousal and the emotions come in order. Also for sights when one watches a comic movie they would laugh and show these emotions in their facial expressions. The gender differences may appear from the James-Lange Theory and it could be different based on the deifferent sex one consists in. Also for the cultures. 

Culture and Gender: How do they Affect Emotion?

GENDER
Male & Female: It is told that men brains are wired for action during high emotions, but females are wired for talking things over. Also it is told that men and women keep handle of emotions in different ways. for example, women when they are upset try to express their feelings directly, and seek to the support of friends and family members. However, men might handle their emotions to hide or withdrawing it.
It says that men tend to be self-reliant. They think that this behavior is reinforced everyday. It is basically a stereotype for men.
For example, Men get their influence from their fathers which feel distant, and they pass this on for later on. They act as if they are distant to their children, but females keep in touch with their child.

Cultural Differences
The Eastern and Western cultural emotions seem to be featured different due to their geographical locations. It is told that "cultures transcend national borders and requires researchers to use meaningful dimensions of variability rather than physical boundaries." It is told that Eastern cultures are seem to be mysterious due to their actions.  However, the acts of Westerners tend to express their feelings more freely. This is shown that emotions are personal and independent experiences.

Emotions

Emotions are psychological acts that people show through their body. Emotions involve physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experiences. Through these factors people express their feelings. Emotions can be adaptive features to humans in our quest for survival because sometimes emotions can safe your lives. Throughout the emotions of one persons face, the emotional features can bring positive effects on the people. For example, when people go into for an interview for their jobs, they can use their emotional features in order to bring the positive results for ones life. Also if there were no emotional there would be serious problems occurring over the world.

Alzheimer's Disease

ALZHEIMER"S DISEASE 
Alzheimer's disease is a part of a brain disease. the onset of the symptoms are gradual, but the Alzheimer's disease grows slow and steady and ruins ones brains' memory. during the AD the person needs to go through a serious problems. For example,  the person can have a speaking difficulty, or unable to understand a language. All around the world, the AD occurs mostly at over the age of 80. This AD doesn't affect all the memory of the brain, it just effects the episodic memory. this episodic memory is the memory of events and personal experiences. The AD also affects the semantic memory, which is the memory stored in general knowledge about the world concepts and language.
Through the Ad video I learned that memories are who we are and if the AD occurs the memory will come to a lose. There is no treatment right now about the AD. The changes in brain will change the personality of the person. the family members of the AD patient will have to be the family care giver, and should take care of the AD patient. Also the AD will bring the lose of synopsis.
through the video I had a feeling that it is a natural event that can occur, suddenly, and got afraid of the disease, and I hope scientists and psychologists will find a way of curing the diseases. Right now, the scientists are trying a way out of the Alzheimer's disease, but they say that it is really hard. Alzheimer's disease that effect the brain is a problem and we need a way out of the situation.

H.M.

A man who went into a brain operation in order to to correct a seizure disorder. However,  due to the operation, he lost the ability to form new memories. What means is that every time he went through the event, it was always new to his memory. He didn't remember what he had done before, even though he had done it. This mans' operation helped scientists understand the biology of learning, memory, and physical dexterity. He did an another experiment on his brain, and this operation somehow, brought back his memories, but did not placed the memories in the exact time order. SO he was confused of the memories. As the book recalls, "A Lifetime without Memory," is the exact definition for the mans life.
From this case scientists learned that memories can be replaced, but you should be very careful about removing, or replacing ones brain functions, or else, it would ruin one of the patients life.

Overview

In class we learned a lot of studies based on psychology.

First of all, Empirical study was one of the schema. It is the effect of schemas on memories. theses schemas the organize info in memory, they can be activated to increase info-processing efficiency- they enable  generation of expectations about objects, events, and people, they regulate behaviour, they are relatively stable and resistant to change.
According to Bartlett (1932), the way the participants recalled the story came under the influence of relevant schematic knowledge in their memory. It also reflects the participants' own culture. Rationalization making the story conform to your cultural expectations.
French and Richards (1993) made a study of influence of schemata on memory retrieval.
We had a study made from French and Richards.

There were 3 conditions:
1.) Participants' were shown the clock and drew from the memory.

2.) participants were told before of what they would draw.
3.) last they had the full view of the clock and drew it.
French and Richards explained this result in terms of schemata knowledge of roman numerals effecting participant memory retrieval.


Finally there was the study done by Loftus and Palmer(1974).
It was a accident where participants were shown from a car crash video.
Then there were several questions done by the participants. However, the most important question was "How fast was the car crash?" In the question there were different types of verbs, which were smashed, collided bumped, and contacted.
The response basically was the bias factors. through this question the verbs of the question will change the participants memory.
there were two types of memories, which were gleamed, and external, which supplies the other facts.
Gleamed theory is the perception of the original text.
These are the subjects that we were basically learning in class, and we had some really fun doing the exact same experiments in the class with Mr. Dougherty.

Cotton's case

EYEWITNESS

This Ronald Cotton case is basically on the importance of eyewitness. Jennifer Thompson, who is a college student lives by herself. While living alone, suddenly one day some raper comes into her room, and he tries to rape her. During the time, she doesn't try to call, but she tries to remember the details of the rapers face. She looks carefully, and studies the rapers face. After the raper goes away, she goes to the police, and then tells exactly what she saw. She tells everything, and the police tries to match up the face. When the police got the face matched up by guessing, they got people that looked alike the matched up photo. They were lined up in front of Jennifer, and she looked closely at the 6 people that were there. She chose one person, who was Ronald Cotton. However, the truth was that he wasn't the one that raped Jennifer Thompson, but he went to jail for 10 years due to eyewitness. After the jailed years, Jennifer and the police found that Ronald Cotton wasn't the one that raped, and Bobby Poole was the one guilty. As can be seen in this case, eyewitness was the important material used for the case. Eyewitness has a definition of someone who has a knowledge about a crime or dramatic event through seeing it firsthand. However, the problem about eyewitness is that it's just doesn't long that long. Also it is said that it is mostly wrong or not even close to the answer the person is reporting within the numerical details. This is a real research about the memories people have when they remember things. I personally don't think using eyewitness is useful in court because as it is said in the research it can't be accurate. Just because you have seen and remembered all the details like Jennifer Thompson, doesn't mean that she remembers the person exactly the same. Also like the case what will happen if the eyewitness went wrong, and a different person goes to jail like Ronald Cotton. Therefore, I think this eyewitness evidence won't be good proving way in court.