Untitled Quiz

Consciousness

• Consciousness is subjective awareness of oneself and one's environment.
• This includes awareness of internal stimuli (hunger, thirst, sleepiness, thoughts, emotions) and external stimuli (warmth of a room, hearing a friend's voice, smelling a flower).

Altered States of Consciousness

• Being asleep
• Having a dream
• Hypnosis
• Meditation
• Anaesthesia
• Psychoactive drugs

Components of Consciousness

• States of Consciousness: Level of awareness for one's external surroundings and internal states.
• Contents of Consciousness: Specific thoughts one is aware of regarding internal states or external surroundings.

Consciousness and the Brain

• Attention and awareness of attention are controlled by different brain areas.
• Damage to the brain can impact conscious awareness.
• Reticular Formation: Loss of consciousness.
• Hypothalamus: Disturbances of wakefulness.
• Thalamus: Lack of conscious awareness.
• Cerebral Cortex: Lack of awareness.
• Inattention blindness: Failure to notice something visual when not paying attention.

Levels of Awareness

• Highest level: Focused attention (requires significant mental resources).
• Middle level: Automatic processes (driving, eating – minimal attention required).
• Low level: Daydreaming (unconscious mind). Unconscious mind: memories, feelings that are repressed or not consciously thought about. Unconscious body: coma, etc. Sleep (sometimes considered an altered state).

Consciousness Awareness and the Cerebral Cortex - Split Brain Patients

• Information from the eyes travels to the opposite side of the brain.
• Crossing of nerve fibers at the optic chiasm.
• Information about visual stimuli is processed in the occipital lobes of the brain.

Brain Lateralization and the Split Brain

• Specialization of functions in each hemisphere of the brain.
• The brain's two hemispheres are connected by the corpus callosum.

Development of Consciousness

• Rouge Experiment/Mirror Test: Used to determine if an individual recognizes themselves.
• Babies/animals recognize themselves in the mirror from around 18 months.
• Full conscious awareness typically develops around 22 months.

Preconscious and Unconscious States

• Preconscious: Information that can be readily available to consciousness (e.g., what you did last weekend).
• Automatic Behaviors: Preconscious behaviors automatically performed (e.g., brushing teeth).
• Unconscious: Information not easily accessible to consciousness (e.g., what you ate last weekend).

Memory and Consciousness

• Explicit Memory: Memories of knowledge that are fully known (e.g., high school graduation, moving to a new place). Information studied for a test.
• Implicit Memory: Knowledge stored in memory, but not always consciously recalled (e.g., riding a bicycle, typing, knowing a second language).

Unconscious Decision Making

• Quick and intuitive judgments that help make immediate decisions.

Freud and the Unconscious

• Conscious: Immediately aware of things.
• Preconscious: Things that can be easily made conscious.
• Unconscious: Things unaware of and have often been repressed (wishes, fears, memories, emotions).

Altered States of Consciousness: Sleep

Why Do We Sleep?

• Adaptive Theory: Sleep to avoid predators.
• Biological Theory: Sleep needed for growth (pituitary gland releases growth hormones).
• Restoration Theory: Sleep to restore brains and bodies.

The Circadian Rhythm

• Biological clock regulating sleep-wake cycles.
• Roughly tied to periods of daylight and night.
• Also regulates body temperature, pain tolerance, hormone secretion, and blood pressure.
• May be disrupted by jet lag, can be disrupted by stereotypes.

Controlling the Clock: Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN)

• Small group of neurons in the hypothalamus.
• Directs pineal gland to secrete melatonin.

Sleep Cycles

• Cycles of 90–100 minutes.
• Five stages.
• Stages 1 & 2 are spent relatively equally.

Stages of Sleep

• Pre-sleep Period (Hypnagogic State): Transition from wakefulness to sleep. Hypnagogic hallucinations and myoclonic jerks.
• Stage 1: Brief transition; alpha waves become slower theta waves.
• Stage 2: Alpha waves disappear altogether; rhythmic breathing. Sleep spindles.
• Stage 3: Deep sleep. 20-50% delta waves. Sleepwalking more likely in this and stage 4.
• Stage 4: Delta waves dominate. Heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing at lowest levels. Sleepwalking more likely.
• Stage 5 (REM Sleep): Associated with vivid dreaming, rapid eye movement, increased heart and breathing rates; brain activity similar to wakefulness. Muscle paralysis.

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep

• Associated with rapid, jagged brain waves, increased heart rate, rapid and irregular breathing, rapid eye movements, and dreaming.

Dreaming

• Information Processing Theory: Dreams involve processing information from the day, encoding memory and problem-solving.
• Activation-Synthesis Theory: Brain activity during sleep activates sensory systems; neural activity during sleep is interpreted to make sense of what is happening.
• Freudian Theory: Dreams represent fulfillment of unconscious wishes. Manifest content (dream) vs. latent content (underlying meaning).

Nightmares, Lucid Dreams, and Daydreams

• Nightmares: Dreams filled with intense anxiety – vivid or frequent nightmares.
• Lucid Dreams: Aware that you are dreaming and can sometimes control the dream’s plot or outcome.
• Daydreams: Fantasies while awake and aware of external reality.

Sleep Disorders: Insomnia

• Most common disorder.
• Difficulty falling or staying asleep.
• Often caused by stress, pain, medications, etc.
• More common in older people due to medical conditions.

Sleep Disorders: Sleep Apnea

• Second most common.
• Repeatedly stops breathing during sleep, leading to frequent awakenings.
• Carbon dioxide builds up in blood causing momentary awakening.
• Breathing may stop for 10 seconds.
• Possible to have hundreds of attacks per night.

Sleep Disorders: Excessive Daytime Sleepiness

• People may regularly nap during the day.
• Fall asleep during the day.
• Still sleep for long hours at night.
• Different from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).

Sleep Disorders: Narcolepsy

• Uncontrollable urge to fall asleep.
• Sudden fall into REM sleep during the day (can last up to 15 minutes).
• Genetic factors involved, a type of autoimmune disorder.

Sleep Disorders: Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

• Long delay in ability to fall asleep.
• Fall asleep late in the evening, wake up late in the morning.

Sleep Disorders: Advanced Sleep Phase Syndrome

• Fall asleep early in the evening, wake up early in the morning.

Sleep Disorders: Restless Legs Syndrome

• Strong urge to move legs before sleep, typically as an involuntary sensation in legs.
• Often coupled with discomfort.

Sleep Disorders: Periodic Limb Movements of Sleep

• Uncontrollable movements of the legs during sleep.

Sleep Disorders: Somnambulism (Sleepwalking)

• Occurs within 3 hours of falling asleep.
• Person moves about in a slow and poorly coordinated manner, looking blank.
• Unconscious of actions during sleepwalking.
• Difficult to wake up.
• Common in children.

Sleep Disorders: Night Terrors

• Occur in stages 3 and 4 of sleep.
• Child screams in panic but immediately falls back to sleep.
• Does not remember event in the morning.

Sleep Disorders: REM Sleep Behaviour Disorder

• Acting out dreams while in bed and sleeping.
• Often in response to intense or violent dreams.

Hypnosis

• Altered state of consciousness characterized by heightened suggestibility and deep relaxation.
• Often used in pain management.
• Posthypnotic responses, amnesia, hallucinations, decreased activity in anterior cingulate cortex during procedures where it is used for pain reduction.
• Two possible mechanisms of hypnosis: divided consciousness theory and social/cognitive processing theory.

Psychoactive Drugs

• Substances that alter the brain's functioning and behavior.
• Addiction: Psychological or physical compulsion to take a drug.
• Tolerance: Person needs higher doses of drug to achieve same effect.
• Withdrawal Symptoms: Unpleasant or dangerous side effects after reducing intake.
• Types of drugs:
  • Medicinal: Treat or manage medical conditions.
  • Illicit: Illegal to possess/use.
  • Recreational: Used for pleasurable or mind-altering effects.
  • Depressants: Slow down brain and body functions (e.g., alcohol, benzodiazepines).
  • Opioids: Relieve pain and cause feelings of well-being (e.g., oxycodone, fentanyl).
  • Stimulants: Increase body and brain functions (e.g., caffeine, cocaine, amphetamines).
  • Hallucinogens: Change perceptions, mood, cognitive processes, and cause hallucinations (e.g., LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, ecstasy, ketamine).

Reward Learning Pathway

• Psychoactive drugs activate a reward pathway in the brain, which influences behavior and learning.
• The brain's reward center is not readily activated by usual life events in people with reward deficiency syndrome, causing susceptibility to drugs.