Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Mental Illness

I found the section on the history of treatment for depression especially interesting because of the "depression helmet" pictures that have been going around online. The helment was just approved by the FDA to treat depression and is available in Arizona.

Electroconvulsive Therapy was first used in the 1930s to induce seizures that would alleviate or diminish depressive symptoms. Now the delivery method varies, but has been shown to improve patient's mood in the short term. However, memory impairment can follow. A more minor strategies is repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulations. It was introduced in the mid 80s. rTMS uses a large electromagnet on the scalp to depolarize neurons. Side effects include headaches.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Learning, Memory, and Decision Making

One thing I found interesting about this chapter was the recent discovery that  specific cells in the hippocampus have been found to respond to a specific person. Even though that gives the impression that individual cells hold specific memories, the textbook said it was most likely that sets of neurons make up memory networks for specific concepts.

I also really enjoyed that the study on bird brains and memory process was illustrated exclusively in play dough. In this study they found out that birds referred back to the amount of time that had passed in order to decide which food to retrieve from where it had be previously buried. This was something I did not know prior to Bio Psych and it adds to my appreciation of birds because that is very impressive to me.