How It Works: The Science
What are Psychotropic/psychoactive drugs, and for bonus points, what is one common example?
A class of drug/chemicals in which the person taking them experiences a shift in the way they think, feel, or behave. One example would be caffeine.
Why is teletherapy so important?
It’s more convenient and can be done quicker, making access to healthcare easier for people in need, especially those in crisis.
What is the definition of biomedical therapy?
Any form of treatment that involves medication and/or medical procedures to treat a psychological condition.
What's one condition usually treated using stimulants, and what is a common stimulant prescribed to patients?
ADHD, Adderall or Ritalin
How was a lobotomy performed in the 1920s-40s?
It involved the severing of most of the connections to and from the prefrontal cortex, and the anterior part of the frontal lobes.
What's one common neurotransmitter, involved with mood, sleep, depression management, aggression, and schizophrenia?
Serotonin
What are 35% of all medicines on the market targeting, including therapeutic ones?
G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs).
What are brain stimulation therapies, and when are they typically used?
They involve electrical stimulation of parts of the brain, usually administered through electrodes or magnetic fields. Typically used when a patient shows little improvement through other biomedical therapies, or when treatment is urgently needed.
What is the method of brain stimulation therapy that is most studied, and has the longest history of use?
Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT)
What was the main thing that was blamed for causing mental illness throughout early human history?
The supernatural and in some cases an inner battle of “good and evil.”
How do common antidepressants (eg. Prozac, SSRIs, Zoloft, etc.) work?
They alter neurotransmitter levels (eg. serotonin and norepinephrine)
What procedure, now rarely used but common up to the time, won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in the year 1949?
The lobotomy, won by Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz.
How do RCTs (Randomized Clinical Trials) relate to biomedical therapy?
They help test the effectiveness of preexisting or new therapies, usually involving batches of control patients, who took placebos rather than the actual medication for comparison.
How do clinicians decide which brain area to target for stimulation?
They use brain imaging, clinical guidelines, and knowledge of which regions are involved in specific symptoms or disorders.
What was the first medical treatment human history has evidence of, and how was it performed?
Trepanation was performed by boring a hole into the back of someone’s skull when they were behaving in an abnormal manner, to relieve spirits or other abnormalities. It was performed as far back as the Neolithic era, or 7,000-10,000 years ago.
What is Electroconvulsive therapy, and what is it most commonly used to treat?
Severe depression, bipolar disorder, and catatonia.
What was VNS (Vagus nerve stimulation) therapy originally developed for, and what is it used for now?
It was originally developed as an epilepsy treatment focusing on a nerve near the patient's brainstem, but after it was discovered to help regulate depressive symptoms by altering neurotransmitter levels, the treatment found use in therapy.
What's the critical difference between efficacy and effectiveness of biomedical therapies?
Effectiveness is how it performs against other treatments, efficacy is the real world performance.
What are the three most used types of brain stimulation therapy? Acronyms accepted.
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), and Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)
What is/was phrenology, and how was it related to psychology?
Phrenology was the study of the different “muscles” of the brain that were supposed to correspond to different personality or physical traits of a person. It is regarded today as pseudoscience.
This type of treatment uses a magnet to activate neurons in a specific area of the brain, used to treat depression, psychosis, and anxiety.
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).
What new indicator(s) of schizophrenia were shown in 2021 according to Sunny Yang?
Speech and language disturbances, including breath and pause patterns.
In the 1950's the addition of this antibiotic in surgery and radiation therapy boosted cancer cure rates from 40% to this percentage?
Aactinomycin D and 85%.
What are 5 common side effects throughout most types of brain stimulation therapies? (MUST NAME ALL)
Headaches, Muscle aches, Disorientation, Nausea, and Memory loss.
What was female hysteria, and how was it treated, as stated in the Hippocratic texts?
Female hysteria was a common medical diagnosis with a variety of symptoms, mainly used as a way to silence women, most commonly seen through the Middle Ages up until the early 20th century. It was commonly treated with scent therapy and ointments applied on the “affected” areas.