BioPsych

• 3. Sleep disorders
  • Jet lag
    • Don’t travel across time zones
    • “Go west”, not east
    • Called desynchronosis
    • Alterations to circadian rhythms
    • Sleep disorder
      • May last several days
      • Figure 1 day per time zone
    • Out of synch w destination time
      • contrary to accustomed rhythms
      • times for eating, sleeping, hormone regulation and body temperature
    • How long to adjust
      • Varies greatly
      • Cross 1-2 time zones no prob.
    • Not linked to length of flight
      • 10 hr flight within time zone okay
        • Europe to southern Africa
      • Trans-meridian distance (west–east)
        • 5 hr flight from LA to NY
        • International Date Line
      • Maximum possible disruption is 12 hours plus or minus
    • Symptoms
      • Headaches, irritability
      • Fatigue, mild depression
      • Sleep problems
      • Digestive problems (constipation-diarrhea)
    • To minimize effects
      • Before the flight
        • Ask doctor about meds
        • Partially adapt
          • Up an hour earlier
        • Light box
      • During flight
        • Travel in smaller segments
          • Overnight midway
        • Set time to destination
          • Sleep-wake
      • After flight
        • Sunlight
        • Eat on schedule
    • Most people have circadian period a little over 24 hours
      • Easier to stay up later
      • Harder to get up earlier
  • Apnea
    • During sleep
      • Abnormal pauses in breathing (apnea)
      • Abnormal low breathing (hypopnea)
    • Each apnea can last
      • Seconds to minutes
    • 5-30 per hour
    • Sleep Study = polysomnogram
    • Most common in men; 2+x
      • Can affect children too
    • Symptoms
      • excessive daytime sleepiness
      • slower reaction time
      • daytime fatigue
      • vision problems
    • Treatment
      • CPAP machine
        • Continuous Positive Airway Pressure
        • pumps air into throat
      • Turbinate surgery
        • Grind down turbinates in nose
      • Oral Appliance Therapy (OAT)
      • Dental appliance; custom-made mouthpiece to shift lower jaw
  • Insomnia
    • Incidence
      • 10% and 30% of adults
      • 6% for more than 1 month
    • More often in 65+
    • More often in women
    • Difficulty
      • initiating sleep
      • maintaining sleep
      • wake up often
      • can’t get back to sleep
      • Wake up too early
    • Clinical diagnosis
      • 3+ nights per week
      • 3+ months
      • adequate opportunity for sleep
      • not caused by other condition
    • Types
      • Transient insomnia
        • less than a week
        • often stress related
      • Acute
        • less than a month
      • Chronic
        • More than a month
    • Causes
      • can be: high levels of stress hormone
    • Symptoms
      • Muscle weakness
      • Hallucinations
      • Double vision
  • Narcolepsy
    • Symptoms
      • Excessive sleepiness
      • Fall asleep at inappropriate times
        • Work
        • Driving
      • Cataplexy
        • Sudden muscular weakness
        • when emotional
      • Drop head, weak knees, collapse
      • Slurred speech but normal hearing
    • Often confused with insomnia
    • REM within 5 minutes
      • An hour before normal
    • Possible genetic cause
    • Treat with amphetamines
      • Provigil or Nuvigil
  • RLS (restless leg syndrome)
    • Willis-Ekbom disease
    • Neurological disorder
    • irresistible urge to move
    • Involves
      • usually legs
      • can be arms, torso, head
      • phantom limbs
    • Temporary relief as long as move
    • Sensations
      • pain
      • aching
      • crawling feeling
    • Circadium rhythm to them
      • Time of day
      • When relaxing or reading
    • Usually also have
      • periodic limb movement disorder
    • Spectrum disorder
      • minor annoyance
      • major disruptions
    • Primary RLS
      • Idiopathic
        • No known cause
        • usually begins slowly
        • before age 40–45
        • can disappear for years
        • Often progressive
          • Gets worse with age
        • Can occur in children
          • misdiagnosed as growing pains
      • Genetics
        • 60%+ of cases
        • autosomal dominant
    • How it works
      • Dopamine & iron systems
      • low levels in cerebrospinal fluid
      • levodopa
      • cross blood-brain barrier
      • Iron is essential for making L-dopa
    • Four symptoms
      • Urge to move limbs with or without sensations
      • Improvement with activity
      • Worsening at rest
        • sitting for long time
      • Worsening in the evening or night
        • Clear circadian rhythm
        • restlessness in evening and night
    • No way to prevent it
    • Drugs
      • doesn’t cure
      • side effects
        • nausea, dizziness, orthostatic hypertension
    • Related to periodic limb movement disorder
      • Limbs jerk during sleep
      • disrupted sleep
    • Secondary RLS
      • Characteristics
        • Sudden onset
        • After age 40
        • Can be daily from beginning
        • Caused by specific medical conditions
          • iron deficiency               25% of cases
          • extra iron                        75% of cases
          • Diseases
            • Varicose veins
            • magnesium deficiency
            • fibromyalgia
            • sleep apnea
            • thyroid disease
            • diabetes
            • peripheral neuropathy
            • Rheumatoid arthritis
            • Parkinson’s
            • POTS
            • Worse in pregnancy
            • ADHD
          • RLS & periodic limb movement
            • Low levels of dopamine
            • Medications can cause it
              • Antihistamines
              • Antidepressants
              • Antipsychotics
              • Benzodiazepine withdrawal
              • Opioid withdrawal
      • Treatment
        • Rule out venous disorders
        • Stretching, walking & moving
        • vibrator
        • leg massage
        • hot baths & heating pads
        • ferritin
          • 60% will see improvement
        • Dopamine agonist
          • might cause symptoms earlier in the day

• Sleep
  • Don’t know why the body requires sleep
  • Know
    • lack of sleep is linked to higher risk of
      • depression
      • heart disease
      • aggravates mental illness
    • mammals & birds sleep
  • Stages
    • NREM
      • N1
      • N2
      • N3 (delta) = slow wave; deep sleep
    • REM
  • Historically:
    • Alfred Loomis (1887-197
      • Lawyer, inventor,
      • RADAR, microscope centrifuge
      • lab in Tuxedo Park
    • Dement & Kleitman, 1953
      • REM sleep plus 4 NREM
  • Now, 3 stages plus REM
    • combined stages 3 and 4
  • Stages based on EEG, eye movements, respiratory, cardiac, and movement events
  • Cycles
    • N1→N2 →N3 →N2 →REM
  • proportion of REM sleep increases until just before natural awakening
  • In humans (adults), sleep cycle from 90 to 110 min.
    • 60 minutes for newborns
  • Awake
  • Close eyes
    • meditating
    • alpha waves
    • still awake & aware
    • 8-13 HZ
  • Stage N1
    • Somnolence or drowsy sleep
    • Twitches and jerks
    • Hallucinations
    • Lower awareness
    • Theta waves
      • higher amplitude than alpha
      • slower frequency                      6–7 Hz.
    • light sleep
    • 5-10 min\
  • Stage N2
    • About 50% of sleep time
    • Theta waves (same as stage 1)
    • less movement, less awareness
    • body temperature drops
    • heart rate slows
    • Two additions (discovered by Loomis)
      • K complexes
      • Sleep spindles
    • K-Complex
      • Brief high-voltage peaks
      • roughly every minute
      • often followed by bursts: sleep spindles
      • Suppress cortical arousal, except to danger signals
      • Aid memory consolidation
    • Sleep Spindles
      • AKA “sigma bands” or “sigma waves”
      • last half second
      • sudden bursts
      • usually 12-14 Hz
      • less movement, no awareness
  • Stage N3
    • Deep or slow-wave sleep
      • Bed wetting
      • Sleep walking
      • Sleep talking
      • Night terrors
    • Delta waves
    • Lowest frequency waves                       4-7 Hz
    • Highest amplitude
    • Used to be called stages 3 & 4
      • minimum is 20% delta
      • less than 50% delta
      • more than 50% delta
    • Body repairs itself
    • builds bone & bone
    • strengthen immune system
  • REM
    • Rapid eye movement sleep
    • 20–25% of total sleep time
    • rapid low-voltage EEG
    • Combination of
      • alpha waves
      • delta waves
      • desynchronous waves (like beta)
  • As night progresses
    • Less delta waves
    • desynchronous waves (like beta)
    • Heart rate rises
    • Breathing is faster, shallow, irregular
    • Like being awake
    • more acetylcholine
    • But no monoamines
      • dopamine, norepinephrine, etc
      • serotonin, histamine
  • Paralysis
    • If asleep
      • inject acetylcholinesterase inhibitor
      • paradoxical sleep
    • If awake
      • paradoxical sleep only if monoamines depleted
  • GABA (amino acid)
    • promotes wakefulness
    • diminishes during deep sleep
    • increases during REM
  • Glycine (amino acid) increases too
  • Both
    • ionotropic GABA (respond to glycine)
    • metabotropic GABA receptors (respond to GABA)
  • First REM of night
    • ~90 minutes after fall asleep
  • After 1^st cycle
    • more as night goes on
  • first                              lasts 10 minutes
  • final                             60+ minutes
  • Relatively little dreaming in NREM
  • Lucid dreams in REM
  • Memorable dream

• Brain waves
  • beta waves
    • awake
    • high frequency  12 Hz to 38 H
    • low amplitude
    • desynchronous
  • alpha waves
    • meditating
    • still awake & aware
    • 8-13 HZ
  • theta waves
    • higher amplitude than alpha
    • slower frequency                       6–7 Hz.
    • light sleep
    • 5-10 min
  • delta waves
    • lowest frequency waves                        4-7 Hz
    • highest amplitude
    • deep sleep
  • REM
    • Combination of
      • alpha waves
      • delta waves
      • desynchronous waves (like beta)

Awake

Daydreaming

Meditation

Sleep

 

• Altered states (binding problem)
  • Short-term, reversible, not wide awake
  • daydreaming: detached steam of consciousness
    • advantages: future thinking, creativity, attentional cycling
    • disadvantages: negative mood can be a result of daydreaming
  • hypnosis (review)
  • meditation
    • mindfulness, focused attention
    • Tangen’s 12 steps
      • beginning signal
      • cleansing breath
      • close your eyes
      • relax everything
      • center yourself
      • wait for the healing tone
      • self-talk
      • sensory scene
      • smile (puppy)
      • 3-2-1
      • open your eyes
      • ending signal
  • mindfulness based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
    • Barnard & Teasdale (1991): mind has multiple modes for processing new info. Two modes: being (accepting & allowing) & doing (driven, goal oriented). Emphasis on metacognitive awareness (experience negative thoughts as events, not part of self). Depressed rely on one mode emotional, ignore cognitive mode; they can’t decenter.
    • Seal & Williams: mindfulness-based stress reduction program. Cope with current stressors by not focusing on past or future.
  • peak experience: Maslow’s self actualization
  • traumatic experience (dazed)
  • fasting
    • intermittent fasting: less than 24 hrs
    • spiritual experience
      • Bahá’í: sunrise to sunset March 1-20, not younger than 15 or over 70
      • Buddism: Vinaya monks; not each after noon meal (Middle path: avoid extremes of indulgence & self-mortification)
      • Christianity: Lenten fast
      • Hinduism: fast on Mondays (Shiva), Thursdays (Vishnu) or Saturdays (Ayyappa).
      • Islam: Ramadan
      • Judaism: 6 days a year (Yon Kippur, etc.)
      • Taoism: avoiding grains
      • Yoga: Monday or Thursday & full moon days
  • physical exercise:
    • trance: runners’ high
  • infections
  • hallucination & psychosis
  • drugs & alcohol

George

The smartest and greatest thinker the world has ever known was George. He invented the game of chess, which still quite popular. It has never achieved such rave reviews as George’s greatest hits: fire and the wheel.

Despite he amazing contributions, George has never been a household name. Partly due natural shyness, part due to the lack of pen and paper, the accomplishments of George have gone unheralded.

As George shows, not every great thinker is well known. No one knows who founded Hinduism. It’s the world’s third largest religion but its origins are obscure. similarly, no one knows when Abraham, father of Judaism, was born.

As it turns out, history had to be invented. A lot of living occurred before people started writing down events that happened, or described people they knew or event that happened.

And even then, only the rich got mentioned. Sure, only the rich could afford a scribe. And only the rich really mattered, at least to other rich people. But the reason you can trace your ancestry to some king and not to some horse thief is that the horse thief couldn’t afford a press agent. Slaves and surfs had relatively little social media presence.

Progress is not linear. Ideas hopscotch through history. One idea may be popular and then jump to another century. It might start in religion, zigzag to science, hop to philosophy and land in computer science. There may be a grand scheme but ideas seem to show up by chance.

Consider the nature of man, as a case in point.

Judaism proposed a bipartite nature. People are composed of body and soul. God created man out of the dust of the earth, and breathed into it the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). Much later, Greek philosophers continued this body-soul dualism.

In contrast, some early Christian writers held a trichotomous view of human nature. A third part was added. According to this view, individuals are composed of body, soul and spirit. Justine Martyr and Clement of Alexandria held this view. But both of these were greatly influenced by the writings of Saul of Tarsus (aka, the Apostle Paul). The tripartite view appears to not have been popular until the Apostle Paul.

Three separate components seems like a problem to decide what survives death. But most trichotomonists believe the soul and spirit survive; only the body dies. In general, this formal three-part theology is converted to a daily dualism when needed.

As history progresses, dichotomy becomes trichotomy becomes dichotomy. Jumping forward a thousand plus years, Descartes reaffirms dualism. This gave him two great advantages.

First, Descartes could study nature. At a time when the Catholic Church was in one of its anti-science moods, Descartes could study the body and physical nature of things without impinging on the soul. If God put the universe in motion, one could study how the system works without questioning God’s rule. Descartes was simply explaining how God did things, not why.

Second, a dual nation allowed Descartes to differentiate between reflex (body) and voluntary actions (soul). This voluntary-involuntary dualism continues to today. Voluntary behaviors are the result of the cerebral processes of the brain. Involuntary behaviors are the result of the subcortical processes of the Limbic system. Think and do with the brain; react and do with the structures under the brain.

In addition to dualism (and tripartitsm), there is monism. Monism is not a new idea. Hinduism and Indian philosophy have long maintained that the body and mind are inseparable. One influences the other reciprocally. If one dies, so does the other.

Hobbes, Spinoza and La Mettrie were all physical monists.

 

Hobbes, Thomas (1588-1679)

Although he was skilled at both Latin and Greek at age 15, as a philosopher Hobbes was a late bloomer. He was 40 when he read Euclid’s Elements and turned his attention to philosophy. Hobbes was 63 when he published his greatest work (Leviathan), and 88 when he translated the Iliad into English. 

He was born in Malmesburg, England, where his father was a vicar. Malmesburg, built in 640, is in western England, along the Avon river. It’s closer to Bristol than to London, and the surrounding region of Wiltshire is best known for the Stonehenge megalith. When Hobbes was quite young, his father deserted the family, leaving them to fend for themselves. Fortunately, Hobbes was supported by his uncle, a wealthy glover, who paid for the boy’s education in private school and at Oxford. After graduation, a wealthy family hired Hobbes as a private tutor and he traveled widely with them.

In 1636, at the age of 47, Hobbes visits Galileo in Florence and comes away convinced that the universe is composed only of matter and motion. For him, man is a machine whose mental activity was reducible to the motion of atoms in the brain, and free will, spirit and mind are illusions.

Although Hobbes was friends with Francis Bacon (and served as his secretary for a short time), he rejected Bacon’s inductive reasoning in favor of the deductive methods of his other friends (Galileo and Descartes). He builds his case as a chain of deductive proofs.

Thomas Hobbes is best known for his “trains of thought,” his Laws of Nature, and his emphasis on social contracts. According to Hobbes, ideas tend to follow each other, like cars of a train. These “trains of thought” are often unguided and rambling but they become orderly when two ideas are similar. One association leads to another, like train cars all coupled end to end, forming trains of thought. Although the metaphor was new, the concept of association dates back to ancient Athens. Hobbes reintroduced Plato’s and Aristotle’s explanation of learning by wrapping it in an undated package.

Hobbes proposed that there are Laws of Nature that govern human interaction. These laws are society’s way of countering the essential selfishness of people. Although these laws coincide with God’s commands, they can be discovered by reason alone and should be obeyed for purely secular reasons. For Hobbes, people are motivated by selfishness. Even good behavior is the result of personal selfishness. Good behavior leads to good internal feeling. Consequently, we do good things because we derive some internal benefit. Nature’s laws, which include the laws of peace, duty, and gratitude, are to be followed because it is in our best interest to be at peace. Moral laws are social contracts we make with other people for our mutual benefit.

For Hobbes, one thing leads to another. Just as one idea is linked to another to form a train of associations, one principle leads to another, like proofs of mathematics. Laws of Nature are connected to social contracts. Hobbes maintains that because people are basically selfish, they enter into social contracts with others out of self-preservation. Morality is a matter of convenience and survival. Nature is in a constant state of war and quarrelsomeness, so people form contracts (I won’t steal from you if you don’t steal from me) in order to survive. It is these social contracts that form the basis of civilization.

Hobbes’ ideas were quite radical. He combined the British empiricism of Bacon and the continental rationalism of Descartes. He emphasized the importance of sensory perception and experience but used the deductive reasoning and mathematical forms of geometry more characteristic of the continental thinkers. Because of his ideas, Hobbes was often at odds with those in power. From 1640-1651, he fled to France, fearful for his life. In 1667, the British House of Commons was readying a bill outlawing blasphemous literature. Hobbes had the dubious distinction of having his work Levianthan cited as an example of what should be banned.

 

Spinoza, Baruch (1632-1677)

In contrast to Descartes’ separation of God, mind and matter, Baruch (Benedict in Latin) Spinoza proposed an integrated view. Not three separate entities; three aspects of one substance. Although raised in the predominantly Christian city of Amsterdam, and contrary to the teaching of his parents who were Portuguese Jews, Spinoza was basically a pantheist (God does not exist as a separate entity but is in everything). He believed that mind and body can’t be separated because matter and soul are the same thing but viewed from different points of view. Spinoza’s double-aspectism (mind-body are two sides of the same coin) was in contrast to the dualism of Descartes and others. Dualists held that the material mind and spiritual mind were independent but had to meet somewhere. Spinoza’s monism eliminated the conflict by reducing mind and matter to the same substance.

 

La Mettrie, Julien (de) (1709-1751)

Born on December 25, La Mettrie was encouraged to become a priest but turned to medicine instead. Quick-witted and quick-tempered, La Mettrie wrote pointed and often satirical articles on medicine and its practice. During the war between France and Austria (1742), La Mettrie caught a high fever. During his recovery, he considered the relationship between the mind and body, and concluded that they are more fully intertwined that Descartes had proposed. Indeed, La Mettrie’s solution was to disavow any spiritual aspect of the mind. Like Hobbes, La Mettrie was a physical monist: all that exists is matter. Matter could be rearranged, which explained humans as being more complex animals, but there is no qualitative difference between them.

Physical monism is quite popular today. With all of the research on the brain, it is easy for people assume that brain activity explains all human behavior. Psychology can’t define, let alone study, the soul And it has no idea what survives death, if anything. Consequently, there is little hypothesizing of dualism explanations.

One theory often overlooked in the mind-body debate it’s spiritual monism.

 

Berkeley, George (1685-1753).

Born in Kilkenny, Ireland, Berkeley waseducated at Oxford, spent several years in Italy and America, and served for 18 years as the Anglican Bishop of Cloyne, Ireland.

In psychology, he is best known for his work on vision, his emphasis on associations and his belief that complex perceptions are composed of simple mental elements. In philosophy, he founded idealism and challenged Newton’s concepts of time and space. In 1866, Berkeley, California was named in his honor.

Berkeley’s 1709 book on vision explained how we perceive 3 dimensions with eyes which can only see in two dimensions. According to Berkeley, we perceive depth by associating the convergence of the eyes with other sensations (e.g., the size of an object is smaller as distance increases). His interest in perception also tied to Berkeley’s philosophy. He maintained that perception is the essence of being. In an attempt to counter what he perceived to be attacks on God, Berkeley proposed an imaginative argument against dualism and materialism.

Materialists reasoned that matter is all that exists so God cannot exist. Dualists maintained that this world is a bad copy of a separate world of ideas. Berkeley started with the premise that God exists and argued that without Him nothing would exist. Berkeley’s argument rested on 2 premises: (a) nothing can be perceived without a mind and (b) there are things the human mind can’t perceive. His conclusion was that there must be a mind that perceives everything seen and unseen: God. It is not so much that we perceive therefore we are (to paraphrase Descartes) but that we are, therefore someone is perceiving us. Although Berkeley’s philosophy was not widely accepted, his criticism of materialism and dualism founded a new approach called idealism.

 

Psychology’s Current State

In psychology, the mind-body problem continues to be debated. Even physical monists have trouble with this issue. If you assume all human behavior and experience is brain generated, there is more to consider.

It is difficult to study subjective experiences using objective methods. Consciousness is inherently subjective. It is unique for each person. Science is not particularly gifted at dealing with internal experiences.

you also have the problem of why. David Chalmers calls this the hard problem of consciousness. The easy problem of consciousness (how consciousness works) hasn’t been solved but the hard part is why. Why do we experience consciousness. Why does consciousness exist? Even if we figured out the structures and processes which produce consciousness, we are still left with the harder question of why we are conscious.

The mind-body problem is still an open issue. No solution has been found. Even George couldn’t solve this one.