Journey Through Psych

Copyrights of ideas and graphics belong to me! :-) POSITIVE COMMUNITY BEHAVIOUR CHANGE Decrease Aggression at the Lismore Transit Centre: Increasing a Sense of Positive Self and Community Executive Summary: Aggression at the core bus stop of Lismore has vast negative impacts on the community; residents avoid using public transport and people using the service are ostracised. Children who change over busses from school are fearful, parents of these children reluctant to send them by bus. In collaboration with the Lismore City Council and the Transit Centre, we will implement an antecedent based behaviour change intervention to alleviate the expressed and experienced aggression. Our intervention comprises changes in the environment, based on research from environment and behaviour science and will implement a four-week poster campaign based on the principles of relational framing and stimulus equivalence derived from acceptance and commitme...

Freezing of Gait: Step by Step closer to a Solution? Patients with Parkinson’s disease often times display freezing of gait (FOG), a movement ailment that appears to be linked to visual perception, hence new treatment options explore intriguing methods and technologies, some of which are described in this paper. Paper 1 Ferraye, M.U., Fraix, V., Pollak, P., Bloem, B.R. & Debu, B. (2016). The laser-shoe: A new form of continuous ambulatory cueing for patients with Parkinson’s disease. Parkinsonism and Relasted Disorders, 29, 127-128. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.parkreldis.2016.05.004 A paper called ‘Freezing of gait: Promising avenues for future treatment’ by Gilat , Silva, de Lima, Bloem, Shine, Nonnekes and Lewis (2018) mentions the laser-shoe. Entering ‘laser - shoe’ and ‘parkinsons’ in SC U library search field leads to this article. This paper presents a 79-year-old man sufferi ng from Parkinson’s disease with severe freezing of gait (FOG) and...

Alzheimer disease is a neurodegenerative disease and has become one of the most prominent diseases of our aging population. It is characterized by cognitive decline caused by tangles, twisted fibres within neurons and plaque, protein deposits between neurons (Bernstein et al., 2012). Amyloid beta is the main component of plaque and can be injected in rats to cause neuroinflammation and to simulate Alzheimer disease for studies in the hope of finding a cure. Cannabidiol is the non-psychoactive compound of the recreational drug marijuana. Cannabidiol has shown to have neuroprotective properties in those rats, and even more astoundingly promoted neurogenesis in the hippocampus and was able to improve brain function (Esposito et al., 2011). A different study found that cannabidiol promotes neuroplasticity and therefore can aid brain recovery after an ischemic stroke and may reduce emotional and cognitive impairment caused by such brain damage (Mori et al., 2016). Cannabidiol...

LSD has recently become of interest again after a prolonged break since the early 1970ies (Liechti, 2017). A study has found that six to eight psychotherapy sessions, accompanied by two sessions where LSD has been administrated in a controlled environment, effectively lowered anxiety in patients with a terminal or life-threatening disease (Gasser, Kirchner & Passie, 2015). Patients with ongoing severe diseases often suffer from depression, isolation and substantial anxiety. Two thirds of those patients involved in the study experienced less fear of death and a rise in the quality of life. They felt more patience, experienced less inner withdrawal and more openness and acceptance for their situation. The entropic brain theory states that psychedelic experiences put the brain in an entropic state. Brain areas that are usually not connected with each other communicate in a chaotic manner (Carhart-Harris et al., 2014). In patients with depression, OCD and addiction t...

Complex problem solving can happen analytically and spontaneously. Sudden insight arises from within and is followed by a rewarding feeling and confidence, also known by the name of the ‘aha-moment (Rosen & Rainer, 2015). Sudden comprehension is innovative and creative: it asks for investigation to find out what happens in the brain. Are there differences between analytical problem solving and sudden discovery of a solution? Using EEG and fMRI to measure electrical activity and blood flow in the brain, Kounios and Beeman (2009) presented a verbal problem to participants that were prompted to immedately press a button after they found a solution. Brain activity was measured shortly before pressing the button. Different groups were formed according to solution finding through analytical processing or sudden insight. The study demonstrates a difference between the two ways of coming to a solution. Sudden insights show a quick burst of slow 10 Hz alpha-frequency followed...

The corpus callosum is the bundle of nerve fibres that connects the left and the right hemisphere of the brain. A study has found a positive correlation between the thickness of the corpus callosum, captured through high resolution MRI imaging, and intelligence, measured by the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Luders et al., 2007). The research team believes that cognitive abilities might be enhanced by the presence of more numerous nerve fibres engaging in intra-hemisphere communication. Other researchers have observed enhanced neuroplasticity of the brain after many thousands of hours of meditation as practised by Tibetan monks (Davidson & Lutz, 2008). Neuroplasticity can range from synaptogenesis to neurogenesis and altered oscillations of brain waves measured by an EEG. Further research has investigated the effects of long-term meditation on the connectivity of the brain. This team has discovered an increase of fibre density and diameter in white matter fibres that are part o...

SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITY   I have read and understand the Rules Relating to Awards ( Rule 3 Section 18 – Academic Misconduct Including Plagiarism ) as contained in the SCU Policy Library. I understand the penalties that apply for plagiarism and agree to be bound by these rules. The work I am submitting electronically is entirely my own work.  A Comparison of Maternal Developmental Milestone Expectations between Punjabi-Australian Mothers and Anglo-Australian Mothers Abstract Social and physical environments, historically established customs, and the Zeitgeist of a specific culture influence perceptions of childrearing. Our study investigated parental ethnotheories via assessing developmental milestone expectations. Punjabi- Australian mothers and Anglo-Australian mothers filled out a questionnaire, and we found their expectations to vary. Punjabi-Australian mothers had earlier expectations of their ch...