20 minute essay

4/9/2012

Explain how one hormone influences human behavior. (20 min essay)

What are possible answers to this question? Identify a hormone and briefly outline the influences. There are many possible answers. Go! Show me how smart you are!

6 Comments

Steve Ski

4/11/2012 09:48:41 am

Hormones- adrealine, cortisol, melatonin, testosterone, oxytocin, estrogen

oxytocin- stimulated by touching. associated with bonding between mother and child (Mrs. B and Evan?). Produced in hypothalamus. "love hormone" Function= chang ebrain signals related to social recognition via facial expressions.

Mrs. Brown

4/12/2012 12:59:17 am

Great list of hormones! Nice brief answer on how oxytocin influences human behavior. I appreciate the mention in your answer - but don't use this on the IB test! :)

Kim alderman

4/23/2012 01:29:46 am

Adrenaline- released in one's adrenal glands. It's a persons flight or fight response. An increase of the hormone is the fight, for example a runners high, and a decrease is the flight, like a lack of confidence. I'll write more later but physics class is calling!

Mrs. Brown

4/26/2012 07:15:09 am

Good - adrenaline is a hormone!! But you need more explanation. Thank you for not doing it during Physics - but can someone add to this?

Maiken Nicolaisen

4/23/2012 10:51:37 am

Studies have shown that there is a link between over-secretion of cortisol, a major hormone of the stress system, and/or low levels of serotonin, which (if secreted in normal doses) helps regulate arousal and sleep, with major depressive disorder. The link to cortisol, supports beliefs that there is a positive correlation between long-term stress and depression. The text references studies on victims of child abuse. In addition, over-secretion of cortisol is shown to have an effect on other neurotransmitters. High levels of cortisol can lower the density of serotonin receptors and inhibit their ability to function as receptors for noradrenaline. And serotonin? Since serotonin plays a large part in sleep patterns and arousal, individuals suffering from depression experience a lack of both, by means of insomnia, unhappiness, inability to find pleasure in normally pleasurable activities, etc...

A research example for these two hypotheses is found on p. 153: the impact of poverty on child depression. The study focused on surveying 639 Mexican mothers and their children. They found the children of depressed mothers living in extreme poverty produced less cortisol, a hormone that helps us cope with stress, which left the children more vulnerable to not only depression, but also autoimmune diseases. This study uses the vulnerability model from the biological perspective.

Question: is it possible to say that, in this case, a sort of reverse diathesis stress model can be used to understand the etiology of depression in these kids? their lack of cortisol stems from stressful life events in their mother's lives...

Mrs. Brown

4/26/2012 07:21:54 am

WOW!!! Very nice!!! This is great for a 20 minute essay - should be plenty of content to answer the question and no FLUFF! Very nice, Maiken.

20 minute essay

Leave a Reply.

Author

Archives

Categories