Steven Crane Compiled Section Handouts. Human Behavioral Biology 2012

learned helplessness.

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  Loose interest in sex and food and bathing. Psychomotor retardation, self-mutilation. Sleep loss.
  
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  You can treat learned helplessness with ECT and antidepressants.
  

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  Humans can be provoked into learned helplessness with studies with inescapable loud noises.
  
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  The more internal psychological control, the less depression in humans.
  
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  If people learn that they cannot be loved or they cannot learn something or cannot do something, they develop learned helplessness and are more vulnerable to depression. This could explain the early stressor=more depression thing - you lose things you count on all the time like parents, then you're more helpless.
  

Attempting an Integration

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  Psychological approaches give insight.
  

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  Loss of control
  
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  No outlets for frustration
  
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  Internalized battle of ambivalences.
  
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  Aggression turned inward
  

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  Biological approaches
  

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  Abormal NT levels
  
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  Abnormal hormone ratios
  
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  Genetic vulnerability
  

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  Stress brings them together.
  

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  Psychological stress = learned helplessness
  
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  GC levels up = depression up
  
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  Anhedonia, psychomotor retardation, appetite, sleep patterns, feedback problems with GCs
  

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  But what about the 5-6 depressive episodes = a repetitive cycle unlinked to depression?
  
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  Why the individual differences even given really similar backgrounds and stuff?
  

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  How dow e avoid getting depressed?
  
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  We have recovery mechanisms built in. In most of us, the depletion of norepinephrine and serotonin is transitory.
  
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  Big synthesis:
  
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    Bad depression gene is in 5-HTT, a serotonin transporter.
    
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    Acted on by SSRIs.
    
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    GCs help regulate how much how much 5-HTT expressed.
    
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  A big interaction of biology and experience.