Fear Conditioning

Trypanophobia, the fear of needles. My brother suffers from a strong fear of needles. He refuses to get any shots, including: Tetanus, Flue, HPV, etc. He is 22 years old and has refused to have a shot since he was 15 years old. When my brother was younger he hated the feeling of a needle going into him.

In chapter six in the General Psychology course, we learned about “Learning”. We learned the types of conditions that help people learn. One of the conditions is “Operant Conditioning” where learning is controlled by the organism’s behavior. During the lecture one thing that stood out to me was that in the operant condition, there is a term called positive punishment which is used to decrease bad behavior. It is used usually by parents to discipline their children when they misbehave in order to break that bad habit.

A behaviorist approach to personality can be used to explain the personality of the character Boo in Monsters Inc. Behaviorists typically do not believe there is an internal structure for what is known as personality, but instead a collection of responses to the environment (Friedman & Schustack, 2012). In addition, Boo is a small child with a limited vocabulary, so it is difficult to analyze her internal traits and motives. Therefore, Boo's personality can be analyzed based on her responses to her environment or in other words, her outward behavior. Boo's personality and how it changes throughout Monsters Inc. can be explained using the Behaviorist theories proposed by Ivan Pavlov, John B. Watson, and B. F. Skinner.

The formation of new memories requires protein synthesis dependent changes in synaptic structure and plasticity in the hippocampus. Studies in humans and animals suggest that these memories are initially stored in hippocampus but later transferred to cortex for permanent storage. This phenomenon is described as systems consolidation of memories. While the specific role for new protein synthesis in hippocampus in early encoding of memories is established, whether protein synthesis in medial prefrontal cortex play a major role in encoding of memories is unclear. To address this question, we used contextual fear conditioning (CFC) of mouse, a behavior training that induce long lasting memories. A single training session produces robust lifelong memory (8) that can be measured using automated procedures (9). Several studies have used CFC training as a model to study hippocampal-cortical communications and mechanisms underlying systems consolidation of memories. Contextual fear memories are initially stored in hippocampus and then moved to medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) for long-term storage.

Operant conditioning refers to the method of learning to occur through rewards and punishment for behavior (Staddon & Cerutti 2002). In the operant condition, an association occurs between the behavior and the consequences of the behavior. Behaviorist B.F Skinner coined operant conditioning, and that is why some refer to it as Skinnerian conditioning. Skinner started studying operant conditioning in the late 1920s when he was a graduate student at Harvard University. As a behaviorist B.F Skinner believes that it was obligatory to look at the internal thoughts and motivation so as to explain behavior (Staddon & Cerutti 2002). As an alternative, he did suggest that we should look only at the external and observable causes of human behavior. The characteristics of operant conditioning are that an organism may emit a particular response instead of just eliciting the response because of the external stimulus. Skinner did use the term operant in referring to any active behavior that operates on the environment so as to generate consequences (Doyle-Portillo & Pastorino 2013).

Synaptic plasticity refers to a process through which the brain undergoes neural changes due to alterations in synaptic strength. Many studies have demonstrated that these synapses have the ability to strengthen or weaken on account of synaptic activity. In other words, an increase in synaptic activity will further strengthen that connection, making it more sensitive to a particular stimulus. Conversely, a decrease in synaptic activity will weaken the connection such that it loses its sensitivity to a given stimulus. The neuronal events that result in the strengthening or weakening of a synapse are explained through two mechanisms – Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) and Long-Term Depression (LTD). In fact, scientists believe that the coupling of these two mechanisms essentially contributes to memory and learning of an individual.

Siegel, Hinson, Krank and McCully (1982) did a study to determine if environmental cues was a factor in heroin overdose in rats. They argued that conditioning may occur between environmental cues surrounding an organism and the time of drug administration, which in turn affects tolerance and overdose. In this study, they believed that the effect of heroin would be the unconditioned and the conditioned stimulus is the environmental cues associated with using heroin (was once the neutral stimulus before being paired with the effects of heroin). If a drug is administered frequently with the same environmental cues, an association is made between the NS and the CS. Once this association is made, a conditioned response of anticipatory physiological

The neurobiological process of synaptic memory consolidation is thought to be long-term potentiation (LTP), which is the prolonged strengthening of the

When I was in my psychology class in high school, we spent a month talking about classical conditioning and we did many interesting experiments involving it. We also touched on operant conditioning and social learning, so I have some background knowledge in this subject. Classical and operant conditioning, along with social learning, are all ways to teach animals or humans how to behave. These theories developed because psychologists wanted to understand why people behave the way they do and many famous experiments have been conducted to answer this question. It was very interesting to learn more about these theories and how they work, and relating them to my own personal experiences.

This paper will examine the philosophical topic of particular reason and compare it to the psychological topics of conditioned learning and exposure therapy. There will be an analysis of the similarities and differences between these topics and how they can be used to validate each other in regards to human cognition and behavior or actions.

Behavioral conditioning is used in many studies to train lab animals to perform certain tasks, but studying the concept of behavioral conditioning in itself could be beneficial as well. Behavioral conditioning is known to have associations with dopamine in the brain's reward center, but the exact process is completely figured out. Studying dopamine and DA neuron activity in the brain can provide further clues as to how this process occurs, and allow for the implementation of these results in the future. Understanding the mechanics of behavioral conditioning can provide enough understanding to make training research animals more efficient and effective. On a much larger scale, by understanding the processes that occur when behavior is learned, this knowledge can be used to figure out what exactly should be targeted when figuring out the most effective methods of teaching.

In this research they focused on members of the neuroligind family. They wanted to investigate how these members promoted postsynaptic differentiation in hippocampal neurons. Excitatory and inhibitory synaptic inputs regulate normal functioning of neural networks and require some balance between the two to be effective. Due to this reasoning it is believed that synapse formation is regulated by bidirectional signaling occurring between pre synaptic cells and post synaptic cells.

My research paper on cognitive behavior therapy took me into many different directions, all of them were very interesting and fascinating to say the least. Cognitive Behavior therapy was initiated in the late 1950s and early 1960s by Aaron T. Beck, MD (Beck, 2011). The origin of cognitive behavior therapy stems from classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning (operant conditioning) (Craske, 2010). The topics will be on the treatment of anxiety, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Fear is a mental concept. Mental substances can also be physical though. Fear causes anxiety and horror. The mental concept of fear causes insaneness.

A conditioned emotional response is seen in classical conditioning after a conditioned stimulus has been paired with an emotion producing unconditioned stimulus. In other words it is an emotional response that has been classically conditioned to occur to learned stimuli. Watson and Rayner created this for the first time with little Albert when he was about eight months and twenty-six days. They struck a hammer against a suspended steel bar and at the third time was when little Albert reacted and began to cry. The next time they tested a conditioned emotional response was when little Albert was at the age of eleven months.