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| multidimensional integrative approach |
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Definition
| Approach to the study of psychopathology that holds psychological disorders are always the products of multiple interacting casual factors. |
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| Long deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) molecule, the basic physical unit of heredity that appears as a location on a chromosome. |
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| Hypothesis that both an inherited tendency (a vulnerability) and specific stressful conditions are required to produce a disorder. |
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| Susceptibility or tendency to develop a disorder. |
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| reciprocal gene-environment model |
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| Hypothesis that people with a genetic predisposition for a disorder may also have a genetic tendency to create environmental risk factors that promote the disorder. |
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| Study of the nervous system and its role in behavior, thoughts, and emotions. |
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| Individual nerve cell responsible for transmitting information. |
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| Space between nerve cells where chemical transmitters act to move impulses from one neuron to the next. |
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| Chemical that crosses the synaptic cleft between nerve cells to transmit impulses from one neuron to the next. Relative excess or deficiency of neurotransmitters is involved in several psychological disorders. |
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| Chemical messenger produced by the endocrine glands. |
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| Neurotransmitter current or neural pathway in the brain. |
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| Action by which a neurotransmitter is quickly drawn back into the discharging neuron after being released into a synaptic cleft. |
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| In neuroscience, a chemical substance that effectively increases the activity of a neurotransmitter by imitating its effects. |
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| In neuroscience, a chemical substance that decreases or blocks the effects of a neurotransmitter. |
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| In neuroscience, a chemical substance that produces effects opposite those of a particular neurotransmitter. |
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| Amino acid neurotransmitter that excites many different neurons, leading to action. |
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Term
| gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) |
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Definition
| Neurotransmitter that reduces activity across the synaptic cleft and thus inhibits a range of behaviors and emotions, especially generalized anxiety. |
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| Neurotransmitter involved in processing of information and coordination of movement, as well as inhibition and restraint. It also assists in the regulation of eating, sexual, and aggressive behaviors, all of which may be involved in different psychological disorders. Its interaction with dopamine is implicated in schizophrenia. |
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| Neurotransmitter active in the central and peripheral nervous systems, controlling heart rate, blood pressure, and respiration, among other functions. Because of its role in the body's alarm reaction, it may also contribute generally and indirectly to panic attacks and other disorders. Also known as noradrenaline. |
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| Neurotransmitter whose generalized function is to activate other neurotransmitters and to aid in exploratory and pleasure-seeking behaviors (thus balancing serotonin). A relative excess of dopamine is implicated in schizophrenia (although contradictory evidence suggests that the connection is not simple), and its deficit is involved in Parkinson's disease. |
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| Field of study that examines how humans and other animals acquire, process, store, and retrieve information. |
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| Martin Seligman's theory that people become anxious and depressed when they make an attribution that they have no control over the stress in their lives (whether or not they actually have control). |
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| Learning through observation and imitation of the behavior of other individuals and consequences of that behavior. |
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| Ability adaptive for evolution, allowing certain associations to be learned more readily than others. |
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| Condition of memory in which a person cannot recall past events despite acting in response to them. |
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| Pattern of action elicited by an external event and a feeling state, accompanied by a characteristic physiological response. |
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| Biological reaction to alarming stressors that musters the body's resources (for example, blood flow and respiration) to resist or flee a threat. |
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| Enduring period of emotionality. |
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| Conscious, subjective aspect of an emotion that accompanies an action at a given time. |
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| Developmental psychopathology principle that a behavior or disorder may have several causes. |
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