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Thoughts on Dr. P.'s presentation on biological sex:

Review: The 3G-sex paper described the differences between sexually dimorphic traits, which are ones that show two specific distinct forms, and other traits, which are not typically internally consistent. The paper demonstrated that there were many brain differences that were not consistent, that had significant overlap between groups, and that weren't correlated with belonging to either "males" or "females."

Review: The "Brains are intersex" paper argued that sex differences in parts of the brain were present, but that they were more mosaic, and only in distinct regions. This paper said that not only were these differences not on a single, unidimensional spectrum, but that there was a large variety in possible combinations of traits.

TED talk: We also watched Emily Quinn's TED presentation on intersexuality. She described how the experience of growing up as intersex had affected her, and how her experiences with the medical establishment had been really negative, and how those had been due to doctors who had been taught that there were no options for bodies other than "male" or "female." One of her specific references was to the fact that she'd been told she needed to have surgery to reduce her risk of cancer, when that risk was actually very minor.

In class, we also discussed cultural differences in different countries' and locations' views on intersexuality and on sex. It was really fascinating to learn that in many places, intersex children are allowed to spend time growing up without being directly assigned a gender, and they're able to spend more time exploring and understanding their own interests and identity. I thought that that was a really meaningful concept, and an option we don't always see or think of.

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Thoughts on Mansi‘s presentation on attachment styles in romantic relationships:

Review: Attachment style is how a child responds to their parents or caregivers, and it is a psychological factor that follows people throughout their lifetime. It’s related to the formation of social bonds and relationships, and from an evolutionary perspective, it may promote survival, because secure attachment promotes proximity between parents and children. In terms of relationship models, it impacts how people think of themselves and of their partners. The three main attachment styles – avoidant, anxious, and secure – all have different perspectives on relationships. People with avoidant attachment styles tend to attempt to maintain their own independence, while people with anxious attachment styles do the opposite, and worry about not being loved enough and attempt to put more and more energy into their relationship. The review looked at the way different attachment styles respond to stress, especially relationship stress. Avoidant attachment styles sought less support and also offered less support, and were also less distressed following a breakup.

Research: This study used questionnaires to ask a sample of 374 psychology students what their attachment styles and what their feelings about love end relationships were. Anxious people had the least enduring relationships, and avoidant people were the most likely to not be in love and to have low-intensity experiences in relationships.

I thought that this presentation was interesting because of how relevant it could be to my own relationship experiences, and how I can look at the way that I approach relationships as different from my partner. It seems like it’s a practical thing to keep in mind within my relationship.

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Thoughts on Rianna’s presentation on Birth Control and The Brain:

Review article: The review article focuses on oral hormonal contraceptives and how they alter neuroactive hormones, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, emotional states, and cognition. These contraceptives prevent the release of hormones that cause ovulation. They also prevent rises in the hormones seen in the leuteal phase of the menstrual cycle. The two most common hormones used are EE and LNG.

This review covered preclinical studies in animals that focused on animal models of estrogen-progestin combination drugs. They studied the effects, as well as changes in anxiety and in learning and memory.

They compared their results to studies about adolescents that uses hormonal contraceptives, which found higher incidence of depression. However, the rats in the studies that were reviewed did not experience depressive-like symptoms in female rats.

The review theorized that hormonal contraceptive use during adolescents blunts the response to stress and increases vulnerability to mood disorders.

They found that it didn’t have a long-term effect on learning and memory, but might have shorter term effects depending on dosage.

The major limitation of the studies was that adolescence is much shorter in rats than in humans, which indicates that impacts of contraception on rats could have more long-term effects for them.

Research article: The research paper was on how the birth control pill affects stress reactivity and brain structure and function. They looked at both grey and white matter, and their different functions. In terms of specific parts of the brain, the article looked at the temporal lobe, the amygdala, the hippocampus, the putamen, and the gyrus.

The sample in this study was a group of 75 women between the ages of 18 and 26, both women using birth control and women not using birth control. They compared women who started taking oral contraceptives during puberty vs as adults.

Overall, the biggest differences between the groups were in terms of brain activity.

There were also changes in brain volume in oral contraceptive users, and these were in terms of different volumes of grey or white brain matter.

Thoughts: This was fascinating! The idea that birth control could have these long-term impacts on brain development and behavior is really strange to think about.

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Thought's on Adah's presentation on Broken Heart Syndrome:

Review: Broken heart syndrome is death caused by a sudden, tragic loss of a romantic partner or another loved one. It was identified in Japan in 1990, because it causes an inflated left ventricle. It was named Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy (TTS), named after the shape of the ventricle's resemblance to an octopus trap. There was a surge in cases after the 2004 earthquake, so there were many more studies. The review covered retrospective studies, prospective studies, and case studies on broken heart syndrome. There was no research examined on treatments for broken heart syndrome. Interestingly, one of the ways of diagnosing it was inserting contrast fluid into the heart to take photos of the ballooning ventricle. It's triggered by a specific emotional event in the previous few days. The majority of patients are postmenopausal women, although it occurs more often in men in Japan, and that men are more likely to die from it.

Research: In the research article, the researchers tried to find out what the role of life events was in cases of TTS, the official name for the disorder. They performed face-to-face interviews with patients, asking about their sociodemographic information, medical history, and life habits, and interviewed them on their recent life events. The researchers compared participants' perceptions on how the life event impacted them to a set of expected responses from the general public. The research found that there wasn't a significant difference in number of stressful life events between people with standard heart failure vs TTS. However, the significant difference between groups was that the group with TTS ranked their life events as having a more negative impact on their lives than other groups did. The researchers saw this as having a more negative life outlook, and thought that the emotional dysregulation in this group could have a larger physical impact on their heart.

The implication here was that it could be possible to find psychological predictors of TTS patients, and that there could be preventative steps taken to help people increase their resilience to these life events.

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Thoughts on Ashley's Presentation on Platonic Love:

Review Article: The review article defines platonic love as a bond formed between two people who are not related, in a setting that is not romantic. It was important that these be considered apart from romantic relationships or familial love. The review article tried to answer why friendships felt special, and if they helped people develop their understanding of the world. In this review, they focused on examining the reward systems in the brain, and which parts of the brain were activated when people were looking at pictures of their friends. The left nucleus accumbens and the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, both involved in the brain's reward system, showed much more activity when looking at positive peers than when looking at anyone else in the study. These parts of the brain were also active in people who were making decisions that benefited their friends.

Research Article: The research article focused on the endocrinology of female friendship, and the response of stress hormones to female friendships. The researchers believed that close female-female friends would have attunement in the onset of stress hormones, and that friends would be reflect each other’s stress levels without verbal communication. The researchers had friends take saliva samples at various points while performing a series of tasks. Half of the friends performed stressful tasks, and half of them performed non-stressful tasks. The survey found that satisfaction in friendship were similar among different friendships, but that stress hormones didn’t necessarily release based on a friend’s non-verbal cues. The researchers still wanted to examine whether verbal cues and male-male friendships had similar effects, though.

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thoughts on jyoshika's presentation on maternal love:

review article: The Neurobiological Basis of Love focused on analyzing both maternal and passionate love, and the neural pathways involved int he processes. this review article analyzed 12 articles on maternal love and 9 articles on passionate love. maternal love involves several brain regions, oxytocin and vasopressin, and the dopaminergic system. the brain regions involved in maternal love were in both left and right parts of the brain. some were portions of the brain involved in the brain's reward system, showing the reward-related nature of maternal love behaviors. the amygdala, which is important in processing emotion, was also heavily involved, as were brain regions that worked on social and emotional judgement and understanding. the dopaminergic reward system specifically is connected to the oxytocin pathway, and it also has a role in learning and memory, which allows mothers to better develop parenting skills related to their children's needs.

research article: Adult Attachment Predicts Maternal Brain and Oxytocin Response to Infant Cues measured the differences in the mother's brain's reward system in response to infant cues, based on the mother's attachment style. this study predicted that secure attachment styles would increase the brain's response to infant cues. this study recruited 30 first-time mothers in their third trimester through prenatal clinic visits. the mothers visited the study four times, during pregnancy, to record interactions with infants, to scan their brains' response to their infant's cues, and one follow up visit a year after the babies were born to check on infant development. they compared mothers' responses to photos of their own and other infants with different expressions. half of the mothers had secure attachment styles, and half had insecure attachment styles, and they had similar demographic and other information. mothers with secure attachment styles had increased oxytocin response to mother-infant interaction, while mothers with insecure attachment styles had decreased oxytocin response to mother-infant interaction. mothers with secure attachment styles had a higher brain response to photos of their own infants as compared to mothers with other attachment styles.

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thoughts on kennedy's presentation on female orgasms:

review: the review of how orgasms possibly evolved was fascinating, and i really thought that the connection between ovulation and sexuality was a really interesting piece of information. the review referenced the 'intercourse may affect implantation' study, which found that in ivf patients, more viable embryos were found in the group that was asked to engage in intercourse than in the group asked to abstain from intercourse. since ivf patients are treated with hormones to increase egg production, it's possible that the hormones increased the frequency of sexual intercourse as well as the production of mature eggs, or that the frequency of sexual intercourse increased the production of mature eggs. there was also a connection drawn to anatomy, and how potentially a larger/longer clitoris led to more increased stimulation during intercourse, and potentially more orgasms.

research article: the article on fMRI of brains during orgasm was performed at Rutgers University Brain Imaging Center. in the study, there were 14 women participating, although only 10 were included in the sample. in the study, the women first self-stimulated, and then were stimulated by a male partner. the fMRI machine was used to measure changes in blood flow in the brain. the study didn't find a difference between partner stimulation and self-stimulation. the associated video also showed a really interesting view of oxygen usage during orgasm, and showed how the brain used a great deal of oxygen during the moment of orgasm. it showed how much of the brain was involved in an orgasm, and how dramatic the changes were. the biggest difference was the lowered frontal lobe activity, as well as the increased hypothalamus activation during orgasm. overall, the cerebellum and brainstem were the most active during orgasm, and the hippocampus, insula, and paracentral lobule were also highly active.

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thoughts on julia's presentation on body odor and attraction:

review article: Body odor is connected to diet, health, and personality traits, and it comes from apocrine sweat glands, which are found in the armpits and groin. These sweat glands become active after puberty, and although the sweat doesn't inherently have its own smell, it comes into contact with pheromones that impact sexual response and mate selection. The article compared two types of studies: studies that compare body odor experiences in people with normal senses of smell, and studies that compare body odor experiences in people with no sense of smell. This article found that body odor was important in initiation, maintenance, and dissolution of relationships. People are attracted to people who have different histocompatibility complexes, which show up in body odor, and that means that will increase diversity. Body odor's connection to health, and how it conveys sickness cues, also connects to mate selection and interest. I found this especially interesting, because I know for a fact that I just smell gross when I've been sick. (I also thought it was pretty interesting that women felt that body odor was more important than men did!) Ability to smell body odor was connected to increased sexual and relationship satisfaction, and made people feel happier in their relationships.

research article: This article focused on how men found women's body odor more attractive when they had higher levels of oestradiol and lower levels of progesterone. This could be because sex hormones act on body odor (because oestradiol increases body temperature and therefore sweating), and the increased attraction could also be due to increased perceived fertility. The article theorized that it was because high oestradiol levels cause greater evolutionary success for mating and reproduction.

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thoughts on rachel's presentation on bdsm and kink:

review article: the thing i found most interesting in the review article was the impact of bdsm activity on pain tolerance, and how it would temporarily rise following someone receiving pain. i also found the facts about education level interesting, especially the theory that it could relate to someone's interest in experiencing psychological dynamics with their partner.

research article: this research article focused on to what extent bdsm interests were related to trauma and attachment style. the study was done in 2017 in an online questionnaire, and asked about bdsm activities, experiences, and about trauma experiences. it divided people by the intensity level with which they practiced bdsm, and examined whether they had experienced violence or unwanted sexual contact. the thing i found most interesting there was that there was no significant correlation between unwanted sexual contact and bdsm behavior, indicating that it didn't necessarily lead to interest in bdsm or make it impossible. i also really thought that the comparison of attachment styles was interesting. the main significant thing that was relevant being that dominant-identifying people were less likely to have an anxious attachment style was pretty interesting to me (although it did seem to be exactly what you'd guess!)

something really notable about the research article was that there was less physical abuse during childhood for bdsm practitioners, which is important and notable because it's the exact opposite of the stereotypical perception of how people get involved in bdsm

i also wondered about the general higher incidence of violence in adulthood - i thought this might be connected behaviorally to higher risk-seeking behaviors, and being more likely to be in environments where physical violence was likely to occur.

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thoughts on yena's presentation on IPA

review article: Love et al. 2015 focuses on how the APA did not include IPA as a disorder in the DSM V, and how they probably should have, given the neuroscience of how IPA works as a neural process and how similar it is to other, recognized forms of behavioral addiction.

The evidence presented within this review was very comprehensive. They focused deliberately on studies that they could compare to IGD, internet gaming disorder, because the APA had added that to the DSM. They used studies that performed neuroimaging, EEGs, and physiological measures, particularly so that they could compare it more directly to well-established knowledge of substance abuse.

research article: Fernandez et al. 2023 studied pornography withdrawal in regular users, in order to see whether there were withdrawal-related symptoms, and to see whether this correlated with higher levels of problematic pornography use in these people. They divided students into groups where they would attempt abstinence for a week or behave as usual, and recorded negative feelings throughout the week. What the study found was that frequency of pornography use was the main factor that correlated with feelings of craving for it, not higher levels of PPU.

The thing that I saw and was interested in in that article was the evidence of nonadherence in the abstinence group. Although it made it harder to measure feelings of cravings after certain periods of time, it was also useful for measuring how compelled someone might feel to return to using pornography over a certain time.

most interesting topics: focus on impact on life, focus on treatment methods!