Behavioral Deficits Associated With Bipolar Disorder (Research Paper Sample)

Bipolar Disorder
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Bipolar Disorder
At a young age, Demi Lovato knew she had a problem. She openly spoke about her lifelong struggle with mental illness on the eve of launching her much expected fifth album (News & Oran, 2015). At the age of nineteen, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. A health condition that affects a person’s moods, thus causing the moods to fluctuations from one extreme to another. Individuals with bipolar disorder experience depression periods where the feeling is very low and mania episodes where the feeling is high and overactive. Less severe mania is known as hypomania. Bipolar disorder affects the brain part called prefrontal cortex (Berk et. al, 2006).The prefrontal cortex is the cerebral cortex that covers the front region of the frontal lobe. There is an integral connection between the personality of an individual and the roles played by the prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain is accountable to the arrangement of complex cognitive characteristics, decision making and expression of personality. For people with bipolar disorder, their prefrontal cortex is smaller. This part of the brain is related to executive functions like the ability to know the difference among conflicting thoughts, deciding bad and good, prediction of results, the future consequences of current activities and the ability to suppress the desire that, if not suppressed, could lead to the outcomes which are not socially acceptable. Studies indicate that in some people with bipolar disorder, the way the prefrontal cortex functions is not as good as it does for people without the disorder (Cerullo et. al, 2009).
The brain neurotransmitters also play a key role in bipolar disorder. The major contributor is serotonin which has natural chemicals that can be linked to the changes in mood swings. Serotonin is a chemical which is responsible for keeping mood balance when this chemical is not sufficient; it can cause depression (Cerullo et. al, 2009). The experts of the brain hold a strong belief that to some extent, bipolar disorder is as a result of the primary problems with particular brain circuits and the brain chemicals called the neurotransmitters. Serotonin together with noradrenaline and dopamine are the three chemicals involved in functions of the body and the brain (Cerullo et. al, 2009). Together with noradrenaline, serotonin has constantly been linked to psychiatric mood conditions like depression and bipolar disorder (Berk et. al, 2006). Dopamine controls the nerve routes within the brain areas that control emotional reward and pleasure. Serotonin is also linked to many functions of the body including eating, sleeping, learning, sexual activity, insomnia, and memory. The survey indicates that abnormal brain circuit features that entail serotonin as the main chemical messenger contributes to a mood disorder (Cerullo et. al, 2009).
Behavioral deficits associated with bipolar disorder
Due to bipolar disorder, Demi Lovato noticed that she experienced debilitating mood swings. Like everyone else with bipolar, she had to go through at least one of the depressive episodes called bipolar depression (News & Oran, 2015). People with bipolar disorder show different behavioral deficits, for instance, the experience a decreased need to sleep. Some patients sleep for about three hours only during the night. Research indicates that bipolar disorder affects an individual’s circadian rhythm and the normal sleeping trends which are fixed by brain glands that react to the altering light and dark as well as the seasonal changes seasons (Cerullo et. al, 2009). Many people with bipolar disorder struggle with to stick to a consistent bed-time and wake-up time. Sleep interferences resulting from bipolar disorder range from too much sleep and not feeling the need to sleep. When people with bipolar disorder sink into depression, they either experience extreme insomnia, or they sleep too much (Berk et. al, 2006). Those at the full mania stage may feel no need for much sleep as usual. Generally, people with this disorder report a lower-quality sleep time, more night waking, often insomnia and a general sense of less sleep. Demi Lovato admits that she just couldn’t sleep; she thought it was normal staying up until 5:30 in the morning and composing seven songs within one night (News & Oran, 2015).
Persons with bipolar disorder are prone to be more talkative than usual, and sometimes they make rapid and difficult to interrupt talking (Cerullo et. al, 2009). Others talk even when no one is listening to them. There is also a noticeable increase in involvement in activities which are goal oriented, for instance, commencing new projects either at work or home. Since Demi Lovato was a musician, her goal-oriented activity was doing music, due to her condition, she could write around seven songs in a single night, this is hard for a person without bipolar disorder. There is also an excessive engagement in risky but fun activities such as spending sprees, sexual infidelity or sometimes making reckless investments or business ventures.
During periods of mood elevation, people with bipolar disorder show symptoms of high energy, grandiosity, elevated libido, poor judgment, extreme irritability, impractical belief in one's powers and abilities, aggressive behavior, denial that everything is wrong, etc. While on the depressed end of mood spectrum, they show symptoms of low self-esteem, sadness feelings, emptiness, difficulty in decision making, and pervasive pessimism among other depressing signs. For people with bipolar disorder, spontaneous episodes of mood swings occur for no specific reason (Wilkinson et. al, 2002). However, in some cases, particular triggers may be discovered; these triggers can be events or situations, for instance, the changes in seasons. Anxiety feelings or mood swings associated with this disorder are so overwhelming and severe such that they interfere with job duties, personal relationships, and daily functioning (Wilkinson et. al, 2002).The mood swings and treatment difficulties of bipolar disorder mostly push the usual strains to thrilling behaviour and dysfunction. Mania regularly results in sex addictions, and hyper sexuality on the other hand downheartedness and medication have after consequences which can kill libido thus terminating sexual activeness of a person.
Impacts of technological advancement in cognitive neuropsychology
The use of technology in neuropsychological assessment has led to better-informed diagnosis and treatments (National Research Council, 2008). For example, technological improvements have resulted in the use of computerized batteries by clinical sports psychologists to assess minor traumatic brain injury and to inform return-to-play decisions. Research suggests that current computerized assessments are comparably reliable and valid to other neuropsychological testing measures when used with appropriate normative data (National Research Council, 2008). The use of computerized tests have made it possible to do tailor testing for specific populations and have increased the ease and standardization of administration, minimization of errors during scoring and interpretation and readily accessible assessment without significant time devoted to the preparation of materials (National Research Council, 2008).
Literature Review
Bipolar disorder is among the major severe mental diseases which are currently estimated as a public health problem. With the emergence of formal literature, it began being seen as a dichotomous idea which is divided into type one and two disorder. After further research, the bipolar spectrum was reintroduced which included both the classical forms of bipolar disorder and the mild forms such as mood disorders which do not fully meet the diagnostic methodologies which are currently set by the ICD-10 (Cerullo et.al, 2009).
The interest in utilizing functional neuroimaging in understanding the bipolar disorder’s etiology and improving it has been increasing in the past few decades. The functional brain anatomy can be examined through functional imaging. Research indicates that among the first brain regions to disrupt the mood of a bipolar person is a prefrontal cortex (Wilkinson et. al, 2002). When comparing subjects who are bipolar and those who are healthy, the bipolar patients might be having noteworthy neurocognitive shortfalls even during euthymia, where their brain activation functions differently. When compared to healthy individuals, research points out that bipolar patients show a bigger activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus in the course of their verbal fluency talk but not during important decision making practices.
Other studies used emotional faces like sadness, happiness, and fear of inducing different types of effects (Hassel et. al, 2009).These studies made use of emotional processing tasks; the results indicated that there is altered activation in the PFC regions in patients with bipolar. Two parts of the mesolimbic cortex named the amygdala and parahippocampus are involved in memory and emotional evaluation. Tasks which entail the use of emotional faces are used in the analysis of amygdala. Patients who are bipolar show enhanced activation of the left amygdala when their emotional faces are viewed (Hassel et. al, 2009). When viewed for fearful faces, the bipolar patients show a rise in activation in the left amygdala.
Research indicates that amongst the ignored aspects of bipolar disorder is the threat for developing cognitive deficit as a constituent of the illness (Hassel et. al, 2009). Some of the reported cognitive deficits include; difficulties with the working memory of linguistics, difficulty in remembering what has been read or listened to, problems in setting priorities, planning and organizing behavior, and sluggish thought process (M...