Environmental+Effects

= Discuss two effects of the environment on physiological processes. =

One effect of environment on physiological processes is how they interact with brain plasticity and development. media type="custom" key="23946066" This is the same method for the study that was completed above.
 * __Rosenzweig and Bennett (1972)__ **
 * Aim: ** To measure the effect of either enrichment or deprivation on the development of neurons in the celebral cortex of rats.
 * Method: **
 * Researchers placed rats into two environments
 * One environment was an enriched, stimulating environment with interesting toys for the rats to play with
 * The other was a deprived environment with no toys
 * Rats spent 30-60 days in their respective environments
 * They were sacrificed; researchers then dissected and measured the cortex of the rats.
 * Results: **
 * Rats that were in the stimulating environment had a thicker celebral cortex and heavier frontal lobes than the rats in the depriving environment.
 * Evaluation: **


 * The rats were sacrificed, ethical implications.
 * I t is very difficult to decide on what an ‘enriched’ environment is
 * Animals aren’t able to communicate with us so we cannot possibly know for sure the effect of the environments
 * The subjects of the study were rats. This means that the results of the experiment cannot be generalized to humans as this would be assuming that rat brains are the same to human brains.
 * Results between the two contrasting environments are operationalized in a way that they are in the form of quantitative data, so it is easy to compare.
 * The study was a lab experiment, and so all the variables of the study could be controlled, including the life of the rat’s life, like food and water. This allows for a direct cause and effect relationship to be established as the total control means that there are minimal, if any, confounding variables.

Another study that illustrating the effects of environment on a physiological process was performed by mcguire. __ **Maguire et al. (2000)** __ media type="custom" key="23970794"
 * Aim: ** To investigate whether or not the hippocampus plays a role in human spatial memory
 * Method: **
 * London taxi drivers with a range of age and experience were the participants because their work requires the extensive use of spatial navigational skills
 * Matched pairs design: participants were age and gender matched with a control group
 * Two different types of MRI scanning were used to assess how the brains of the taxi drivers differed from the control group
 * Quasi experiment
 * Results: **
 * VBM showed significantly more grey matter in both left and right hippocampi of the taxi drivers compared to the control group, but this was restricted to the posterior region.
 * For the control group, the pixel counting revealed a larger anterior right hippocampus than the left and larger body of the hippocampus on the right than the left than in taxi drivers, but the posterior hippocampus was larger in taxi drivers than in controls.
 * Evaluation: **
 * No researcher bias
 * No demand characteristics
 * No ethical implications
 * Only observed males
 * Only observed 16 matched pairs
 * Nature vs. Nurture debate: did the driving influence the change in the hippocampus, or did their larger than average hippocampus lead them to become taxi drivers?
 * Use a longitudinal study to determine which one it is
 * Positive correlation between time spent taxi-driving and the volume of the right posterior hippocampus.
 * Quantitative data received
 * Allowed us to understand that the hippocampus is one of the parts of the brain that stores memory, which helps us understand how to rehabilitate patients with brain damage ("Psychopaces" )

(" Discuss two effects of the environment on physiological processes." // Psychopaces // . (2013): n. page. Web. 1 Oct. 2013. .)