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Connor Vermillion
Psychology
Period 6
Psychological Disorders and the Brain
The brain is an amazing part of the human body. It is constantly working and goes
through an immense amount of stress, so its no wonder that there is a multitude of disorders that
can affect how your brain operates. Different disorders typically affect different parts of the brain
but many of them affect multiple parts and the same parts as other disorders. Here are just a few
psychological disorders and how they affect different parts of the brain.
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or more commonly known as ADHD is a
common psychological disorder that is most commonly found in young children. Researchers
have found that patients with ADHD develop a thinner frontal cortex. The development of the
cortex is also delayed by about three years (ADHD and the Brain), but it does catch up to normal
brain development and thicken later. ADHD patients also often have lower brain volume and less
grey matter. This is especially noticed in the part of the brain where attention and emotions are
controlled. The lack of these attributes explains why ADHD patients have trouble paying
attention and can act out uncontrollably at times. ADHD is a serious disorder and there is yet to
be a cure found for it, but current treatments include medication and therapy that can help
patients keep control of their actions.
Millions of people are affected by some form of Depression at least once in their life, but
there are many who suffer from severe long lasting depression which can have an extremely
negative effect on a person's mind. Depression brings on an increase in the production of a
hormonal steroid called cortisol. High amounts of cortisol have been found to damage the

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hippocampal neurons which cause negative emotions to be associated with stored memories.
Patients with depression have also been found to have low serotonin levels. If unaffected
serotonin helps with the control of functions like mood, appetite, and sleep. This is why many
patients who suffer from depression either have no appetite or overeat and either sleep too little
or too much. Researchers have discovered that people who suffer from depression also have a
smaller sized hippocampus which can lead to an increased number of depressive episodes. It has
been discovered that recurrent episodes lead to a further reduction in the size of the hippocampus
which can then lead to a repeating cycle. Depression if not treated can lead to severe emotional
and physical problems, but there are several methods for treatment such as medication or
regularly seeing a psychologist.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, better known as (PTSD), is a psychological disorder
which is a direct result of high stress situations that leave a long lasting negative effect on
someone's hippocampus. The hippocampus is the area of the brain that controls the storage of
new memories and matches stored memories with emotional responses to new situations. PTSD
also causes a decrease in size of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which controls the emotional
response to new situations. With PTSD affecting both of these areas greatly, it can cause the
patient to interpret a situation incorrectly. Instead of comparing the new memory to one that is of
the same emotional response, it is compared to the traumatic memory. This can either lead
patients into a bout of rage, or send them into a state of depression, or even cause anxiety attacks.
There is also an increase in activity in the amygdala which would typically help us process our
emotions, but in PTSD the increase causes one to feel anxiety ridden or fearful. PTSD has
become a very widely spread disorder due to the traumatizing events in the modern world. There

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is no formal cure for PTSD, but with medication and counseling a patient is able to learn how to
deal with it on their own and keep themselves in a controlled state of mind.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder or (OCD) is a disorder that causes patients to perform
repetitive acts to alleviate stress or anxiety. Patients who suffer from OCD perform these
repetitive acts because of a fear of something bad happening as a consequence of not completing
the task. Researches believe patients act out in this way because of a lack of serotonin in several
parts of the brain. Serotonin is a chemical the brain uses to communicate between its different
parts, which explains why OCD patients feel fear or anxiety from a normal task. Many
researchers have come to believe that OCD is a genetic disorder. Statistics show if an immediate
family member is diagnosed with OCD there is a 25% chance of OCD being passed to the next
generation (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Researchers have yet to find a cure for OCD, but
they have found ways to treat it well enough that patients can live out their lives as normally as
possible. Typically, doctors will prescribe medication to get the brain back into chemical balance
or they will recommend a psychologists who can help patients talk through their problems. OCD
may not seem like a serious disorder to most people but if left untreated it can lead to severe day
to day life issues that will add to the patient's problems. This is why researchers are hard at work
to find a cure and ways to prevent OCD from developing in the first place.
Another common disorder that can be widely overlooked by the average person is
Schizophrenia. Many people dont understand what exactly schizophrenia is even if they have
heard of it. Schizophrenia is a disorder that causes patients to hear voices that no one else can
hear or may cause them to think someone is trying to read their mind or inflict damage upon
them which inevitably causes them to panic and become very withdrawn or agitated, sometimes
to the point of outward aggression. Doctors now believe that the leading cause of Schizophrenia

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is genetics since less than 1 percent of the general population actually has the disorder . It is
thought that a gene that is significant to the creation of important brain chemicals malfunctions
in some patients causing an imbalance of these chemicals that help carry out higher brain
functions. Some researchers have found that people diagnosed with schizophrenia have brains
that look completely different from the average person. It has been found that they have enlarged
ventricles in the middle of the brain and that they also have less grey matter. Tests have shown
that different areas either have more or less activity in the brain which could explain why
patients suffer from extreme fear and bouts of rage. The only treatment for schizophrenia so far
has been prescribed medication. Researchers are working to find new, more effective
medications and a way to find genetic markers that will allow doctors to find Schizophrenic
patients before theyre even born.
Its quite obvious that there are a wide variety of mental disorders that can be found in
any point in the brain and in any person. You start to see though throughout all these different
disorders that many of them end up affecting similar areas of the brain. This really makes one
wonder, is there something wrong with a specific part of the brain over other parts of it, or is it
just a typical cause and effect? Whatever it is, you see that not only are psychological disorders
troublesome to ones everyday life, but it also has a huge impact on the functions and sometimes
structure of someone's brain.

Works Cited
"ADHD and the Brain: Structure and Function." Healthline. Healthline Networks Inc., 2005.
Web. 20 Sept. 2015. <http://www.healthline.com/health/adhd/the-brains-structure-andfunction>.

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Healthline discusses how ADHD patients develop a thinner frontal cortex at a slower rate. The
brain would typically be delayed by about three years. It would eventually catch up to
normal development and thicken. It was also seen that the motor cortex grew faster in
these patients. Most patients of ADHD are younger children, which explains why they
have a need to be constantly moving. Researchers also found that ADHD patients have a
lower brain volume and less gray matter. This is noticed especially in the region that
controls attention and emotions, explaining the lack of attention and lashing out towards
others.
"Brain Basics." National Institution of Mental Health. USA.gov, n.d. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/educational-resources/brain-basics/brain-basics.shtml>.
NIMH has information on a multitude of mental disorders. Specifically it goes into the different
chemical imbalances in the brain that different disorders bring on. These chemical
imbalances cause different areas of the brain to either work less or more than they
typically would. It also tells the different areas of the brain where common mental
disorders are found. These different affected areas are the reason certain disorders bring
on specific actions. Theres also information on how some of the disorders affect
neurotransmitters and how your brain communicates with itself. Some of the disorders
are brought on by genetics and cause your brain to develop differently than normal
brains.
"The Effects Depression Has on the Brain." Healthline. N.p., 2005. Web. 20 Sept. 2015.
<http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/effects-brain>.
Healthlines study on Depression shows that theres an increase of a hormonal steroid called
cortisol. This increase of cortisol has been found to damage the hippocampal neurons.

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Studies also showed that patients with depression have a hippocampal that is smaller than
a normal persons. The smaller someones hippocampus was the longer their depressive
episode is thought to last. Its also thought that this could lead to more episodes
occurring. Some doctors hypothesis that the more episodes that occur could possible lead
to an even further reduction of the hippocampus. This reduction would lead to an even
bigger increase in episodes causing more damage and reduction to happen.
"How Does Post Tramatic Stress Dissorder Affect the Brain." Brain Blogger. GNIF, 2005. Web.
20 Sept. 2015. <http://brainblogger.com/2015/01/24/how-does-post-traumatic-stressdisorder-change-the-brain/>.
Typically PTSD is brought on by past experience that become a recurrent memory. This happens
because of damage brought on by stress on the hippocampus which controls memories.
When damaged in the way it is from PTSD it causes the old painful or feared memories
to be related to a new memory that is being stored. This causes them to misinterpret the
scene going on at the time with something that happened before. Theres also changes to
the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which controls emotional responses to situations.
Theres a decrease in the size of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex causing patients to
exhibit fear or anxiety in the face of situation that remind them of the past memory.
Theres an increase in activity in the amygdala which typically helps us process emotions
but the increase in activity cause fear or panic attacks in patients.
"Obsessive Compulsive Disorder." National Alliance of Mental Illness. NAMI, 2015. Web. 20
Sept. 2015. <https://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/ObsessiveCompulsive-Disorder>.

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OCD is a disorder that causes patients to go through repetitive tasks to relieve themselves of
stress or anxiety. A lot of times these tasks are brought on by a fear of something. They
do the task repeatedly then in fear that something bad will happen to them. Researches
think that the cause of this could be brought on by a lack of response in several parts of
the brain that dont respond correctly to serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical that is used by
the brain to communicate between the different parts. Many researchers also believe that
OCD could be a genetic disorder. They figure patients who have family members with
OCD had a 25% chance of inheriting the disorder.