Sultan Konurov 9-10-2023                                                                                                     Eng 21003

Reading a Scientific Paper

What problem is this paper trying to solve?

The paper I chose to analyze is “Academic Stress and the Degradation of the Amygdala”. In this paper the issue they are trying to solve is academic stress and anxiety on how it affects students in school, whether that is high school or college, undergraduate or graduate and to prevent mental illness like anxiety disorder or depression.

What work has been done before in this field to answer the big question? What are the limitations of that work? What, according to the authors, needs to be done next? 

There have been many studies done before pertaining to this field and similar, the author here using 4 studies to help support his statement. There are 3 human studies directly involving students in school, and 1 animal study based on rats and stress response. The author states limitations of the study in their results which include because the studies from other peoples researches they include different demographics such as one study (Chen 2015) based on Taiwanese high school seniors can include time of classes and difference in education systems being a variable. Also the author says ‘the connection between academic stress degrading the amygdala and only anxiety was supported’ resulting in the other areas which they tried to look for results could not be found. In general I don’t think it is understood the hyperactivity of the amygdala function with other mental health challenges in this paper being one of the other limitations.

What exactly are the author is trying to answer what the research? I may be multiple questions, or just one. Write them down. It’s the kind of research that has one or more no hypothesis, identify it/them. 

The authors here have multiple questions one being trying to answer why so many students experience and other mental health challenges. Second being how much stress do students experience in school, and how does it affect them and their health.

What are the authors going to do to answer the specific question(s)?

The authors here gathered research from 4 separate studies to support their claim, they broke down the studies, explaining the results and how they relate to their own hypotheses. 

Paraphrase with the authors did for their methods

For the first study Dusselier (2005) they surveyed 462 undergraduate students from Iowa State University, they had 2 sections with 72 questions total. The first section had questions about students feelings towards their residence halls and the second about recognizing the impact of health and personal problems. The second being broken up into 2 parts that analyzed their lifestyles, one set asking about their electronics usage or extracurriculars affecting their academic work and the other about overall health, relationships, and personal issues with drugs, alcohol, sleep and more. Also they had the students answer a question about what stresses them out the most following up with a linear regression analysis.

A second study by Chen (2005) did an analysis on 757 high school seniors in Taiwan looking at how academic stress affected fatigue, sleepiness, depression and mental health. There were 4 groups that they were broken up into called Grade 1, 2, 3T, 3S with 261, 228, 199, and 69 students in them respectively, with 3T having an upcoming college entry exam and 3S having finished college entry exams and apps. All groups 

filled out questionnaires with chinese versions of the Multidimensional Fatigue Symptom Inventory-Short Form (MFSI-SF-C), the Epworth Sleepiness Scale (CESS), the Beck Depression Inventory (C-BDI-II) and finally the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index-Taiwan Form (PSQI-T). All these questionnaires had their own ranges some indicating how true something was or if they were correlations depression, sleepiness, sleep quality to physical, emotional, mental fatigue (MFSI). All the scores were then recorded and averaged to make up an analysis to see how students conditions were from academic stress.

The third study Komorav (2020) analyzing brain activity in the relationships between stress, fatigue, sleepiness, and sleep quality. Using a Daily Sampling System where 18 graduate students used their phones to record the 4 factors discussed. For stress, fatigue and sleep quality a 0 to 100 number was used to describe their condition and with 0 to 9 scale for sleepiness. Also to determine relationships bivariate correlation,and regression analyses, along with a 21 item questionnaire were used. Lastly EEG brain scans and the questionnaire were used every two weeks to see brain function throughout the semester.

Finally the last study Suvrathan (2014) used a qualitative  experiment on 60 65 day old rats on how stress impacts brain structure. Using a control group another group went under chronic immobilization for 10 days being restricted from moving for a two hours a day affecting long term potentiation (LTP) in brain synapses in the amygdala and thalamus. Then both undergoing fear conditioning having two chambers one being dimly lit with a metal floor and the second with a bright light and plexiglass then listening to different tones from 20 to 70 decibels then being shocked and being observed for freezing and motionless behavior. Through golgi staining and spine density analysis their brains were analyzed after taken out, stained for certain neurons and looked at for stress in specific brain areas.

Paraphrase their results section.

For Dusseliers (2005) study they found stress and depression had a positive correlation, and depression was a significant predictor of stress by using the backward selection process and linear regression statistical analysis. About 18% of students surveyed reported to be feeling depressed, also experiencing more stress.

Chen (2015) looking more at mental health and academic stress  found students with higher grades also had higher physical, emotional, and mental fatigue. In the linear regression model it found that depression levels, sleepiness, and sleep quality were related to physical fatigue. Also depression levels along with sleep quality are associated with emotional fatigue.

Komarov (2020) also found correlations between academic stress to mental health and sleep. Rating on their conditions from 0 to 100 the averages and standard deviations are as follows 49.4±17.4 for stress, 50.3±17.6 for fatigue, 59.6±10.2 for sleep quality, 55.6±13.3 for mood on awakening, and 51.4±13.2 for alertness on awakening.

Lastly Suvrathan’s (2014) experiment resulted in the ratio of NMDAR activity to AMPA activity was doubled in the experimental group. The results show the LTP in the lateral amygdala was greater in the experimental group compared to the control. It is shown that both of the groups had fear conditioning at the same rate in context a, showing the same behaviors, and in context b the experimental group showed more freezing.

Based on what you can understand, what do the authors think their results mean? Do you agree with them? If possible, can you come up with any alternative ways of interpreting them? Do the authors identify any weaknesses in their own study? Do you see any that the authors missed?

Based on what I can see the authors think their results are what they expected and what they wanted to see according to their hypotheses. The authors do think that academic stress increases students anxiety and stress, fatigue, anxiety, and depression although not directly. I do agree with the authors based on the information given, it supports the claim. The authors do identify weaknesses in the end talking about how stress and anxiety can vary at different ages, grades and academic level. There are other variabilities that weren’t taken into account such as the different regions of the world, consisting of various education systems. Conclusively the authors found the connection between academic stress degrading the amygdala and only anxiety.