Biological Psychology

Question 1

Lecture 1 and 2 TMS

Where is the strongest effect for tms

Answer 1

In the centre with a radius of 3-4mm

Question 2

Lecture 1 and 2 TMS

basis of what occurs during TMS

Answer 2

It puts artificial currents in the brain which depolarises neurons in a small area of cortex. As neurons fire randomly this creates neural noise
- this process was created by fritsch and hitzig

Question 3

lecture 1 and 2 TMS

What is rTMS

Answer 3

Repeated TMS with fast sequences of pulses (100-200)

Question 4

Lecture 1 and 2 TMS

4 approaches of TMS

Answer 4

1. Injection of neural noise = single pulses to show us causality which is really good and unmasking is used between 60-140ms which informs us about time course processing
2. Virtual lesion approach = using rTMS which lowers the strength of stimulation but allows more pulses to enter the cortex
3. Probing excitability = single pulses looking at the activation of the motor cortex which can be measured by recording MEPS and will display mental rotation
4. Paired pulse which involves 2 brief pulses. This is often used for patients with schizophrenia

Question 5

Lecture 3 and 4- EEG

What’s the basis of an EEG

Answer 5

Electrodes on scalp will detect electrical activity/neural as they receive electrical signals

.64 cap holes in the hat which is non invasive
.spatial resolution is not good
.temporal resolution is good

Question 6

Lecture 3+4 EEG

when did Berger say we would see an alpha rhythm?

Answer 6

Occurs when relaxed at 8-13Hz

Question 7

Lecture 3+4 EEG

EEG signals and the clean up

Answer 7

Signals are tiny at 10uv-100uv so they must be amplified to be observed but they also must be cleaned to eliminate sweating, blinking etc.

.the better signals are found in the gyri

Question 8

Lecture 3+4
EEG
What’s an ERP

Answer 8

The measured brain response that is the direct result of a specific sensory neuron or event and reflect brain activity that is related to a kind of stimulus

.the good thing about ERPs is that there is no noise and they are good AT looking at cognitive processes

Question 9

Lecture 3+4
EEG

What is an ERN?

Answer 9

A negative deflection of up to 10uv

.gering found that the greater the ERN the lower the response force and the higher the probability to get it right on the next trial by the slower the response

.only observed on EEGs after errors are committed during choice tasks

Question 10

Lecture 5 - data analysis

how do we find the variance of our sample?

Answer 10

SS(sum of squares)/degrees of freedom

Question 11

lecture 5 - data

how do we find the standard deviation

Answer 11

square root of our variance

Question 12

lecture 5 - data

what is the standard error?

Answer 12

the standard deviation of the mean of the distribution of individuals

Question 13

lecture 5 - data

what does a t test stat represent?

Answer 13

how much greater or less the sample mean is than the hypothetical mean relative to the standard error

Question 14

lecture 5 - data

when can we reject the null hypothesis?

Answer 14

when the t -statistic is larger than the standard error

.if the t stat is less than the Se we cannot reject the null

Question 15

lecture 5 - data

what is a type 1 error?

Answer 15

saying the null is false when it is actually true

Question 16

lecture 5 - data

what is a significance level

Answer 16

this indicates how probable it is that you might reject the null and if you do how likely it is that you have made a mistake (thus making a type 1 error)

Question 17

lecture 5 - data

as the critical value goes up what does down?

Answer 17

the degree of freedom

Question 18

lecture 5 - data

effect size - what constitutes as a small or big effect size?

Answer 18

0. 01 = small
1. 13 = middle
2. 25 = large

Question 19

lecture 5 - data

when do you do a one tailed test?

Answer 19

.if the alternative hypothesis states that the mean will be either greater or less
.you do a two tailed if you think the mean will just make a difference (no direction just one assumption)

Question 20

lecture 7 - fMRI

what is a BOLD fMRI

Answer 20

looks at the blood flow when the subject performs a task and then is compared when the subject does nothing

.It looks at the neural activity which when this increases the oxygen level increases making the magnetic field more homogenous making the fMRI slower but stronger

Question 21

lecture 7 - fMRI

what happens when we only want to see a slice of the brain?

Answer 21

we use an RF pulse (radiofrequency) - which will excite only a slice of the brain where the resonance frequency of the protons match the frequency of that RF pulse allowing a 3D image to be created

Question 22

lecture 7 - fMRI

how do we locate where the BOLD is originating?

Answer 22

.where we excite using the radio frequency pulse we know is z-coordinate
.we then phase encode by measuring the RF pulse to find the x coordinate

Question 23

lecture 7 - fMRI

what does the frequency RF pulse show us when we are phase encoding?

Answer 23

the y-coordinate which occurs during readout

Question 24

lecture 7
fMRI
does fMRI involve radiation?

Answer 24

no - its non invasive

however, uses a very strong magnet field

Question 25

lecture 7 fMRI what is the radioactive isotope that is administered to the patient during an fMRI

Answer 25

an oxygen-15

Question 26

lecture 7 fMRI what is BOLD fMRI

Answer 26

blood oxygen level dependent fMRI that looks at blood oxygen levels that get increased due to an increase of blood in the brain and neural activity

Question 27

lecture 7 | fMRI - how does it work?

Answer 27

the nuceli of the hydrogen atoms act as bar magnets. Put into a magnetic field they are wanting to align to that magnet however sometimes they cannot align perfectly so they precess around the magnetic field. This precessing changes the magnetic axes further changing the frequency .the magnet attracts a radio frequency pulse BUT only if the resonance frequency of that proton found matches the frequency of the pulse of that proton .this proton will only absorb the energy when it has the right match of resonance frequency .the computer picks up the radio frequency pulses when all is turned off creating an image of the brain

Question 28

lecture 7 | fMRI - how can we measure how homogenous the magnetic field is?

Answer 28

by measuring the rate at which the strength of the RF signals emitted by the tissue decreases

Question 29

lecture 7 fMRI Higher the BOLD the more homogenous the magnetic field...

Answer 29

...the slower the radio frequency emitted from the brain

Question 30

lecture 7 fMRI stronger the signal in an fMRI...

Answer 30

...the greater the neural activity

Question 31

lecture 8 fMRI common criticisms...

Answer 31

1. Multiple comparison problem - because you have to perform so many t-tests (50,000) and the more t tests you perform the greater the possibility of a false positive or a type 1 error - THIS CAN BE AVOIDED WITH THE BONFERRONI CORRECTION WHERE YOU CAN PERFORM EACH T TEST AT THE 0.01/N LEVEL ...another way to avoid this is to find a region of interest (one big voxel) and you do a t-test on this ROI comparing its activity in the 2 conditions and because you are not doing several t-tests you are less likely to miss a significant result ...but for ROI to work you must only use different scanning sessions for the identification if you dont this is all called the non-independent sampling confound (Baker et al. looked into this finding that those you do not use one scanning session end up making over half the amount of errors) ...final criticism is that if there is a null result it is hard to conclude much which is called an over interpretation of null results

Question 32

lecture 7 | fmri - how do we find the y-axis during phase encoding?

Answer 32

at readout - by listening only to one frequency we can determine the y-coordinate which is known as frequency encoding

Question 33

lecture 7 | fMRI - spatial vs temporal resolution

Answer 33

poor temporal | good spatial - we scan at 3x3x3mm cubed

Question 34

lecture 8 fMRI what did Kanwisher find on his expoloration with fMRI?

Answer 34

that there is a specific part of our brain that processes faces - to do this they found that an area of the fusiform gyrus responded more strongly to faces than objects in several conditions

Question 35

lecture 8 fMRI common criticisms...

Answer 35

1. Multiple comparison problem - because you have to perform so many t-tests (50,000) and the more t tests you perform the greater the possibility of a false positive or a type 1 error - THIS CAN BE AVOIDED WITH THE BONFERRONI CORRECTION WHERE YOU CAN PERFORM EACH T TEST AT THE 0.01/N LEVEL ...another way to avoid this is to find a region of interest (one big voxel) and you do a t-test on this ROI comparing its activity in the 2 conditions and because you are not doing several t-tests you are less likely to miss a significant result ...but for ROI to work you must only use different scanning sessions for the identification if you dont this is all called the non-independent sampling confound (Baker et al. looked into this finding that those you do not use one scanning session end up making over half the amount of errors) ...final criticism is that if there is a null result it is hard to conclude much which is called an over interpretation of null results

Question 36

lecture 9 - anatomy and makeup of our memory long term potentiation/depression

Answer 36

LTP - lots of excitability of a neuron to a synaptic input causes repeated high frequency activity of that input (this is known as Hebbs rule) learning occurs through this LTP occurs in the hippocampus, PC, motor cortex, VC, thalamus and amygdala LTD = low frequency stimulation at synapse decreases synapse strength

Question 37

lecture 9 - anatomy and make up of memory 2nd region - Frontal lobes

Answer 37

involved with motor programming and performance ...lesions to frontal lobes impact memory such that the individual will not remember contextual details and chronological order of events which leads to an error called confabulation

Question 38

lecture 9 - anatomy and make up of our memory Habituation and sensitisation

Answer 38

H - lots of stimulation reduces the strength of synapse response S - single noxious stimulus makes synaptic response to repeat presentation of noxious stimulus

Question 39

lecture 9 - anatomoy and makeup of our memory synaptic plasticity

Answer 39

learning involves this and the synapses change to alter the effect on post synaptic neuron

Question 40

lecture 9 - anatomy and makeup of our memory long term potentiation/depression

Answer 40

LTP - lots of excitability of a neuron to a synaptic input causes repeated high frequency activity of that input (this is known as Hebbs rule) LTP occurs in the hippocampus, PC, motor cortex, VC, thalamus and amygdala LTD = low frequency stimulation at synapse decreases synapse strength

Question 41

lecture 9 - anatomy and make up of our memory Hebbs rule

Answer 41

causes synaptic changes as new receptors are inverted into post synaptic membrane

Question 42

lecture 9 - anatomy and make up of our memory Habituation and sensitisation

Answer 42

H - lots of stimulation reduces the strength of synapse response S - single noxious stimulus makes synaptic response to repeat presentation of noxious stimulus

Question 43

lecture 10 cognitive theories of memory 1st memory mode (Atkinson-Shiffrin model) 2nd levels of processing 3rd Tulvings Model of memory 4th: parallel distributed processing

Answer 43

sensory memory to working memory to long term memory 2nd memory model - information is retained according to the level of processing it has undergone 3rd - Long term memory branches to either declarative memory (semantic or episodic) or procedural memory 4th - memory is activation of connections in different areas simultaneously and learning depends on the strength of these connections

Question 44

lecture 10 cognitive theories of memory what is semantic and episodic memory?

Answer 44

``` S = word meanings. This type of memory is not parallel with episodic memory but squire and zola argued that they might be as damage to hippocampal systems results in equal impariment to both S and E E = your last birthday/where you went for summer last year and this works by autonoetic (being able to put yourself in the past future and present) awareness and does depend on your semantic memory ```

Question 45

lecture 10 cognitive theories of memory Tulvings SPI hypothesis

Answer 45

Tulving stated that 1. encoding into episodic memory relies on the semantic system 2. and encoding into semantic memory relies on the semantic system 3. and episodic memory is an extension of the semantic memory Vargha-Khadem et al. collected findings that supported Tulvings hypothesis as they saw episodic memory relies on semantic memory but not the other way round by looking at patients with abnormally small bilateral hippocampi but intact extra-hippocampal temporal lobes