Biology, Brain And Behaviour Flashcards
(105 cards)
1
Q
WHAT HAVENT YOU REVISED
A
BRAIN STRUCTURE AND NEURON STRUCTURE
2
Q
What does the parietal lobe do?
A
It functions in Processing sensory information regarding the location of parts of the body
3
Q
What are two key assumptions of psychology?
A
– All behaviour is determined by biological factors
– genes influence behaviour
– the central nervous system is a major influence on behaviour
4
Q
What is the strength of correlational studies?
A
They use correlations to decide if they should do further research so it is more effective
5
Q
What is a weakness of correlational studies?
A
You can only see a relationship between two variables and it is impossible to tell which one is the casual variable
6
Q
What is a strength of CAT scans?
A
Not painful or invasive
7
Q
What is a weakness of CAT scans?
A
There is a slight chance of cancer
8
Q
What is the strength of pet scans?
A
There are reliable and can be replicated easily
9
Q
What is a weakness of pet scans?
A
They produce complex images that are open to bias
10
Q
What is the strength of FMRI scans?
A
It is non-invasive and doesn’t involve exposure to radiation
11
Q
What is a weakness of FMRI scans?
A
Implanted medical devices may cause problems in an MRI scan
12
Q
What is the strength of case studies of brain damage patients?
A
Evidence gathered will be qualitative and therefore high in detail
13
Q
What is a weakness of case studies of brain damage patients?
A
Reliability is very low
14
Q
What is a strength of lab based Experiments using animals?
A
Animals are good participants
15
Q
What is a weakness of lab-based experiments with animals?
A
They cannot necessarily be generalised to humans
16
Q
What is the CNS made of?
A
The brain and spinal cord
17
Q
What does the brain do in the CNS?
A
It draws together information from all over the body and send information back out to the body in response
18
Q
What does the spinal-cord do in the CNS?
A
It contains the nerves that carry messages between the brain and the body
19
Q
What is the CNS?
A
Is the central processing of information in the control Centre for human behaviour
20
Q
What does the CNS do?
A
Acts as an information processing and control Centre for information we receive and responses that we make in our environment
21
Q
What does the frontal lobe do?
A
It is the control panel of our personality and ability to communicate
22
Q
What does occipital lobe do?
A
It is the visual processing centre
23
Q
What does the temporal lobe do?
A
It is involved in primary auditory perception such as hearing
24
Q
What are the functions of the prefrontal cortex?
A
It has several executive functions such as inhibiting inappropriate responses, decision-making and motivational behaviour
25
What is the right hemisphere of the brain concerned with?
Creativity intuition and the movement of the left hand side of the body
26
What is the left hemisphere of the brain concerned with?
Analytic thoughts, logic, language, the right side of the body
27
How are these two hemispheres connected?
By a massive bundle of neurons called the corpus callosum
28
What is the function of the corpus callosum?
To ensure the two hemispheres are able to communicate with each other
29
What does the limbic system control?
The basic emotions
30
What does the thalamus do?
Relays information from the five senses to relevant parts of the cortex
31
What does the amygdala do?
Emotions such as anger and fear are linked to this structure.
The fight or flight response is linked to this area
32
What does the hippocampus do?
It plays a key role in memory formation. It converts short-term memory into long-term memory
33
What does the hypothalamus do?
It regulates bodily functions via stimulating the release of hormones
34
What is a neuron?
A specialised cell within the nervous system
35
What does the axon do?
Passes down electrical impulses to the end of the neuron to allow it to communicate with others
36
What do dendrites do?
They receive messages from other neurons
37
What does the axon hillock do
It generates electrical impulses down the axon called action potential
38
What does the myelin sheath do?
Provides electrical insulation for the axon and allows electrical impulses to be passed along speedily
39
What does the synapse do?
To transfer electrical impulses between the presynaptic neuron and post synaptic neuron
40
What are the three main elements of the synapse?
The presynaptic neuron, the postsynaptic neuron and the synaptic cleft
41
What is the function of a neuron?
The function of neurons is to communicate with thousands of other cells at a time in a huge network
42
How do neurons keep the body working correctly?
They make a chain with each other forming some sort of passage-way that allows messages to be sent from one part of the brain to another
43
How do neurons form new connections when we learn something new?
The terminal of the presynaptic neuron forms a connection with the receptor sites on the dendrites of the postsynaptic neuron
44
What are neurons?
There are chemical messengers that take information around the brain
45
What does serotonin do?
– Inhibits violent tendencies
– lifts mood
- involved with feeling pain, sleep, learning and memory
- decreases our worries
46
What does dopamine do?
- It provides feelings of pleasure related to emotion
| - learning and motivates us
47
What can a lack of dopamine cause?
– Fatigue
– lack of focus
– insomnia
48
What does Noradrenaline do?
It is involved with the fight or flight response
49
What is exocytosis?
When vesicles of chemicals fuse of the membrane of the presynaptic neuron allowing for chemicals to be released
50
What are recreational drugs?
They are drugs that are used in the absence of medical grounds but are taken by users for personal enjoyment
51
What do drugs target?
They target the reward pathways in the brain
52
How can dopamine pathways be activated?
By natural rewarding behaviours such as having sex or eating food
53
What does the majority of recreational drugs alter?
They alter neurotransmission in the dopamine system
54
What do drugs increase?
The levels of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens and the ventral tegmental area
55
What do most recreational drugs change?
The way that the neurotransmitter dopamine works in the synapses of the brain, they alter the communication between neurons is enabled by dopamine
56
What did drugs act to do?
Intensify and prolong the activity in the reward system by ensuring there is an increase in dopamine levels
57
How does nicotine work?
It stops the action of enzymes that would normally break down the neurotransmitter so more dopamine is left in the synaptic cleft
58
How does Heroin work?
It increases the amount of dopamine released into the synaptic cleft
59
What happens if the brain is getting too much dopamine from these drugs?
The brain will reduce how much dopamine it naturally produces so it means the brain will no longer operate properly without the drug
60
How does cocaine work?
- by blocking the transporter receptors on the presynaptic dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area
- then the presynaptic neurons don’t re-uptake dopamine and so it stays in the synaptic cleft for longer
- Because the VTA activates another area of the brain that’s associated with euphoric feelings, the user experiences euphoria for longer
61
What are the risks of taking heroin?
- Overdoses can lead to comas and even death
| - sharing needles can put you in danger of getting serious infections
62
What is relapse in relation to drug abuse?
Resuming the use of the drug after one or more periods of abstinence
63
What a drug associated cues?
When people experience stimuli in their environment that associated with when they used to take a drug
64
What did Van den over study look into? ( VDO )
The neurobiology of heroin addiction with a focus on synaptic changes linked to the drug associated cues and relapse
65
How is the rat trained in VDO study?
It is trained so that when a light appears and a tone is heard the rat will receive a dose of heroin if it pokes its nose through a hole
66
What are the drug associate cues in VDO study?
The light and the auditory tones
67
What is VDO Study concerned with?
The causes of relapse in heroin addiction
68
What was the aim of VDO study?
To investigate acute changes in the molecular composition and the function of synapses in the medial prefrontal cortex upon re-exposure to Heroin cues after long-term abstinence from self administration
69
What happened in stage one of the study?
– One group of rats were trained to self administer heroin
| – a separate group of rats will train to self administer a sucrose solution
70
What happenedIn stage two of the study?
After becoming addicted to the heroin, the experimental group of rats were split in 2
71
What were the two groups the rats were split into in stage two?
– Half were kept in a separate cage in a forced abstinence
| – others were put in the self administration box but did not receive the heroin when those poking
72
What happened on stage three of the study?
– After 21 days of abstinence or extinction the two groups both split in half
- Half of each group were exposed to the drug associated cues for 60 minutes but did not receive any heroin
- The other half are placed in the self administration boxes they were not supposed any drug associated cues
73
What happened on stage four of the study
All the rats were decapitated and the brains were frozen and later analysed using the mass spectrometry technique
74
What was the follow-up procedure of VDO study?
The rats went through the exact same procedure as the initial study however one group was injected with a drug that prevented endocytosis
76
What were the results of the observational evidence of relapse behaviour in VDO study?
After a period of abstinence from heroin the rats that were exposed to the drug associated cutes showed more drug seeking behaviour than those who weren’t
77
What were the results of the composition of synapses in a medial prefrontal cortex in VDO study?
After a period of absence from heroin, rats that were exposed to drug associated cues had lower levels of AMPA receptors.
78
PEEC of a strength of VDO study?
P - The study used standardised procedures
E- this makes it strength as standardised procedures increases the reliability of the study because it makes it more replicable
E - All rats were trained with the same Audio visual cues and they all had the same amount of time in abstinence
C - Therefore this study is high in scientific credibility as her reliability is an important characteristic of science
79
PEEC of a weakness of van den oever study?
P - One weakness is that The sample consisted of male Wister rats which is not representative sample of drug addicted humans
E - this is a weakness as a rat brain is very different to human brain so cannot necessarily be generalised to drug addiction in humans
E- The medial prefrontal cortex in rats is much smaller compared to humans which could influence the way synapses change when we are exposed to the heroin associated cues
C - however, the use of rats allows a great deal of control and would be unethical to do the same study on humans so rats are an appropriate sample
80
What were the results of the drug treatment in VDO study?
Rats they had not been injected with the drug to prevent endocytosis showed a greater amount of drug seeking behaviour compared to rats who had been injected
81
What are hormones?
The chemical substances produced in a specialised gland and transported in blood to stimulate specific cell or organs into action
82
What is the name of the system of glands that produce hormones?
The endocrine system
83
What is the name of the structure in the brain that is the command centre for the endocrine system?
The hypothalamus
84
How do hormones get around the body?
In the bloodstream
85
How to hormones work?
They are secreted by glands and then carried around in the bloodstream to stimulate parts of the body
86
What are the female hormones?
Oestrogen and progesterone
87
What happens when a child is exposed to stressful environment?
They release of stress hormone cortisol is which can cause anxiety impulsive responses and fear later on in life
88
What happens when hormones reach a particular destination the body?
They bind with the receptors on target cells specific to the hormone and then the cell responds according to its function
89
What are the three interacting processes that human behaviour can be seen as being made up of?
– Sensory input
– integration
– motor output
90
How can the senses be influenced by hormones?
Hormones can change the way we perceive our environment e.g. oxytocin
91
How Can integration be influenced by hormones?
Hormones can influence the central nervous system by making neurons more or less sensitive
92
How can hormones affect motor output?
Hormones affect the way our body develops
93
What are the characteristics of hormones?
– Take longer to work
| – They tend to have a long-term influence in the body
94
What is the strength of using hormones to explain human behaviour?
Much of the research linking hormones to human behaviours has high levels of scientific validity
95
What is a weakness of using hormones to explain human behaviour?
It is limited by ethical issues because of protection of participants
96
How to hormones and behaviour have a reciprocal relationship?
Behaviour can stimulate the release of hormones so is reciprocal e.g. hugging releases oxytocin
97
What is evolution?
The gradual development of different kinds of living organisms from earlier forms throughout history of the Earth
98
What is natural selection?
It is a gradual process by which hereditable traits become more or less common in an environment depending on how they can help you survive
99
How are variations made?
They are caused by random genetic mutations
100
What is evolutionary psychology?
A branch of biological psychology that looks At explaining human behaviour in terms of any particular behaviour has aided our survival
101
What are some human behaviours that may have developed as a result of evolution by natural selection?
– Mate choice
– phobia
– aggression
102
Why have humans evolved to have a prolonged period of childhood and juvenile growth?
Human brains are more complex so they take more time to be fully formed as our brain must learn to do things such as speaking and cognitive reasoning
103
PEEC of how evolution can explain human development?
P - Evolution can explain why humans have phobias
E- this is because we may have learnt to stay away from something or be scared of something that could hurt us or kill us.
E - such as animals like sharks and also things such as fire.
C - therefore we know to stay away from these things because we are scared of them. It’s because they have a chance of hurting us so it aids us in prolonging our survival
104
What is a strength of using evolution by natural selection to explain human behaviour?
The assumptions that the theory makes are directly observable and therefore have very high scientific credibility
105
What is a weakness of using evolution by natural selection to explain human behaviour?
The evidence for the assumption of evolutionary psychology that human behaviour has evolved is limited. It is also reductionism
106
What is the main assumption of evolutionary psychology?
Our brain has evolved to allow behaviours to be inherited by offspring that serve an adaptive function in the environment of evolutionary adoption
