Biopsychology Flashcards
(125 cards)
1
Q
What are neurons?
A
Cells that conduct nerve impulses
2
Q
How fast do neurons go?
A
Messages in the brain can travel at speeds to 286 mph
3
Q
What does the nucleus do?
A
The control centre of a cell which contains the cells DNA
4
Q
What is a dendrite?
A
Receives the nerve impulses or signal from adjacent neurons
5
Q
What is an axon?
A
Where electrical signals pass along
6
Q
What is myelin sheath?
A
Protects the axon from external influences that might effect the transmission of nerve impulses down the axon
7
Q
What is nodes of ranvier?
A
These speed up the transmission of the impulse by forcing it to ‘jump’
8
Q
What are terminal buttons?
A
Sends signals to an adjacent cell
9
Q
What are the function of a sensory neuron?
A
Carries messages from PNS to brain and spinal cord
10
Q
What are the length of the fibres in the sensory neuron?
A
Long dendrites and short axons
11
Q
What is the function of a relay neuron?
A
Transfers messages from sensory neurons to other interconnecting neurons or motor neurons
12
Q
What are the length of the fibres in a relay neurons?
A
Short dendrites and long or short axons
13
Q
What are the function of the motor neuron?
A
Carries messages from CNS to muscle effectors
14
Q
What are the length of the fibres in a motor neuron?
A
Short dendtites and long axons
15
Q
What are neurotransmitters?
A
Chemicals that are released from a synaptic vesicle into the synapse by neurons
16
Q
What is action potential?
A
An explosion of electrical activity, this means that’s some event causes the resting potential to move forward
17
Q
When does action potential occur?
A
When neurons send information down the axon, away from the cell body
18
Q
What are excitation?
A
Make it more likely a neuron will fire
19
Q
What is inhibition?
A
Make it less likely the next neuron will fire
20
Q
What is the nervous system?
A
Specialised network of cells in the human body and is our primary internal communication system
21
Q
What are the two factors of the nervous system?
A
- to collect,process and respond to information in the environment
- to coordinate the working of different organs and cells
22
Q
What are the two subdivisions of the human nervous system?
A
Peripheral Nervous System
Central Nervous System
23
Q
What is the peripheral nervous system?
A
Transmits messages via millions of neurons to and from the central nervous system
24
Q
What is the central nervous system?
A
Passes info to and from brains and connects nerves to PNS
25
What are the two subdivisions of the PNS?
Autonomic Nervous system
| Somatic Nervous system
26
What is the autonomic nervous system?
Governs vital/ involuntary functions in the body e.g. breathing, heart rate, digestion, sexual arousal and stress response
27
What is the Somatic Nervous system?
Responsible for carrying sensory and motor info to and from the spinal cord
28
What are the subdivisions of the central nervous system?
Brain
| Spinal cord/Spine
29
What does the brain do?
Centre of all conscious awareness
30
What is the spine for?
Extension of the brain
| Responsible for reflex actions
31
What are the subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system?
Sympathetic Nervous System
| Parasympathetic Nervous System
32
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
Uses adrenaline to stimulate the fight or flight response. This included stopping digestion, increasing blood pressure and heart rate
33
What is the Parasympathetic nervous system?
Resets the body after the fight or flight response
34
What is the endocrine system?
Is in charge of body processes that happen slowly, such as cell growth and gland control
35
What is the pitruitary gland?
Controls the release of hormones from all other endocrine glands
36
What are the adrenal glands?
This releases adrenaline directly into the bloody system which prepares the body for fight or flight response
37
What are the ovaries?
This facilities the release of the female hormones
38
What are testes?
Facilitates the release of male hormones
39
What is localisation?
The idea that specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological functions
40
What is lateralisation?
The dominance of one hemisphere of the brain for particular physical and psychological functions
41
What is the difference between the left and right side of the brain?
The presence of language area which are found on the left
42
What is Aphasia?
Inability to produce speech
43
What does the motor cortex do?
Responsible for the generation of voluntary movements
| Located in the frontal lobe of both hemispheres
44
What does the somato sensory cortex do?
Detects sensory events arising from different regions of the body
Located in both hemispheres
45
Where are the visual centres located?
Occipital lobe
46
What are the different parts of the brain?
```
Frontal lobe
Broca’s area
Wernicas areas
Temporal lobe
Cerebellum
Occipital lobe
Pariental lobe
Somatosensory cortex
Somatomotor cortex
```
47
What does Broca’s area do?
Involves language
Involved in responding to many demanding cognitive tasks like maths
Located in the left hemisphere
48
What does the Wernickes area do?
Responsible for processing spoken language in the posterior proportion of the left temporal lobe
49
What does post mortem mean?
After death
50
What is plasticity?
The quality of being easily shaped or moulded. This describes the brain ability to change and adapt as a result of experience or learning
51
What is functional recovery?
A form of plasticity where the brain can be redistributed or transfer functions usually performed by a damaged area to another area of the brain
52
When does the brain experience a rapid growth in synaptic connection?
During infancy
53
What is synaptic pruning?
Deleting those aren’t used and strengthening those that are
54
What did Maguire study?
Compares taxi drivers to none taxi drivers hippocampus through MRI scans
55
What did maguire find in her study?
More grey in the hippocampus of the taxi drivers than controls
A positive correlation between length of time in job and size difference
56
What did draganski study?
The brain of medical students before and after final exams
57
What did draganski find?
Learning induced changes occurred in the hippocampus and parental lobe
Supports plasticity
58
What is human echolocation?
A learned ability for a human to sense their environment from echos and sound
Studies found that the auditory info is processed by the brains regions usually processing visual information
59
How does the brain recover from trauma?
Neural reorganisation
| Neural regeneration
60
What is neural reorganisation?
Transfer of functions to in damages areas
61
What is neural regeneration?
Growth of new neurons and/of connections to compensate for damaged areas
62
What happens in the brain when it recovers?
Axonal sprouting
Neural unmasking
Reformation of blood vessels
Recruitment of similar areas on the opposite side of the brain
63
What is axonal sprouting?
Growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells
64
What is neural unmasking?
The unmasking of dormant synapses can open to regions of the brain that are not normally activated
65
What is hemisphere lateralisation?
The idea that the two halves of the brain are functionally different and certain processes or behaviour are controlled by one hemisphere rather that the other
66
What does the left hemisphere control?
Language and the right side of the body
67
What does the right hemisphere control?
Face recognition
Drawing ability
spatial activity
Left side of body
68
Who are split brain patients?
A group of patients had the corpus callusum severed so that the two hemispheres are separated and don’t communicate with each other
69
What is commissurotomy?
Where the corpus callusum severed so the two hemispheres are separated
70
What is the circadian rhythm?
Daily activity
71
How long does the circadian rhythm operate for?
24/25 hr cycle
72
What does the brains circadian clock regulate?
```
Sleeping pattern
Feeding pattern
Brain wave activity
Hormone production
Alertness
Core body temp
Regulation of glucose and insulin levels
Urine production
Cell regeneration
```
73
What is melatonin?
Produced in the pineal gland
| Causes drowsiness and lowers body temperature
74
What is cortisol?
Produced in the adrenal gland
Used to form glucose or blood sugar
Controls stress
75
Physically, where is the circadian clock located?
Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus of the brain, one in each hemisphere
76
What is the SCNs responsibility?
Sending signals to several other parts of the brain to regulate the daily sleep/wake cycle
77
Who conducted the cave study?
Michel siffre (1962)
78
What was the purpose of the cave study?
To find out the circadian rhythm length
79
What does the cave study suggest?
The circadian rhythm is 25hrs and free running
80
What is a weakness of the cave study?
Can’t actually track when you went to sleep accurately
81
What is a strength of the cave study?
Has been replicated and shown the same results
82
What are endogenous pacemakers?
Body’s internal biological clocks
83
What does the body regulate in our internal clock?
Sleep pattern
Feeding pattern
Brain wave activity
Hormone production
84
What are exogenous zeitgebers?
External cues that help to regulate the internal body clocks
85
What are examples of exogenous zeitgebers?
Light
Clocks
Schedule (mealtimes)
86
What does ultra mean?
More than
87
What does ultradian mean?
Occur more than once a day
88
What does infra mean?
Less than
89
What does infradian mean?
Occur less than Once a day
90
What are the four main cycles of sleep?
Stage 1-3 are called Non rapid eye movement
| Stage 4 called REM (Rapid Eye Movement)
91
What happens in stage 1 of the sleep cycle?
Waves are called theta waves
Can have hypnagogic hallucinations
Can have hypnic jerks
92
What happens in stage 2 of the sleep cycle?
Have more theta waves
| Can have sleep spindles and K complex
93
What do sleep spindles and K complex do?
Keep you asleep
94
What happens in the 3rd stage of sleep cycle?
Slower wave sleep
Has delta waves
Deep sleep in this stage
Can sleep walk and talk
95
What happens in the stage 3 of the sleep cycle?
```
Called REM ( Rapid Eye Movement)
PonZ happens
Paradoxical with active mind but paralysed
```
96
What is PonZ?
Keeps us paralysed while asleep
97
How long does the whole four stages of the sleep cycle take?
90 mins
98
What are the two types of infradian rhythms?
Menstrual cycle
| Seasonal affective disorders
99
What exogenous factor can change the mentrual cycle of women, not on hormonal contraception?
Stress
Diet
Exercise
Smell
100
How did McClintock test if smell can change the mentrual cycle?
Getting people to smell people armpits
101
What are the confounding variables to McClintocks research?
Stress
102
Other researchers haven’t replicated her findings. Why?
Manipulated her results therefore not reliable
103
Why is it a problem that a lot of research is on animals?
Can’t extrapolate the data
104
What is the regularity of the mentrual cycle?
24hrs to 35hrs
105
How long is ovulation is into the cycle?
Two weeks
106
When does ovulation occur?
When oestrogen is at its peak
107
Why does progesterone increase?
Preparing for pregnancy
108
What does SAD stand for?
Seasonal Affective Disorder
109
What is a Circannual rhythm?
Where’s rhythms a year
110
What are the ways of measuring the brain?
FMRI
EEG
ERPs
Post Mortem Examinations
111
What does FMRI stand for?
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
112
What does FMRI show?
Detecting the change in blood oxygenation
113
What are the strengths to FMRI?
Virtually risk free
| High spatial resolution
114
What are the weaknesses of FMRI?
Expensive
Poor temporal resolution
Can’t tell the exact activity of individual neurons
115
What does EEG stand for?
Electroencephalogram
116
What does an EEGshow?
Measure electrical activity within the brain via electrodes
117
What are the strengths to am EEG?
Valuable at helping diagnose conditions
Contributed to our understanding stages of sleep
High temporal resolution
118
What are the weakness of EEG?
Only general information is received
| Not useful in pinpointing the exact source of neural activity
119
What does ERP stand for?
Event related potential
120
What are ERPs?
Brains electrophysiological response to an specific sensory,cognitive or motor event that can be isolated through statistical analysis of EEG
121
What are the strengths of ERPs?
Much more specific to the measurements of neural processes
| Good temporal resolution
122
What are the weaknesses of ERPs?
Lack of standardisation in ERP methodology
| Not always be possible to completely eliminate background noise and extraneous variables
123
What is post mortem examinations?
Analysis of a persons brain following their death
124
What are the strengths of Post mortem examinations?
Vital in providing a foundation for ear,understanding of key processes in the brain
Improve medical knowledge
125
What are the weaknesses of post mortem examininations?
Causation is an issue
| Raise ethical issues
