Biopsychology

Question 1

What does fMRI do?

Answer 1

Measures blood flow in brain while person is performing task. More active areas of the brain will consume more oxygen

Question 2

What do EEGs do?

Answer 2

Measures electrical activity via electrodes attached to scalp

Question 3

What do ERP’s do?

Answer 3

Attaches electrodes to scalp, presents stimulus many times (often hundreds) and uses averaging technique to measure brain waves that are triggered by particular events

Question 4

What do post mortems do

Answer 4

Analysis of brain after death. Likely people are those who displayed strange behaviours when alive to establish likely cause

Question 5

Strength of fMRI

Answer 5

Good spatial resolution (to the mm), non-invasive and risk free.

Question 6

Weaknesses of fMRI

Answer 6

Poor temporal resolution (5 sec time lag) so may not represent moment to moment brain activity,expensive

Question 7

Strengths of EEG

Answer 7

High temporal resolution (millisecond), useful in studying sleep stages and in diagnosing epilepsy

Question 8

Weaknesses of EEG

Answer 8

Poor spatial resolution so does not show exact location of activity, generalised info recieved

Question 9

Strengths of ERP

Answer 9

Good temporal resolution, reduce extraneous neural activity

Question 10

Limitations of ERP

Answer 10

Poor spatial resolution, lack of standardisation in ERP methodology

Question 11

Strength of post mortems

Answer 11

Broca and Wernicke’s findings, HM, allows for deep investigation, continue to provide useful info

Question 12

Weaknesses of post mortems

Answer 12

Causation - observed damage to brain may have other causes like trauma or decay and not be down to a disorder, ethical issues of informed consent

Question 13

Neurotransmitter definition

Answer 13

Electrochemical messengers that transmit nerve impulses across synaptic gap during process of synaptic transmission

Question 14

What is synaptic transmission?

Answer 14

The process which neighbouring neurons communicate with eachother by sending messages across the synaptic cleft that separates them. Neurotransmitters binds with receptors on next neuron

Question 15

Function and structure of sensory neuron

Answer 15

Carry messages from Peripheral NS to CNS. Long dendrites and short axons

Question 16

Function and structure of relay neuron

Answer 16

Connect sensory neurons to motor neurons or other relay neurons. Short dendrites and short axons

Question 17

Function and structure of motor neuron

Answer 17

Connect CNS to effectors such as muscles and glands. Short dendrites and long axons

Question 18

What is localisation of function?

Answer 18

The theory that different areas of the brain are responsible for different behaviours, processes and activities

Question 19

What does the motor area in the brain do?

Answer 19

Region of frontal lobe involved in regulating movement. controls voluntary movement

Question 20

What does somatosensory area do?

Answer 20

Area of parietal lobe that processes sensory info such as touch

Question 21

What does the visual area do?

Answer 21

Part of occipital lobe that receives and processes visual info

Question 22

What does the auditory area do?

Answer 22

Located in temporal lobe, concerned with analysis of speech based info

Question 23

What does the Broca’s area do?

Answer 23

Area of frontal lobe in left hemisphere responsible for speech production

Question 24

What does the Wernicke’s area do?

Answer 24

Area of temporal lobe in left hemisphere responsible for language comprehension

Question 25

What is cerebral cortex

Answer 25

Like a tea cosy covering inner parts of brain. 3mm thick, appears grey

Question 26

What is Broca's aphasia? Who had it?

Answer 26

Damage to Broca's area. Characterised by slow speech and lacking in fluency. e.g Broca's patient 'Tan' who could only say the word 'tan'

Question 27

What is Wernicke's aphasia?

Answer 27

Damage to Wernicke's area. Characterised by fluent speech that is meaningless, production on nonsense words (neologisms) in their speech

Question 28

Petersen (1988) brain scan evidence (W+B)

Answer 28

Used brain scans to demonstrate to demonstrate how Wernicke's area was active during listening task, and Broca's area was active during reading task. Suggests these areas if the brain have different functions.

Question 29

Phineas Gage support for localisation

Answer 29

Pole through his left frontal lobe, taking part of his brain with it. Change in personality, changed from a calm and reserved person into a quick tempered and rude one. Suggests frontal lobe involved in regulating mood.

Question 30

Lashley research

Answer 30

Removed areas of cortex in rats that were learning a maze. No area was proven to be more important than any other area in terms of the rats ability to learn the maze. Process of learning appeared to require every part of the cortex rather than being confined to particular area. Suggests learning is too complex to be localised and requires involvement of whole brain.

Question 31

Hemispheric lateralisation definition

Answer 31

Idea that two halves of the brain are functionally different and that certain mental processes and behaviours are mainly controlled by one hemisphere rather than the other

Question 32

What procedure did Sperry's patients undergo?

Answer 32

Comissurotomy: corpus callosum that connects the two hemispheres were cut down the middle in order to separate the two hemispheres and control frequent epileptic seizures. So main communication line between the two hemispheres was removed

Question 33

Aim of Sperry's study

Answer 33

To see the extent to which two hemispheres were specialised for certain functions, and whether hemispheres performed tasks independent of one another

Question 34

Sperry procedure

Answer 34

Image or word projected in pp RVF (processed by LH) and the same or different stimuli would be projected in LVF (processed by RH). In normal brain, corpus callosum would immediately share info between both hemispheres giving complete picture of visual world. However, in a spilt brain patient info could not be conveyed from that hemisphere to the other.

Question 35

Sperry findings 'Describe what you see'

Answer 35

When pic of object was shown in RVF they could easily describe what was seen, but if same object shown in LVF they could not describe what they had seen and typically reported that nothing was there. Language is processed in LH so pp inability to desrcibe objects in LVF (processed by RH) is because of lack of lang centres in RH. In normal brain, messages from RH would be relayed to lang centres in LH.

Question 36

2 strengths of Sperry research

Answer 36

+ produced sizeable body of research findings, main conclusion being left hemisphere is analyser and right is spatial tasks and music. Key contribution to our understanding of the brain + standardised and well controlled procedure.

Question 37

Plasticity definition

Answer 37

Brain's tendency to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning. Generally involves growth of new connections

Question 38

Functional recovery definition

Answer 38

Form of plasticity. Following damage through trauma, brain's ability to redistribute functions. Usually performed by damaged area to undamaged area.

Question 39

Synaptic pruning

Answer 39

Rarely-used connections are deleted and frequently used connections are strengthened

Question 40

Maguire findings

Answer 40

Studied brains of london taxi drivers compared with control group. Found that taxi drivers had significantly more volume of grey matter in posterior hippocampus (associated with spatial and navigational skills). Maguire found the complex test they must take alters the structures of their brains. Also found the longer theyd been in the job, the more pronounced the structural difference was

Question 41

Limitation of brain plasticity

Answer 41

60-80% of amputees have been known to develop phantom limb syndrome (continued sensations of missing limb as though it were still there). Suggests brains ability to adapt is not always beneficial.

Question 42

Why does phantom limb syndrome happen

Answer 42

Cortical reorganisation in somatosensory cortex that occurs as a result of limb loss (Ramachandran et al)

Question 43

Inhibitory effect

Answer 43

Serotonin: causes inhibition in the receiving neuron, resulting in neuron becoming more negatively charged and less likely to fire.

Question 44

Excitatory effect

Answer 44

Adrenaline: causes excitation of postsynaptic neuron by increasing its positive charge and making it more likely to fire.

Question 45

Summation

Answer 45

The excitatory and inhibitory influences are summed: if net of post synaptic neuron is inhibitory, then neuron is less likely to fire and vice versa. Action potential of postsynaptic neuron is only triggered if sum of excitatory and inhibitory signals at any one time reaches the threshold.

Question 46

Circadian rhythm

Answer 46

Biological rhythms subject to 24 hour cycle. Regulate multiple body processes such as sleep/wake cycle

Question 47

Infradian rhythm

Answer 47

Biological rhythm with frequency of less than 1 cycle every 24 hours e.g menstruation

Question 48

Ultradian rhythm

Answer 48

Biological rhythm with frequency of more than 1 every 24 hours e.g stages of sleep

Question 49

What is the somatic and autonomic system in charge of?

Answer 49

Somatic: conscious and voluntary actions Autonomic: controls organs and glands, involuntary