Biopsychology Flashcards
(75 cards)
What is the nervous system ?
It’s a specialised network of cells in the human body and is our primary internal communication system.
What is the nervous systems two main functions ?
- to collect, process and respond to information in the environment.
- to co-ordinate the working of different organs and cells in the body.
What are the two main subsystems of the nervous system ?
- Central Nervous System (CNS)
- Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
What is the CNS made up of ?
The CNS is made up of the brain and the spinal cord.
The brain is the centre of all …. awareness ? fill the blank word.
Conscious
How many hemispheres is the brain made up of ?
Two
What does the PNS do ?
The PNS transmits messages, via millions of neutrons (nerve cells), to and from the central nervous system.
What are the two sub- systems the PNS is divided into ?
- Autonomic Nervous system (ANS) - governs vital functions in the body such as breathing, heart rate, digestion, sexual arousal and stress responses.
- Somatic Nervous System (SNS) - controls muscle movement and receives information from the sensory receptors.
What is the endocrine system ?
One of the body’s major information systems that instructs glands to release hormones directed into the bloodstream. These hormones are carried towards target organs in the body.
What are hormones ?
Chemical substances that circulate in the bloodstream and only affect target organs. They are produced in large quantities but disappear quickly. Their effects are very powerful.
80% of …. are located in the brain ? fill the gap .
Neurons
… of neurons are located in the brain ? fill the gap.
80%
What are the three types of neuron?
- Motor neurones
- Sensory Neurones
- Relay Neurones
Describe the electric transmission - the firing of a neuron ?
When a neuron is in a resting state the inside of a cell is negatively charged compared to the outside. When a neuron is activated by a stimulus, the inside of the cell becomes positively charged for a split second causing an action potential to occur. This creates an electrical impulse that travels down the axon towards the end of the neuron.
What is a neurotransmitter ?
Neurotransmitters are chemicals that diffuse across the synapse to the next neuron in the chain.
What effect does neurotransmitters have on a neighbouring neuron ?
Neurotransmitters have either or inhibitory effect on the neighbouring neuron. For instance, the neurotransmitter serotonin causes inhibition in the receiving neuron, resulting in the neuron becoming more negatively charged and less likely to fire. In contrast, adrenaline causes excitation of the postsynaptic neuron by increasing its positive charge and making it more likely to fire.
What is the frontal lobe responsible for ?
It is the motor area which controls voluntary movement in the opposite side of the body. Damage to this area of the brain may result in a loss of control over fine movements.
What is the partial lobes responsible for ?
At the front of both parital lobes is the somatosensory area which is separated from the motor area by a ‘valley’ called the central sulcus. The somatosensory area is where sensory information is where sensory. information from the skin is represented. The amount of somatosensory area devoted to a particular body part denotes to sensitivity, for instance, for our face and hands occupy over half of the somatosensory area.
What is the occipital lobe responsible for ?
In the occipital lobe at the back of the brain is the visual area. Each eye sends information from the right visual field to the left visual cortex and from the left visual field to the right visual cortex . This means that damage to the left hemisphere for example, can produce blindness in part of the right visual field of both eyes.
What are temporal lobes responsible for ?
The temporal lobes house the auditory area which analyses speech based information. Damage may produce partial hearing loss; the more extensive the damage, the more extensive the loss. In addition, damage to a specific area of the temporal lobe - wernickes area- may affect the ability to comprehend speech.
Where and What is Broca’s area ?
Broca discovered a small area in the left frontal lobe responsible for speech production. Damage to Broca’s area causes Broca’s aphasia which is characterised by speech that is slow, laborious and laking in fluency (as seen in a number of Broca’s patients like ‘Tan’).
What and where is Wernicke’s area ?
Wernicke’s patients who had no problem producing language but severe difficulties understanding it , such that the speech they produced was fluent but meaningless. Wernicke identified a region in the left temporal lobe as being responsible for language comprehension which would result in Wernicke’s aphasia when damaged. Patients who have Wernicke’s aphasia will often produce nonsense words (neologisms) as part of the content of their speech.
What did Karl Ashley (1950) suggest ?
They suggest that higher cognitive functions, such as the processes involved in learning, are not localised but distributed in a more holistic way in the brain. Lashley removed areas of the cortex (between 10 and 50 %) in rats that were learning a maze. No area was proven to be more important in any other area in terms of the rats’ ability to learn the maze. The process of learning appeared to require every part of the cortex, rather than being confined to a particular area. This seems to suggest that learning is too complex to be localised and requires the involvement of the whole brain.
What is brain’s plasticity?
The brain has the ability to change throughout life. During infancy, the brain experiences a rapid growth in the number of synaptic connections it has, peaking at approximately 15,000 synapses per neuron at age 2-3 years.
