Biopsychology

Question 1

What is the cba/pjs/and

Answer 1

Breaking and spinal chord receives sensory information and controls the body responses
Nerves outside can connect the cans to organs and limbs and skin
Unconstiosu actionsnerves communicaye with internal organs glands and involuntary actions

Question 2

What is the automatic nervous system divided into

Answer 2

Sympathetic nervous system fight or flight response arousing effect on body

Parasympathetic resting and digesting relaxing effect on body

Question 3

What is somatic nervous system

Answer 3

Controls behaviours nerved recieve input from dense organs and sends output

Question 4

What are the different neutrons

Answer 4

Sensory neurone afferent lond dendrite short axon send impulses from Sense organs to the ncs
Relay neurones short dendrites and axons multipolar send and receives infor in both directions allows cba and organs to communicate
Motor neurone short dendrite and long axon multipolar transmits nerve impulses from cba to muscles or gland efferent

Question 5

What is he synapse

Answer 5

Junction between axon of one neurone and dendrite of another neurone
Vesicles in axon terminal of presynaptoc neurone and are filled with neurotransmitter
Travel through the synaptic gap
Receptors on post synaptic dendrites recieve neurotransmitter

Question 6

What is the process of synaptic transmission

Answer 6

Synthesis chemicals thransported into axon terminals neurotransmitters produces and packed into vescicles
Release in response to electrical impulse the neurotransmitter are released into the synapse
Receptive activation the neurotransmitter cross the synapse and bind to receptor sites
Inactivation neurotransmitters either reuptake info presunaptic neurone or broken down by enzymes

Question 7

Action potentia explain what happens

Answer 7

Neurotransmitter is released from psn and bind to receptor on dendrites of post synaptic neurone a neuron will receive many inputs along the dendrites and the synapse will either be execitory or inhibitory and influence the firing action potential firing from cell body to axon terminal

Question 8

What happens within exciting synapse

Answer 8

Increase the rate of firing action potentio they contain receptors taht are activated by dopamine and glutamine and generate excitory post synaptic potential

Question 9

What’s activity like in inhibitory synapse

Answer 9

Decrease the rate on firing action potential they have receptors that are activated by inhibitory neurotransmitters GABA and serotonin and generate inhibitory post synaptic potential

Question 10

What is summation

Answer 10

The firing of neurone action potential depends on the summation of the raps and isps if the net summation is positive the rate of firing of action potential will be greater and the rate of firing will decrease in negative summation

Question 11

Why can signals in a synapse only travel in one direction

Answer 11

There are only receptors in post synaptic neuron in dendrite end
Diffusing from area of high concentration to low concentration
Vesicles only released from presynaptoc neurone

Question 12

What’s the difference between neurotransmitters and hornones

Answer 12

Neurotransmitters produce within neurones and pass very quickly from one neuron to another across the synapse
Hornones secreted by glands and travel in the blood and travel slowly to distant organs

Question 13

What is glutamate

Answer 13

Acts as an excitory synapse so has an arousing effect increase the activity of other neurotransmitters
High levels of glutamine can over excite neurone until they die which occurs in neurodegenerative conditions

Question 14

What is gaba

Answer 14

Acts in inhibitory synapse so has calming effect prevent excessive levels of glutamate fr m influencing firing action potential
Low levels of gava can lead to neurone firing too often linked to epilepsy

Question 15

What is the endocrine system

Answer 15

Glands that secrets hormones which regulate bodily functions chemical system of communication through blood stream release of right amount of specific hormone that target specific organs

Question 16

What do different glands do

Answer 16

Pituitary gland control regulate secretion of hormones from other glands releases prolactin
Adrenal gland releaSes adrenaline useful in fight or flight
Thyroid gland secretes thyroxine maintains level of metabolism

Question 17

What is a hormone

Answer 17

Chemicals produced by glands of endocrine system upon brain signal hormone secreted into bloodstream and travel to specific organ and interact with receptor cells and create a response

Question 18

What is the autonomic nervous system

Answer 18

Is central to homeostasis it has two separate division the sympathetic branch and parasympathetic branch
When we perceive a stressor the brain activated the sypathomedullary pathway which cause physiological changes to help cope with a situation

Question 19

What is the sympathimedullary pathway

Answer 19

A stressor is perceived from the enviroment
The hypothalamus activated the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system
Sympathetic nerves transmit signals from cbs to adrenal glands
The adrenal medulla secreted adrenaline and bar adrenaline
Adrenaline constricts blood vessels and divert blood to muscles

Question 20

What is the parasympathetic response

Answer 20

Once the stressor has gone the autonamic system switches to parasympathetic
Reduces the levels of adrenaline in the blood stream
Calming effect on the body rest and digest
Heart rate slows down
Reaches homeostasis

Question 21

what is post motem

Answer 21

Post mortem examinations. Research study a persons unique abnormal behaviour whilst they are alive after death they analyse the structure of the brain areas that are damaged after post mortem examination and correlate brain damage with the abnormal behaviour if no data on these brain structures before the person dies it is compared against a healthy brain to show abnormalities.

Question 22

what is a strength of post mortem

Answer 22

Strength of post-mortem examination it allows for a more detailed examination of anatomical and neurochemical features compared to fmri where you cannot expect to get close to the brain and really examine the details wheras in post mortem examination you can physically asses the brain parts so give more precise info in which parts of the brain is involved in paryicular behaviours

Question 23

pm how has it added scientific credibility

Answer 23

Another strength is that brain post mortem examination has helped add scientific credibility in the past it provides evidence which is crucuial in building first understanding of key brain processes. Paul broca used post mortem examination and established a link between language and the brain area before neuroimaging was developed impinning in giving hypothesis for further study which adds scientific credibility before neuroimaging development.

Question 24

one weakness of post motrem small..

Answer 24

Another weakness is that it is generally a small sample size as it is often difficult to find patients with certain brain abnormalities for who we have data on therefore we cannot apply the findings to the population

Question 25

pm data is sometimes ...

Answer 25

One weakness of post-mortem examination is the data gathered after the death limited data and its retrospective so you are unable to follow up and further investigate other areas of damage in addition we don’t know whether the damage caused the abnormal behaviour or the brain damage occurred to brain decay after death.

Question 26

what is FMRI

Answer 26

Uses magnetic field and radio waves to measure the change in blood flow present in the form of neural activity. The active brain requires energy so oxygen is carried to the brain through haemoglobin and used to create energy and water. The fmri detect the water molecules and allows you to infer neural activity. Activity is presented as 3d activation to map the active areas are highlighted during task highlighted yellow and red. To investigate the brain activity we compare the experimental task activity to a baseline task and visualise the difference

Question 27

what is the safety of FMRI

Answer 27

One strength of fmri is safer than other scans as it avoids the use of radiation , unlike PET scans it also is risk free and non invasive so can be used frequently and still provide a clear quality of the brain activity.

Question 28

Another strength deep reigions spatial resolution

Answer 28

Another strength is that it helps understand a change in brain activity during tasks in comparison to mri and post mortem which only give structural information only. Fmri can measure deeper reigion of the brain fro example the amyglada whereas eeg and erp only measure areas that are near the surface and gives a more complete picture of activity in brain.

Question 29

low temporal resolution

Answer 29

One weakness of the fmri is that there is poor temporal resolution, in the brain activity changes very quickly change in blood flow detected by fmri are very slow thus fmri cannot detect quick changes and is poor at detecting when activity happens known as poor temporal resolution vs eeg it measure exactly when activity takes place . so the fmri measure changes in blood much slower than change in neural activity. Quicker changes of activity in the brain are unlikely to be detected by fmri so not effective for identifying when brain activity occurs

Question 30

small sample size

Answer 30

Another weakness is the reduced sample size due to cost. Compared to other methods it is very expensive so we must use a small sample size in order to reduce the cost and therefore difficult to generalise the findings to target population so decreasing the validity of the findings.

Question 31

what is an EEG

Answer 31

Measures electrical activity in the brain electrodes are placed in the scalp detects small electrical changes resulting from neural activity the number of electrodes are based on the area which is being researched the wider the area the more electrodes are used, records signals from thousands of neurons directly under the area of the electrodes and provide a measure of general activity in the brain

Question 32

What are the waves

Answer 32

, there are four patterns alpha waves which are presented in relaxed and retiring state, beta waves when awake and mentally active, theta waves light or drowsy seleep and finally delta waves patterns seen when in deep sleep

Question 33

the practical application of eeg

Answer 33

Strength of the eeg there are practical applications which has helped diagnose and research disorders such as epilepsy as it measure random burst of electrical brain activity and it also helps woth further research on sleep cycles as it shows different brain waves in different stages of sleep.

Question 34

high temporal resolution

Answer 34

There is high temporal resolution as unlike fmri eeg picks up on quick changes in neural activity that happen in each millisecond when electrical impulses happen there is a very precise temporal resolution as you are able to identify when neural activity occurs

Question 35

cheap eeg

Answer 35

Cheaper than FMRI as eeg is much more cheaper than FMRI so a lot more people can be used as samples so a larger sample size so we can generalise to the larger population increasing validity of the findings

Question 36

one weakness low spatial resolution

Answer 36

One weakness of the eeg is the low spatial resolution information from the eeg in general as it combines activity from lots of locations underneath the electrodes and therefore has low spatial resolution as it is doesn’t pinpoint exactly where neural activity is taking place whereas FMRI can. We cannot detect deeper activity as we can only detect activity under the surface of electrodes and not deeper reigions like the amyglada and therefore doesn’t provide a complete picture of the brains activity and function

Question 37

what is an ERP

Answer 37

Event related potentials. Electrodes are placed on the scalp to detect neural activity directly below the placement we measure the changes in voltage using the same equipment that we use in the EEG we can see brain activity in response to a specific stimulus shown repeatedly then it average the values and reduce the effects of extrenous variable

Question 38

one weakness of ERPS TIME

Answer 38

Weakness is that it is time consuming as ERPS are small and difficult to pick out from other brain activity which are electrical . average number of trials are done in order to remove extraneous variables which is time consuming and not ideal for research situation for example with smaller children

Question 39

Difference between ERP'S and EEG'S

Answer 39

EEG records the general changes in brain activity over time linked to stages of states such as sleep or arousal however ERPS are elicited by specific stimuli presented to the participant such as the ERP elicited when a face is presented