Chapter 2 Flashcards
What is cognitive neuroscience
It’s the field concerned with studying the neural basis of cognition.
What are levels of analysis
The idea that a topic can be studied in a number of different ways and add a number of different levels of a system
To fully understand any phenomenon, whether it is how a car operates or how people remember past experiences, it needs to be studied at _______…
Different levels of analysis
What are neurons
A cell that is specialized to receive and transmit information in the nervous system
In the 19th century, anatomists applied special stains to brain tissue which increased the contrast between different types of tissue within the brain. When they viewed the stained tissue under microscope they saw a network they called a _______ ______
Nerve net, interconnected nerve fibers
Camilo Goldie developed a staining technique, explain this technique
A thin slice of brain tissue was immersed in a solution of silver nitrate. Fewer than 1% of cells were stained so they stood out from the rest of the tissue.
Spanish psychologist Ramon Cajal used to techniques to investigate the nature of the nerves net, what were his two techniques?
He used the Golgi stain, and decided to study tissue from the brains of newborn animals because the density of cells in the newborn brain is small compared to the adult brain
Ramon Cajal discovered what due to his two techniques
He discovered that the nerve net was not continuous but instead was made up of individual units that connected together
What is the neuron doctrine?
The idea that individual cells called neurons transmit signals in the nervous system, and that the cells are not continuous with
What is the cell body
Part of the neuron that’s located in the center and also keeps the cell alive
What are dendrites
Things that branch out from the cell body that receives signals from other neurons
What are axons/nerve fibres
The part of the neuron that transmits signals from the cell body to the synapse at the end of the axon
There is a small gap between the end of the neurons axon and the dendrites or cell body of another neuron. This gap is called a _______
Synapse
