Paper 2 Bio Psychology Flashcards
(109 cards)
1
Q
What is the nervous system?
A
The nervous system consist of the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system.
2
Q
What is the central nervous system?
A
The central nervous system consist of the brain and the spinal cord and is origin of all complex command and decisions.
3
Q
What is the peripheral nervous system?
A
the peripheral nervous system sends information to the central nervous system from the outside world and transmits messages from the central nervous system to muscles and glands in the body.
4
Q
What is the somatic nervous system?
A
the somatic nervous system transmit information from receptor cells in the sense organs to the central nervous system, it also receives information from the central nervous system that directs muscles to act.
5
Q
What is the automatic nervous system?
A
the automatic nervous system transmits information to and from internal bodily organs it is automatic and the system operates in voluntarily, it has two main divisions the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
6
Q
What are the two main functions of the nervous system?
A
to collect process and respond to information in the environment and to coordinate the working of different organs and cells in the body.
7
Q
Outline the brains role in the central nervous system.
A
the brain is the centre of all conscious awareness, the outer layer or cerebral cortex is highly developed in humans and is what distinguishes are higher mental functions from those of animals. Brain is divided into two hemispheres.
8
Q
Outline what the spinal cord is and its role in the nervous system.
A
spinal cord is an extension of the brain and is responsible for reflex actions such as pulling your hand away and movements and motor function.
9
Q
What is the peripheral nervous system made up of and how does it transmit messages.
A
The peripheral nervous system send messages via millions of neurons to and from the central nervous system, it is made up of the autonomic nervous system ( which governs vital functions in the body such as breathing) and the somatic nervous system ( which controls muscle movement and receives information from a sensory receptors)
10
Q
Define the endocrine system.
A
one of the body’s major information systems that instruct glands to release hormones directly into the bloodstream these hormones are carried toward target organs in the body.
11
Q
What are hormones?
A
Hormones are chemical substances that circulate in the bloodstream and only affect target organs, they are produced in large quantities and disappeared quickly as their effect is very powerful.
12
Q
How does the endocrine system compared with the central nervous system?
A
The endocrine system works for slower than the central nervous system but has a very widespread and powerful effects.
13
Q
Outline the glands and hormones.
A
various glands in the body such as the thyroid gland produce hormones, hormones are secreted into the bloodstream and affect any some the body that has a receptor for that particular hormone.
most hormones affect cells in several organs or throughout the entire body leading to many diverse and powerful responses.
14
Q
What effect does the hormone produced by the thyroid gland have and what is it called?
A
It is called thyroxine and it affect cells in the heart and increases heart rate also affects elsewhere at the body increasing metabolic rates and intern affecting growth rate.
15
Q
What are the 8 main glands in the human body?
A
The hypothalamus gland, The pituitary gland, The thyroid, The parathyroid, The adrenals, The pancreas And theovaries and testes.
16
Q
What is the major endocrine gland and what does it do?
A
the pituitary gland is the major endocrine glands as it is located in the brain and is often called the master gland because it controls the release of hormones from all other endocrine glands in the body.
17
Q
What is fight or flight response?
A
the way in animal responds when stress the body becomes psychologically aroused in Readyness to fight an aggressor or in some cases flee.
18
Q
How does the endocrine system and the automatic nervous system work together in fight and flight.
A
Firstly the hippopotamus triggers activity in the sympathetic branch of the automatic nervous system,
The automatic nervous system changes from its normal resting state of parasympathetic to the psychologically aroused synthetic state.
The stress hormone adrenaline is released from the adrenal medulla part of the adrenal gland into the bloodstream.
Adrenaline triggers psychological changes in the body such as increased heart rate which creates the psychological arousal necessary for the fight or flight response.
Finally once the threat has passed the parasympathetic branch of the automated nearest system works in opposition to the sympathetic nervous system and this is sometimes referred to as rest and digest response.
19
Q
What are the biological changes associated with sympathetic state.
A
Increased heart rate Increased breathing rate Dilate pupils Inhibit digestion Inhibits saliva production Contract rectum.
20
Q
Define a neuron.
A
The basic building block of the nervous system neurons are nerve cells that process and transmit messages through electrical and chemical signals.
21
Q
Define sensory neurones.
A
These carry messages from the peripheral nervous system to the central nervous system may have long dendrites and short axons.
22
Q
Define relay neurones.
A
These connect the sensory neurone to the motor or other relay neurones they have short dendrites and short axons.
23
Q
Define motor neurones.
A
Disconnect the central nervous system to effectors such as muscles and glands they have short dendrites and long axons.
24
Q
What is the structure of neurones.
A
The cell body includes a nucleus which contain the genetic material of the cell,
Branch like structures called dendrites that protrude from the cell body that carry nerve impulses from neighbouring neurons.
The axon carries the impulses away from the cell body down the length of a neurone the accident is covered by A fatty layer of myelin sheath that protects it and speed up electrical transmission.
If the myelin sheath was continuous it would have reverse effect and slow down transmission so they have gaps called loads of Iran via that speed up transmission as they Force the impulse to jump across the gaps.
At the end of the axon of terminal buttons that communicate with the next neuron.
25
Define synaptic transmission.
The process by which near bring you on communicate with each other by sending chemical messages across the gap that separates them (synaptic cleft).
26
Define neurotransmitter
Brain chemicals released from the synoptic vesicles that relay signals across the synapse from one neurone to another. neurotransmitters can be broadly divided into those that perform an excitatory function and dozer performing inhibitory function.
27
Define excitation.
when a neurotransmitter such as adrenaline increases the positive charge of the postsynaptic neurone this increases the likelihood that the new and with fire and pass on the electrical impulse.
28
Define inhibition
when a neurotransmitter such as serotonin makes the charge of the postsynaptic neuron more negative this decreases the likelihood that the new on the fire and pass on the electrical impulse.
29
What does the synapse include?
There are three main part of the synapse the space between them called the synoptic left as well as a presynaptic terminal and the postsynaptic receptor site.
The presynaptic terminal includes the synoptic vessels and comes from the axon.
The postsynaptic receptor sites on the dendrites of the next neuron.
30
What happens when the newer transmit that crosses synaptic cleft?
When the neurotransmitter crosses the gap it is taken up by the postsynaptic receptor sites hear the chemical message is converted into an electrical impulse and the process of transmission begins again in this other neurone. neurons have many different molecular structures and specialist functions.
31
Define localisation of function.
The theory thag the different areas of the brain are responsible for different behaviours processes or activities.
32
What is the motor area and where is it located?
The motor area is a region of the frontal lobe involved in regulating movement what is at the top right-hand corner of the frontal lobe.
33
What is the somatosensory area and where is it located?
The somatosensory area is the area that processes sensory information such as touch, it is located in the top left corner of the parietal lobe next to the motor area.
34
What is the visual area and where is it located?
The visible area is part of the occipital love that receives and processes visual information it is at the very back.
35
What is the auditory area and where is it located?
The auditory area located in the temporal lobe and concerned with the analysis of speech based information.
36
What is the broca's area and where is it located?
The broca's area is in the frontal lobe in the left hemisphere and it is responsible for speech production.
37
What is the wernickes area and where is it located?
The wernicks area is located in the temporal lobe and circling the auditory cortex in the left hemisphere and is responsible for language comprehension.
38
What was the belief about the brain before broca and wernicke did the investigations. What did broca and wernick suggest after this?
Before broker and vernick did their investigations into the brain the holistic theory of the brain that all parts were involved in the processing and thought action was the main theory.
However broca and wernicke argued for localisation of function where different parts of the brain perform different tasks and involved with different points of the body.
39
How does hemispheres in our brain effect functioning?
| And what is the cerebral cortex?
A general rule is that the right side of our body is controlled by the left hemisphere and the left side by the right hemisphere.
The cerebral cortex that covers the brain is about 3 mm thick and is what separates us from other animals as our cortex is much more developed it appears grey due to the cell bodies.
40
In the brain where is language restricted to and whos study support this?
Language is restricted the left hemisphere, broca found that damage to the small area in the left frontal lobe leaving patients with slow speech black and fluency and normally one word they could say he called it the brocas area
Call wernick found that patients had a problem with understanding language when a small area in the left temporal lobe was damaged he named it the wernicks area
41
How is the wealth of evidence from brain scanning support for localisation of function? Give an example of evidence.
the wealth of evidence providing support for the idea of neurolgical functions are localised particularly relating to language and memory.
Peterson et al 1988 used brain scan to demonstrate how wernicks area was active during a listening task and the brocas area was active during a reading task.
In addition long-term memory study by Tulving et al 1994 revealed that semantic and episodic memories reside in different parts of the prefrontal cortex.
42
How is neurosurgical evidence a disadvantage for localisation of function? But also an advantage?
The brutal and imprecise lobotomy of figures such as Walter Freeman in an attempt to control aggressive behaviour through severing connections in a frontal lobe of very controversial.
However research that is used today in cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression provide insight and success that strongly suggest that symptoms and behaviours associated with serious mental disorders are localised.
43
Whose yielded the research into neurosurgical evidence of severe mental disorders being localised and outline his study.
Dougherty et all 2002, reported on 44 OCD patients who had undergone a cingultomy which involved lesioning the cingulate gyrus. Apu surgical follow-up is third had met the criteria for a successful response to the surgery and 14% for a partial response. Supporting localisation.
44
Whose research supports the holistic view of the brain? Outline their study?
Karl lashley 1950 whose research suggested that cognitive functions such as processes involved in learning on not localise but distributed in the holistic way in the brain. lastly remove areas of the cortex between 10 and 50% in rats that were learning amaze new area was proven to be more important than any other in terms of rat ability to learn the maze.
45
Why is Karl lashley research unable to be applied to humans?
Because humans have a much more developed brain than rats for example or cerebral cortex is much more developed and therefore the rats study cannot be applied to humans.
46
How is plasticity a compelling argument against the localisation of function?
When the brain has become damaged through illness or accident and a particular function has been compromised I lost the rest of the brain appears to be able to reorganize itself in an attempt to recover the loss function lastly discovered this when surviving brain circuit chip in the same neurological action can be achieved although it does not happen every time.
47
Define plasticity.
Describes the brains tendency to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning.
48
Define functional recovery.
A form of plasticity following damage through trauma the brain's ability to redistribute or transfer functions usually performed by damaged areas to other undamaged areas.
49
How does the brain appear to be plastic?
The brain has the ability to change throughout life, during infancy it experienced a rapid growth in the number of synoptic connections that has. Equating to about twice as many as they are in the adult brain as we age really use connections are deleted and frequently used connections are strengthened a process known as synoptic pruning.
50
How has more recent research gone against the theory that the changes in the brain do not happen in adulthood?
recent research suggest that anytime in life existing neural connections can change or new neural connections can be formed as a result of learning and experience.
51
Who conducted research into plasticity and outline their research and findings.
Eleanor Maguire Excel 2003 the brains of London taxi drivers and found significantly more volume of grey matter (cerebral cortex) in the posterior hippocampus than the match control group. it was concluded that this was due to them having to do a complex test called the knowledge which assesses they recalled the city streets and appears that it has changed their brains.
52
What is a similar finding to that of Maguire et Al 2000 and her study of London taxi drivers. (2)
Observe bank draganski et Al 2006 who image the brains of medical students 3 months before and after their final exams learning induced changes were seen to have occurred in the posterior hippocampus and the parental cortex presumably as a result of the exam.
Furthermore mechelini et Al 2004 also found a larger parental cortex in the brains of people who will bilingual compared to matched monolingual controls.
53
What happens in the brain during recovery?
The brain is able to rewire an organised self by forming new synoptic connections close to the area of direct damage. secondary newer pathways that would not typically be used to carry out certain functions are activated or en masse to enable functioning to continue.
54
What are the three structural changes in the brain in functional recovery?
Axonal sprouting, the growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells to form new neuronal pathways.
Reformation of blood vessels
Recruitment of homologous, which are similar areas on the opposite side of the brain to perform specific tasks.
55
How does plasticity of the brain have good practical application?
plasticity has contributed to the field of neuro rehabilitation following illnesses or injury to the brain, spontaneous recovery tends to slow down after a number of weeks so forms of physical therapy may be required to maintain improvements in functioning. techniques may include movement therapy and electrical stimulation of the brain to counter the deficit in the motor and cognitive functioning. The showing the brain has the capacity to fix itself to a point.
56
How can there be negative plasticity and how is this an advantage?
The brain's ability to rewire itself can sometimes have maladaptive behaviour consequences, prolonged drug use has been shown to result in poorer cognitive functioning as well as increased risk of dementia in later life Medina et al 2007.
Furthermore amputees have been loaded about phantom limb syndrome where they continue experience of sensations in the missing limb as if it were there they're due to the partial reorganization in the somatosensory cortex.
57
How does newer plasticity have good temporal validity within lifetimes. Who's research supporters?
Functional plasticity tends to reduce with age and the Brain has greater propensity for reorganization in childhood as it is constantly adapting to new experiences and learning.
However ladina bezzola et al 2012, demonstrated how 40 hours of golf training produce changes in the neural representation of movement in participants age 40 to 60 using fmri the researchers observed reduced motor cortex activity suggesting more efficient neural representation of the training, showing that new opacity does continue throughout lifespan.
58
How does plasticity have support from animal studies.
early evidence of neural plasticity and functional recovery was derived from animal studies such as the pining City by David hubel and torten wiesel (1963), who are involved sewing one-eyed the kittens shirt and analysing the brains Corsair responses they found that the area of the visual cortex as suited with the suit I was not idle but continue to process information from the open eye.
59
How does the concept of cognitive reserve add support the plasticity?
evidence suggesting a person's educational attainment may influence how well the brain functioning adapt after injury, Eric Schneider at al 2014, discovered that the more time brain injury patients had spent in education (cognitive reserve) the greater their chances of a disability free recovery.
60
Define hemispheric lateralisation.
the idea of the two halves of the brain are functionally different and it's certain mental processes and behaviours are mainly controlled by one hemisphere rather than the other as in the example of a language.
61
Define split brain research.
series of studies which began in 1960s and the still ongoing involving epileptic patients who had experience of surgical separation of the hemispheres of the brain disallowed researchers to investigate the extent to which the brain function is lateralized.
62
Outline one study into split brain research.
Sperry 1968 did studies involving the unique group of individuals all of whom had undergone the same surgical procedure and operation called, commissurotomy in of which the corpus callosum and other tissues which connect the two hemispheres were cut down the middle in order to separate the two hemispheres and control frequent epileptic seizures.
Allowing sperry and his colleagues to see the extent to which the two hemispheres with specialised forcing functions.
63
What was the procedure of sperry's research?
He devised a general procedure in which an image or word could be projected in the patient's right visual field and the same or different image could be projected to the left visual field. in the normal brain the corpus callosum with a Miele share information between both hemispheres giving a complete picture of the visual world, however presenting damage to one hemisphere of a split-brain patient meant that the other information could not be conveyed from one hemisphere to the other.
64
Outline the findings of sperry's research in terms of vision.
When a picture of an object was shown to a patient's right visual field (left hemisphere) the patient could easy describe what was seen, if however the same object was shown to the left visual field the patient could not describe what was seen and typically reported that there was nothing there. Showing that language is processed in the left hemisphere.
65
Outline sperry's findings in terms of touch.
Aalthough patients could not attach available labels to objects project in the left visual field they were able to select a matching object from a grab bag of different objects using their left hands, (right hemisphere).
The objective place behind the screens that they could be not seen the left-hand was also able to select an object that was most closely associated with the object presented to the left visual field in each case the patient was not able to evade identify what they'd seen but they can never less understand what your blood was using the right hemisphere and select the corresponding object accordingly.
66
Outlines Sperry's findings in composite words?
If two words were presented simultaneously one on either side of the visual field, the patient would write with their left hand the word visible to the left eye and write with their right hand the word visible to their right eye.
67
Outline sperry's findings into matching faces.
the right hemisphere also appeared dominant in terms of recognising faces when asked to match a face from a series of other faces the picture process by the right hemisphere was consistently selected whilst the picture presented on the left hemisphere was constantly ignored.
When a composite picture was presented with two halves of face 2 one-half of each hemisphere the left hemisphere dominated in terms of verbal description where is the right hemisphere dominated in terms of selecting a matching picture.
68
How is there a good amount of research demonstrating lateralisation of function and how is this an advantage?
Sperrys and later Gazzanigas pioneering work into the split-brain phenomenon has produced an impressive and size of a body of research findings, the main conclusion of which appears to be the left hemisphere is more geared towards analytic and verbal tasks whilst the right is more adept at performing spatial tasks and music.
it has been a key contribution to understanding a brain processes and has very good research reliability.
69
How are the methods used in split brain research an advantage?
The experiments involving split brain patients made use of highly specialised and standardized procedures. Sperrys method of presenting visual information to one Hammer strength v the time was quite ingenious. disallowed spirit of very aspect of basic procedure and ensure the only one hemisphere was receiving information at the time that he developed a very useful and well control procedure. Having strength in methodology and good reliability.
70
How does the theoretical basis prompted by sperry's work act as an advantage and disadvantage?
Theoretical work from theory of such as Roland pucceti 1977 have suggested that the two hemispheres are so funds any different that they represented form of duality in the brain that in effect we are all two minds supporting sperrys work.
on the other hand researchers have argued that far from working isolation the two hemispheres form a highly integrated system under both involved in most of everyday tasks is a disadvantage.
71
How are there issues with generalization and split brain research? (3)
Many researchers have urged caution in their widespread acceptance has split brain patients constitute such an unusual sample of people as there were only 11 a very small population size who took part all of whom had epileptic seizures.
It has been argued that this may have caused you need changes in the brain that may have influenced findings.it is also the case that some participants experience more disconnection with two hemispheres from surgery than others.
Finally it has been argued that the control group made of 11 people with no history of epilepsy may have been inappropriate.
72
How is disadvantage of split brain research and sperry's research the differences in function being overstated?
1 unfortunate legacy of sperrys work is a growing body of Pop psychological literature that overemphasize is an oversimplified the functional distinction between the left and right hemisphere. although the verbal and non-verbal labels can on association be usefully applied to summarise the differences between the two hemispheres modern you were scientists would contend that the actual distinction is less clear-cut and much more messy than this. The normal brain both sides of the brain can typically be used for a task as they communicate with each other.
73
Define an fmri.
A method used to measure brain activity while the person is performing a task that uses MRI technology. This enables researchers to detect which regions of the brain are rich in oxygen and thus are active.
74
Define eeg.
A record of the tiny electrical impulses produced by brains activity by measuring characteristic wave patterns the eeg can help diagnose certain conditions of the brain.
75
Define ERP.
The brains electro psychological response to a specific sensory cognitive or motor event can be isolated through statistical analysis of eeg data.
76
Define a post mortem examinations.
The brain is analysed after death to determine whether certain observed behaviours during the patient's lifetime can be linked to abnormalities in the brain.
77
What is a strength (2) and weakness of fmri scans? (2)
1 strengths of fmri unlike any other scanning techniques such as pet it does not rely on the use of radiation and is risk-free,
another strength is that it produces images that have very high spatial resolution and also 3D riding a clear picture for brain activity and localisation.
it weakness of fmri is it is very expensive compared to other new imaging techniques and can only capture a clear image of the person stays still.
Another weakness is that it has poor temporal resolution because there is a round of 5 second Time lag behind the image on the screen and the initial firing of neuronal activity.
78
What are the strengths (3) and weaknesses (1) of eeg
One strength of eeg is that he has proven invaluable in the diagnosis of conditions such as epilepsy.
Furthermore it has contributed much to understanding the stages involved in sleep such as ultradian rhythms.
And finally it has extremely high temporal resolution as it can accurately detect brain activity at the resolution of a single millisecond.
the main drawback of eeg lies in the generalised nature of the information received the eeg signal is not useful for pinpointing exact source of new activity and does not allow the researcher to distinguish between activities originating in different but adjecent locations.
79
What are the strengths (3) and weaknesses (2) of erps.
The fear strength of an ERP is that addresses the limitations of eeg, as they bring much more specifically to the measurement of newer processes than can ever be achieved using RAW eeg data.
Secondly as they are derived from eeg measurements they have excellent temporal resolution especially when compared to New imaging techniques such as fmri.
Finally researchers have been able to identify many different types of ERP and describe the precise role of these in cognitive functioning a P300 and it's involvement with allocation of resources in working memory.
Critics have pointed out to a lack of standardisation in your pee method AG between different research studies which made it difficult to confirm findings.
In addition in order to establish pure data and ERP studies background noiseand extraneous material must be completely eliminated this is not always easy to achieve.
80
What are the strengths and weaknesses of post mortem examinations.
The first strength is a post mortem evidence was vital in providing a foundation for early understanding of key procedures in the brain, Paul broca and karl wernicke Booth and post-mortem examinations.
furthermore post-mortem studies improve medical knowledge and help generate hypothesis for further study.
Causation is an issue with the investigations of post-mortem as observed amateur the brain may not be linked to the deficits and review but some of them and related trauma or decay.
A further disadvantage is a post-mortem studies with ethical issues of consent from the patient before death as patients may not be able to provide informed consent in the case of hm he lost the ability to form memories nevertheless postman and research was conducted on his brain.
81
Define biological rhythms.
Distinct patterns of changes in body activity that conform to cyclical time periods. biological rhythms are influenced by internal body clocks (endogenous pacemakers) as well as external changes to the environment (exogenous zeitgebers).
82
What is a circadian rhythm?
a type of biological rhythm subject to a 24-hour cycle which regulates and number of body processes such as sleep-wake cycle and changes in core body temperature.
83
Outline the study and findings of siffre's cave study.
Michael siffre is a self-styled caveman who spent several extended periods underground to study the effects of his own biological rhythms. the pride of exposure to natural light and sound but with access to adequate food and drink city resurface in mid September 1962 after 2 months in the caves of the southern Alps believing it to be mid August.
His freerunning biological rhythms settled down to one that was just beyond the usual 24hrs around 25 hours so he did continue to fall asleep and wake up on a regular schedule.
84
Outline similar research to Michael siffre in reference to circadian rhythms.
Jurgen airsoff and Rutger Weaver 1976 convinced a group of participants to spend 4 weeks in a world war II bunker the proud of natural light. all but one participant who sleep wake cycle event 29th hours display the circadian rhythm between 24 and 25 hours both Siffres experience and the bunker study suggest that the natural sleep-wake cycle may be longer than 24 hours but that is entrained by exogenus zeitgebers associated with a 24-hour day.
85
Whose research showed the lack of importance of environmental cues on our internal biological clock?
Simon folkard et Al 1985 stayed a group of 12 people who agreed to live in a dark cave with three weeks retiring to bed when the clocks at 11:45 and raising when it says 7:45 over the course of the study the researchers gradually speeded up the clock unknown to the participants so apparent 24-hour day eventually only lasted 22 hours. it was revealed that only one of the participants was able to comfortably adjust to the new regime suggesting that the existence of a strong freerunning sickening with them that cannot easily be overridden by changes in an external environment.
86
How does the theory of circadian rhythms have good practical application? (2)
knowledge of circadian rhythms has given researchers a better understanding of the adverse consequences that occur as a result of disruption of the rhythm. this has been applied to shift workers engaged in shift work at night experience of period of reduced concentration around 6 in the morning meaning that mistakes and accidents are likely to happen.
Furthermore research has also suggested a relationship between shift work and bad health. Shift workers are 3 times more likely to develop heart disease which may be due to stress of adjusting to different patterns of sleep.
With both these in mind research into the circadian rhythms may have economic implications.
87
How does circadian rhythms have practical application to drug treatments?
Circadian rhythms coordinate number of the bodies basic processes such as heart rate digestion and hormone levels. This has affected pharmo kinetics or the action of drugs on the body and how well they are absorbed and distributed. The research of circadian rhythms has revealed that there are certain times during the day or night when drugs are likely to be most effective and has led to development of guidelines to do with timing of drug use.
88
How is circadian rhythms ungeneralizable?
Research into circadian rhythms used small sample sizes in cave studies and also case studies therefore the people involved may not be representative of wider populations and single individuals such as cifra especially.
Also the age such as siffre was 60 so his internal body clock may have slowed down.
89
How was there power a lack of control in circadian rhythm studies and how is this a weakness?
although participants in the studies where the proud of natural light they still had access to artificial light fittings dance a lamp, and it was assumed that artificial like will have no effect however in tests it has been shown that they were able to adjust participants circadian rhythms from 20 to 28 hours using dim lighting. Therefore the tests were not very controlled.
90
How are there individual differences in circadian tests?
another issue with generalisation of findings is that individual cycles can vary in some cases from 13 to 65 hours.
In addition a study from Jeanne Duffy 2001 revealed that some people display in natural preference for going to bed early and rising early where is some people prefer to do the opposite.
91
Define an infradian rhythm.
a type of biological rhythm with a frequency of less than one cycle in 24hrs such as menstruation and seasonal affective disorder.
92
Define an ultradian rhythm.
A type of biological rhythm with the frequency of more than one cycle in 24hrs such as the stages of sleep.
93
Outline what kind of rhythm the menstrual cycle is and how.
The menstrual cycle is an example of an infrared in with them governed by monthly changes in hormone levels.
The cycle refers the time between the first day of a woman's period to the day before her next. Typical cycle takes approximately 28 days to complete and during each cycle rising levels of the hormone oestrogen cause the ovary to development egg and release it.
After ovulation thehormone progesterone helps the womb lining to grow thicker reading the body for pregnancy if pregnancy does not occur is absorbed and the womb lining comes away.
94
What research did he can be used in relation to the menstrual cycle.
The menstrual cycle is an endogenous system however evidence suggest that they may be influenced by exogenous factors, a study by Kathleen stain and martha McClintock 1998 demonstrated how menstrual cycles may synchronise as a result of influence the female pheromones.
the involved 29 women with a history of irregular periods samples of pheromones were gathered from 9 of the women at different stages of the menstrual cycles. The pads treated with alcohol and frozen to be rubbed on upper lip of the other participants on day one had some the start of the mental cycle reply to 20 women on day-to-day arguing a pad on the second day of cycle and so on McClintock found that 68% of women experience changes to this cycle which brought them closer to the cycle of their oder donor.
95
What is seasonal affective disorder and what kind of rhythm is it? And how is it caused?
seasonal affective disorder is depressive disorder which other seasonal pattern on onset and is diagnosed as a mental disorder. as other forms of depression the main symptoms of persistent low mood along with general lack of activity and interest. seasonal affective disorder is classed as an infrared in with them but a special one called circannual rhythm as it is subject to a yearly cycle.
However it can be classed as a circadian rhythm as the experience may be due to disruption of the sleep wake cycle, due to prolonged darkness in winter.
Psychologists have hypothesized that hormone melatonin is implicit in the cause of seasonal affective disorder as during the night pineal gland secretes melatonin until dawn during winter the lack of light in the morning means the process continues for longer and it still have a knock-on effect with the production of serotonin in the brain has been linked to depressive symptoms.
96
Outline the stages of sleep and what kind of rhythm it is.
the stage of the sleep on ultra radian rhythm and psychologists identified five distinct stages of sleep that altogether span approximately 90 minutes a cycle continues throughout the course of a night and has been characterized by different levels of brainwave activity by eeg, there are stages 1 and 2 sea just 3 and 4 and stage 5 or REM sleep.
97
What happens in stages 1 and 2 in the sleep cycle.
The sleep escalator as it is sometimes known are light sleep where people may be easily woken. At the beginning of sleep brain wave patterns start to become slower and more rhythmic becoming even slower asleep get deeper.
98
What happens in stages 3 and 4 of the sleep cycle.
this stage involves delta waves which are slower still and have a greater amplitude than earlier wave patterns this is a deep sleep or slow wave sleep and is difficult to rouse someone at this point.
99
What happens in stage 5 or REM sleep in the sleep cycle.
The body is paralyzed yet brain activity speed up significantly in a manner that resembles the awake brain. REM stands for rapid eye movement to denote the fast jerky activity of the eyes under the eyelids at this point research has suggested that REM activity during sleep is highly correlated with experience of dreaming.
100
How is the menstrual synchrony observed by McClintock an advantage?
Menstrual synchrony as observed by mclintock is thought be an evolutionary value. for ancestors it may have been advantageous for females two men Swift together and therefore for pregnant on the same time this would mean that newborns could be cared for collectively within a social group increasing the chances of survival.
101
How is the validity of evolutionary perspective on the menstrual cycle questionable and who questioned it?
Jeffrey shank 2004 argued that if there were too many female cycling together this would produce competition for the highest quality meals from this point of view the avoidance of sink and he would appear to be more adaptive evolutionary strategy and therefore naturally selected.
102
How are there methodological limitations in synchronisation studies.(menstrual cycle McClintock) (2)
criticisms have been made of early synchronisation studies and the methods employed as commentators argue that there are many factors that may affect change in women's menstrual cycle. Including stress changes and diet exercise that might act as confounding variables.
meaning that any supposed pattern of synchronisation in cities such as McClintock is no more than would be expected to occur by chance.
in addition research typically involves small samples of women and relies on participants self-reporting perhaps lower invalidity and more critically other studies failed to find any evidence of mental synchrony in or females samples.
103
How does evidence support the idea of distinct stages of sleep and how is this an advantage? Who's study? (2)
A landmark study by William demant and Nathaniel kleitman 1957 monitor sleep patterns of 9 adult participants in a lab. brainwave activity was recorded eeg and researchers control the effects of caffeine and alcohol. REM sleep was highly correlated with the experience of dreaming and brain activity varied according to have vivid dreams where and participants book during dreams had a very accurate recall of them.
Replications of this investigation of also noted similar findings although the small size of the original sample has been criticised nevertheless the study suggest that a REM sleep is an important component of the ultraradian sleep cycle
104
How have animal studies how to be a limitation of infradian and ultradian rhythms.
Much of the knowledge of the effects of pheromones and behaviour is derived from animal studies. The role of pheromones in animals sexual selection is well-documented however in contrast evidence for the effect in human behaviour remains speculative and inconclusive therefore lower validity of using animal studies in reference.
105
How does seasonal affective disorder or sad have good practical application? However what can be used against this?
One of the most effective treatments for sad is phototherapy. in which a light box stimulate very strong light in the morning in the evening it is thought to reset melatonin levels in people with sad and relieve symptoms in up to 60% of sufferers.
However on the other hand the same study recorded placebo effect on 30% using a sham negative ion generator which participants were told was never treatment and it cast doubt on the chemical influence of phototherapy.
106
Define endogenous pacemakers.
Internal body clocks that regulate many of our biological rhythms such as the influence of the suprachiasmatic nucleus, on the sleep wake cycle.
107
Define exogenous zeitgebers
External cues that may affect or entry in hob biological rhythms such as the influence of light on the sleep wake cycle.
108
What is the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
it is a tiny bundle of nerve cells located in the hypothalamus in each hemisphere of the brain and is one of the primary endogenous pacemakers in mammals. It is influential in maintaining circadian rhythms and nerve fibres connected I cross in an area called the optic chiasm it receives information about light directly from this structure. And remain cycling when eyes are closed enabling and maintaining rhythm
109
Name an animal study in the influence of the suprachiasmatic nucleus. (2)
Decoursey et Al 2000 destroyed the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brains of 30 Chipmunks who were then returned to the natural habitat and observed. the sleep wake cycle of the Chipmunks disappeared and by the end of the study A significant proportion of them had been killed by predators presumably because he will wake up unable to attack.
Another study by Martin Ralph et al 1990 bread mutant hamster with 20 hour wake cycles when the suprachiasmatic nucleus from the photo tissue of the mutant hamster was transplanted into the brains of normal hamsters the cycles of a second group default to 20 hours both studies emphasizing the role of the suprachiasmatic nucleus in maintaining circadian rhythms.
