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Flashcards in Physiological Psychology Deck (60)
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1
Q

What did Pierre Flourens study?

A

Extirpation/ablation: Surgically removing brain parts and noting the behavioural consequences.

2
Q

What did Paul Broca study?

A

Deficits of people with brain damage; Broca’s area is the area responsible for speaking.

3
Q

What did Johannes Muller suggest about the brain behaviour relationship?

A

Each nerve is excited by only one kind of energy (light or air).

4
Q

Helmholtz was the first to measure what?

A

The speed of a nerve impulse.

5
Q

What was Sherrington’s only false assumption about synapses?

A

That they were a form of electrical transmission; they are chemical.

6
Q

What are the three kinds of nerve cells in the nervous system?

A

Sensory/afferent (from receptors to spinal cord and brain), motor/efferent (from brain to muscles), and interneurons (between neurons for reflexive behaviour).

7
Q

What is the reflex arc?

A

Interneurons send messages to the motor neurons as the message is still being transmitted to the brain so as to speed up the response.

8
Q

Describe a breakdown of the nervous system.

A

CNS: Brain and Spinal Cord
PNS: somatic nervous system and autonomic nervous system (parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system).

9
Q

What did Franz Gall create?

A

Phrenology, relationship between personality and neuroanatomy.

10
Q

What does the autonomic system regulate?

A

Heartbeat, respiration, digestion, gland secretions, involuntary muscles.

11
Q

Which neurotransmitter is responsible for parasympathetic responses?

A

Acetylcholine.

12
Q

What are some physiological responses to the activation of the sympathetic system?

A

Increased heart rate, blood sugar level, and respiration, decreased digestion, pupil dilation, secretion of adrenaline.

13
Q

What are the three basic subdivisions of the human brain?

A

Hindbrain : Balance, coordination, breathing -> essentials.
Midbrain : Sensorimotor reflexes
Forebrain: Complex processes

14
Q

What is the phylogeny of the human brain?

A

Brain stem (hindbrain and midbrain), limbic system (emotion and memory), cerebral cortex (most recent cognitive processes).

15
Q

What are the structures of the hindbrain?

A

Medulla oblongata (breathing and heart rate), cerebellum (balance and motor movements), reticular formation (arousal, attention and alertness - sleeping).

16
Q

What structures are in the midbrain?

A

Involuntary reflexes; superior colliculus has visual input and inferior colliculus has auditory input.

17
Q

What are the structures in the forebrain (5)?

A

Thalamus (relay station), hypothalamus (homeostatic functions, hormones, autonomic system, emotional experience of high arousal situations), limbic system (emotion and memory), basal ganglia (movement), cerebral cortex (complex perception and cognition).

18
Q

Describe the subdivisions of the hypothalamus.

A

Lateral : Hunger centre. Aphagia = refusal to eat. LH = lacking hunger.
Ventromedial : Satiety centre, enough to eat. Hyperphagia = excessive eating. VH = very hungry
Anterior : Aggressive sexual behaviour

19
Q

What is sham rage?

A

Exhibited by cats who had cortices removed but hypothalamus intact.

20
Q

What is included in the structures of basal ganglia.

A

Extrapyramidal motor system : Relay platform from basal ganglia to brain and spinal cord. (PD associated with problems with basal ganglia, schizophrenia may also be associated).

21
Q

Describe the structures in the limbic system.

A

Septum : Pleasure centre discovered by James Olds and Peter Milner. Also inhibits aggression.
Amygdala : Defensive and aggressive behaviour, docility with lesions. Klüver-Bucy syndrome: bilateral removal in monkeys.
Hippocampus: learning and memory.

22
Q

What are convolutions?

A

Bombs and folds in the cortex.

23
Q

Describe the frontal lobe.

A

Prefrontal lobes (executive function): association area (combines input from different regions), governs behavioural processes.
Motor cortex: projection area (receive sensory info), send info to muscles
Broca’s Area: speech production

24
Q

Describe the functions of the parietal lobe.

A

Spatial processing and manipulation. Has a somatosensory cortex (sensory signals of touch pressure, temperature, and pain).

25
Q

Describe the functions of the occipital lobes.

A

Has visual cortex/striate cortex, discovered by Hubel and Wiesel.

26
Q

Describe the regions in the temporal lobe.

A

Wernicke’s area (speech comprehension), auditory cortex, hippocampus is in temporal lobe.

27
Q

What functions are located in the “dominant” hemisphere.

A

Language, logic, math.

28
Q

What functions are located in the “nondominant” hemisphere.

A

Tone of language, intuition, creativity, music.

29
Q

Who are Sperry and Gazzaniga?

A

Researchers who studied the effect of cutting the corpus callosum - hemispheres couldn’t communicate.

30
Q

What is the function of glial cells?

A

They protect neuronal axons with myelin sheath.

31
Q

What is a sodium potassium pump?

A

Cell membrane actively pumping sodium out of the cell to maintain a negative charge.

32
Q

What are the four stages of an action potential?

A

Resting potential, depolarization, action potential spike, hyper polarization.

33
Q

What are the two stages of the refractory period?

A

Absolute: depolarization, complete unresponsiveness to novel stimulation.
Relative: action potential spike, stronger stimulation required.

34
Q

What is the all or nothing law?

A

When depolarization is reached, the neuron fires at the same rate, regardless of amount of pressure or stimulation.

35
Q

What three things can happen when a neurotransmitter ends up in a synaptic cleft?

A

It can bind to a receptor on the post synaptic membrane, it can remain in the synapse and be destroyed by enzymes, reuptake by vesicles.

36
Q

What is a graded potential?

A

Voltage varies by the amount of neurotransmitter have boning to receptors; they also weaken as they travel along dendrites.

37
Q

What is habituation?

A

Idea discovered by Kandel when studying aplysias: when they learned not to withdraw their gills from being touched (ie, deemed the motion harmless and inhibited that reflex), it released less neurotransmitters. Neuronal changes = behavioural changes.

38
Q

What is acetylcholine?

A

Transmits nerve impulses to muscles. Linked to AD = less in neurons that communicate with the hippocampus.

39
Q

What do catecholamines/mono amines have in common?

A

Molecular composition, role in experience of emotions (epinephrine, norepinephrine, dopamine, serotonin).

40
Q

Describe the function of norepinephrine.

A

Alert fullness, implications in depression and mania (too much results in mania, too little in depression).

41
Q

Describe the function of dopamine.

A

Movement and posture, found in basal ganglia. Implications in schizophrenia, too much/over sensitivity = hallucinations and delusions. Phenothiazines are antipsychotic meds that produce dopamine sensitivity. PD = loss of dopamine sensitive neurons. Side effect = tardive dyskinesia.

42
Q

Describe the function of serotonin.

A

Regulating mood, eating, sleeping, arousal. Oversupply = mania, undersupply = depression. Treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

43
Q

What is GABA?

A

Makes inhibitory post synaptic potentials by causing hyper polarization, associated with anxiety disorders as it affects brain stability.

44
Q

What is a peptide and how may it play a role in neurotransmission?

A

Two or more amino acids together, they are slower but endorphins and enkephalins are natural pain killers in the brain.

45
Q

What is the function of sedative-hypnotic drugs?

A

They are depressants and slow the CNS. Reduce anxiety > sedate > coma inducing. Comprised of benzodiazepines and barbiturates, both of which enhance GABA to stabilize brain activity.

46
Q

Which classes of drugs fall under behavioural stimulants?

A

Amphetamines : Speed CNS by mimicking sympathetic system, stimulate dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin receptors.
Antidepressants : elevate mood, increase activity level, improve sleep patterns (eg, tricyclics, MAO inhibitors).
Tricyclics - facilitate norepinephrine and serotonin transmission and inhibit reuptake.
MAO - inhibit MAO enzyme that breaks norepinephrine and serotonin.
Prozac : SSRI
Methylphenidate : Ritalin, more alertness, less activity.

47
Q

Antipsychotics are prescribed for which two main disorders?

A

Schizophrenia : Thorazine, chlorpromazine, phenothiazine, haloperidol (block dopamine receptor sites).
Bipolar : lithium carbonate (mood stabilizer)

48
Q

What are the two types of narcotics?

A

Pain killers that mimic endorphins by attaching to their receptors in the brain (morphine, heroin, opium) and psychedelics that alter sensory perception and cognition (weed).

49
Q

What does the endocrine system use to communicate?

A

The pituitary gland (mostly anterior) which triggers hormone secretion in other glands that travel through the bloodstream.

50
Q

What is androgen-insensitivity syndrome?

A

Fetus that grows as a female despite its male genetics due to a lack of androgens.

51
Q

What are gonadotropic hormones for?

A

During puberty produce secondary sex characteristics as well as sperm, estrogen, and the menstrual cycle.

52
Q

What are the results of estrogen and progesterone?

A

Estrogen: maturation of and release of egg
Progesterone: prepared uterus for implantation of fertilized egg

53
Q

What is a stereotaxic instrument?

A

Device that locates brains areas when electrodes are implanted to make lesions or stimulate nerve cell activity.

54
Q

How did Penfield study neuropsychology?

A

By stimulating patients’ cortices with electrodes and watching the effects.

55
Q

What is called when y place several electrodes of persons head?

A

Electroencephalography.

56
Q

What is regional cerebral blood flow?

A

Radioactivity in the bloodstream records regional blood flow and devices (CAT, PET, MRI) record the radioactivity.

57
Q

Who is A. R. Luria?

A

Russian who wrote about specific disorders resulting from lesions in specific areas of the brain.

58
Q

What is agnosia and apraxia?

A

Agnosia - deficit in perceptual recognition.

Apraxia - deficit in acting, difficulty in carrying out a motor response to a verbal command.

59
Q

What are the four EEG patterns that corresponds with sleep stages?

A

Beta (attending to mental task), alpha (awake but relaxed), theta (sleep stage 1 & 2 - k complexes), delta (sleep stage 3 - low frequency).

60
Q

What are the three theories of emotions?

A

James-Lange: emotion comes after physiological event
Cannon-Bard: combination of arousal and cognition
Schacter-Singer: two-factor theory - appraisal of situation determines emotion.