The Brain/Nervous System

Question 0

Sensory Neurons

Answer 0

Transmits impulses to the CNS from external receptors. ASCENDING to the brain.

Question 1

Motor neurons

Answer 1

Transmits impulses from CNS to muscles/glands. DESCENDING from brain

Question 2

Interneuron

Answer 2

Connects motor and sensory neurons mainly in spinal cord or brain

Question 3

Spinal cord

Answer 3

• 2 way communication
• Pass sensory info from PNS to the brain
• Pass info from brain to PNS

Question 4

Nervous system

Answer 4

Provides the basis for psychological experience

Question 5

CNS

Answer 5

Directs psychological and basic life processes.

Question 6

Spinal cord

Answer 6

Receives sensory input- sends info to brain, responds with motor output

Question 7

Brain

Answer 7

Directs psychological activity - processes info, maintains life support.

Question 8

PNS

Answer 8

Carries info to and from CNS.

Question 9

Autonomic nervous system

Answer 9

Serves basic life functions.
Eg. Beating heart
- part of PNS

Question 10

Sympathetic nervous system

Answer 10

• Readies the body in response to threat.
• Increases activity of muscles, organs, glands when threatened/stressed.
• Sends neurotransmitter into blood stream to activate organism.

Question 11

Parasympathetic nervous system

Answer 11

• Calms the body down to a balanced state of homeostasis.
• Decreases activity of muscles, organs, glands back to a normal rate.
• DOMINATES sympathetic.
• Operates at the same time as sympathetic.

Question 12

Somatic nervous system

Answer 12

Conveys sensory info to the CNS and sends motor messages to the muscles.

Question 13

Fight or flight response

Answer 13

A state of arousal that prepares or mobilises the body to confront a situation or to flee from a situation.
- sympathetic division of autonomic ns.

Question 14

Cerebral cortex

Answer 14

• Outer covering of the brain
• includes the 4 lobes
• enables us to plan and carry out body movement, undertake tasks, information processing activities such as: language, speech, learning, receiving info etc.

Question 15

Cerebral hemisphere

Answer 15

• Two hemispheres almost symmetrical
• Connected by corpus callosum
• Allows them to work together
• Information crosses over through corpus callosum

Question 16

Lobes of the brain

Answer 16

• 8 lobes, 4 per hemisphere
• Every lobe has a primary cortex and an association area.
• Frontal lobe, Parietal lobe, Occipital lobe, Temporal lobe.

Question 17

Frontal Lobe

Answer 17

• Largest lobe
• Located at front of the brain
• Primary motor cortex: voluntary movement of skeletal muscles.
• Association area involved in thinking, planning, abstract, reasoning and personality.

Question 18

Parietal lobes

Answer 18

• Sensory lobe
• Behind frontal lobe
• Somatosensory cortex: Receives info about perception of own body, where things are located and immediate environment.
• Association area monitors body limb position and determines special positions of objects.

Question 19

Occipital Lobes

Answer 19

• Back of hemisphere
• Visual cortex: Receives visual info, works contralaterally like all other lobes.
• Association area processes visual info, selects,organises and integrates features of visual stimuli.

Question 20

Temporal Lobes

Answer 20

• Located under temple bone
• Auditory cortex receives auditory information.
• Association area deals with facial recognition, speech, memory, object identification and behavioural responses.

Question 21

Hemispheric specialisation

Answer 21

All activities controlled by two hemispheres, each hemisphere generally performs the same function.

Question 22

Cognitive functions

Answer 22

• Mental abilities ( learning, thinking, problem solving etc)
• Info comes from receptor sites and sensory neurons
• the cognitive functions that involve language require the language centres. They are Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area.

Question 23

Behavioural functions

Answer 23

-Not many behavioural functions are performed without cognitive functions to initiate, plan and organise actions.

Question 24

Left Hemisphere

Answer 24

- Movement and sensation on right side of body. - Language ( speech,writing) - Analysis ( maths,science) - Rationality ( logical reasoning)

Question 25

Right Hemisphere

Answer 25

- Movement and sensation on left side of body. - Spatial ability ( mental rotation of objects eg. Puzzles ) - Creativity (painting, poetry) - Fantasy - Appreciation of music/art/beauty

Question 26

Aphasia

Answer 26

Form of language loss or impairment due to brain damage, disease or injury.

Question 27

Broca's Area

Answer 27

- Located in left frontal lobe next to motor cortex.Paul Broca. - When damaged it affects production of speech because next to motor cortex. - Involved in the movement of muscles required to speak - Linked with cerebral cortex concerned with meaning of words, sentence structure and grammar.

Question 28

Broca's Aphasia

Answer 28

- Sentences are mainly verbs or nouns, setences just 3 or 4 words long. - Speech is still coherent - Very deliberate speech and must work hard to produce speech. - If order of words are changed then can be confused. - Aphasia studies give info about language centres and what happens when damaged.

Question 29

Wernicke's Area

Answer 29

- Involved in interpreting sound especially human speech. - Vital for understanding words and locating appropriate words for meaning. - Karl Wernicke

Question 30

Wernicke's Aphasia

Answer 30

- Fluent speech - Meaningless and unclear because the string of words don't make sense when put together (eg. Cooked eggs on football in dentist)

Question 31

Contribution of aphasia studies

Answer 31

- Give us info about where language centres are located eg left hemisphere. - Gives info about how language is changed due to damage. - Damage usually caused by stroke.

Question 32

Spatial neglect syndrome

Answer 32

- Results from brain damage to areas of parietal lobe of right hemisphere. - Patient behaves as if left side of their world and sometimes left side of body doesn't exist. - Can see left side but ignore it - Conciousness: limits thoughts, perceptions,behaviours, performance of everyday activities

Question 33

Construction of spatial neglect studies

Answer 33

Imaging suggests there is a widespread network of areas and neural pathways are involved.

Question 34

Split-brain studies

Answer 34

- Patients with severe epilepsy undergo surgery to sever the fibres of the corpus callosum dividing the left and right hemisphere. - Sperry and Gazzaniga (1960's) studied patients with split brain and noticed they were quite normal. - if shown something on LVF patients can't communicate what they have see even though they have received the visual stimuli b/c right hemisphere can't transfer info the left hemisphere.

Question 35

Ethics

Answer 35

- By patients being in accidents/surgery research can be done as it would be unethical to perform such damage on the brain without reason. - Confidentiality is not always preserved.