AP Psych Module 4 Flashcards
Biological perspective
concerned with link between Bio. and behavior. Inc. psychologists working in neuroscience, behavior genetics, and evolutionary psychology. They may call themselves behavioral neuroscientists or neuropsychologists, behavior geneticists, psychological psychologists, or biopsychologists.
Neuron
a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system.
Dendrites
a neuron’s bushy, branching extensions that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body.
Axons
the neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands.
Myelin sheath
a fatty tissue layer segmentally encasing the axons of some neurons; enable vastly greater transmission speed as a neural impulses hop from one node to the next.
Action potential
a neural impulse; a breif electrical charge that ravels down an axon.
Ions
h
Threshold
the level of stimulation required to trigger a neural impulse.
Synapse
h
Neurotransmitters
h
reuptake
h
Endorphins
morphine within”- natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.
Nervous system
the body’s speedy electrochemical communication network, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and cent. nervous systems.
Central nervous system
the brain and spinal chord
Peripheral nervous sytem
the sensory and motor neurons that connect the cent. nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body.
