Bio Psych Exam #2 Flashcards
Sensory receptors
Specialized neurons that transduce some form of energy into neural activity
Are sensory receptors evenly spaced around the brain?
NO - Density and spread are different → not evenly spaced around the brain
Receptive fields
The receptor area which when stimulated results in a response of a particular sensory neuron → region of sensory space in which a stimulus modifies a receptor’s activity
- Helps us locate events in space → receptive fields overlap
Goals of pathways
make sense of this sensory information; generally, we need to get to the cortex
Makes pitstops along the way:
At each pitstop the information is modified → gives us difference aspects of reality
-Pathways (“neural relays”) let our sensory systems interact and build upon one another
Afferent neuron
sensory neurons → impulses from sensory stimuli towards the CNS
Efference neuron
motor neuron – impulses away from CNS (usually to muscles) for responses)
Topographic maps
- Spatially organized representation of the world
- Maps exist all over the brain → especially prominent in primary cortical areas (V1, A1 etc.)
- Secondary cortical areas (V2-V5) → get information after hitting the primary cortical
Sensation
registration of a physical stimulus
Perception
the subjective interpretation of sensations
What fills the eyeball
Vitreous humor (jelly-like)
Retina
- Made up of photoreceptors; without retina, we can not see → no way to convert light into action potentials
- At the back of the eye (has to go through many things to get here)
Fovea
- found in the retina (it is a depression in the retina)
- Contains a specific type of photoreceptor (rods and cones)
Retinal organization
Only the photoreceptors at the very back of the eye are stimulated by light
- contains rods and cones
Rods
- More numerous than cones
- Spread everywhere in the retina BUT the fovea
- Deals with low levels of light
- Specialty: night vision/motion
Cones
- Less numerous than rods
- Entirely in the fovea
- Respond to bright lights at particular wavelengths
- Specialty: color vision and acuity (sharp details)
Transduction when there is NO light
At baseline (in the dark): photoreceptors are depolarized → they are inhibitory
- This inhibits/hyperpolarizes the bipolar cell → it’s excitatory but currently being inhibited
- Prevents action potentials in the ganglion
Transduction when there is light
Light hyperpolarizes the photoreceptors via G-protein coupled receptors
- This reduces inhibition of the bipolar cell → bipolar cells are now excitatory and can depolarize and fire
- Can now excite the ganglion cells whose action potentials get sent to the brain
Types of Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs)
1) Magnocellular cells (M cells)
2) Parvocellular cells (P cells)
Parvocellular cells (P cells)
- Smaller
- Input mainly from cones
- Sensitive to fine details and color
- Found largely in the fovea
Magnocellular cells (M cells)
- Larger
- Input mainly from rods
- Sensitive to low contrast and moving stimuli
- Found throughout the retina
What do Retinal Ganglion Cells (RGCs) do?
The axons of both types of RGC cells come together to form the optic nerve
- part of the retina
- what causes a blind spot (called the optic disk)
Geniculostriate pathway
- RGC axons from the optic nerves travel posteriorly
goes from:
1) eye
2) lateral geniculate nucleus
3) striate cortex
Lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)
- in the thalamus
- formed by P cells (layers 3-6) and M cells (layers 1-2)
Optic chiasm
- Half of the information from each eye crosses at the optic chiasm (60% cross, 40% stay)
- “X marks the spot”
- ventral surface of the brain
Optic tract
The bundles/visual pathway past the optic chiasm
Receptive fields in LGN
The receptive fields of many retinal ganglion cells combine to form the receptive field of a single LGN cell
- LGN receptive field is bigger
Primary visual cortex
In the occipital lobe
- Called V1 or the striate cortex
- Formed by all P cells (and some M cells)
- Striped
Layers of the primary visual cortex
6 layers:
- Layer 4: gets all the incoming information
- M and P RGCs are separate in the thalamus and separate in V1 (striate cortex) – ocular dominance columns
Optic raditaion
white matter highway system → how info gets to V1
How left and right eyes are separated in V1
The left eye sends things into one stripe, the right eye into the next, then left etc. → they alternate
“Occular dominance columns” (the stripes): respond preferentially to information from 1 eye
Blobs
Section of V1 that are sensitive to information about color
- input from P cells
- output to thin stripes of V2
-comes from the same region of the visual field
Interblobs
Sections of V1 that re sensitive to information about movement and form
- input form M cells
- if it is about movement, optuput to thick stripes of V2
- if it is about form: output to areas of V2 that are between thick and thin stripes
- comes from the same region of the visual field
The _____ sends information to a disproportionately large portion of the occipital cortex
Answer: Fovea → very large space in V1 for such a small region of the retina (disproportionate)
Out visual field compared to our eyes
inverted AND right-left reversed
- Inverted: The lower part of the visual field is on the upper part of the eye (If the light coming from above, hits the bottom part of the retina)
Decussates
switches side
ipsilateral
stays on the same side
Which portion of the visual field decussates
nasal fields switches sides
right visual cortex
processes left visual field
left visual cortex
processes right visual field
What visual deficit would you expect if you severed the optic chiasm
Can’t see the outer (temporal) portions of the visual fields from both eyes
Explanation: it is the nasal portion of the eyes, but the nasal portion of the eye maps to the temporal portion of the visual field
RCG receptive fields to LGN receptive fields
- One dendrite of a LGN synapses with multiple RGCs
- The receptive fields of many LGN cells combine to form the receptive field of a single V1 cell
Retinotopy
Receptive fields from RGCs retain thier spation relation when sent to LGN
Location information is conserved → means if we know that light coming in from one angle hits a specific portion of the retina, this same portion of V1 is activated
**V1 is mapped according to the retina
Retinal ganglion cell activation type
Can be…
1) on-centre /off-surround
2) off-center/on-surround
Luminance contrast
amount of light an object reflects relative to its surroundings
**RCGs tell the brain about the amount of light hitting a certain spot on the retina compared to the average amount of light in the surrounding retinal region
Retinal ganglion cells and shapes
Emphasizes difference in luminance along the EDGES
RCGs send information about edges
Edges ultimately form shapes
Orientation selectivity
Single V1 cell: on center, off surround (or vice versa) → but rather than a dot of light, we are working with bars of light (because receptive fields build up)
These bars are orientation-selective to the light
Receptive field convergence
Input to a V1 neuron comes from a group of RGCs that happen to be aligned in a row
That V1 neuron will be excited only when a bar of light hitting the retina strikes that particular row of RGCs
If it’s at a slightly different angle, only some will be activated and we get a weak response in the V1 neuron
- IPSP and EPSP cancel in this case
Ocular Dominance and Orientation columns
Stripes of V1 preferential to input from 1 eye
- Orientation columns form bars of light (panel A)
- Orientation columns are perpendicular to ocular dominance columns (panel B)
Opponent processing coding
There are 3 colored cones - red, blue and yellow
the combination of these being excited and inhibited is what creates colors
The 2 visual streams
1) dorsal stream
2) temporal stream
Dorsal stream
1) goes to the parietal lobe
2) how/where pathway, vision for action
3) deals with spatial orientation – visually guided reaching/grasping
Important Dorsal stream area
Area MT and Motion
- Perception of motion
- Middle temporal visual area (V5) - still dorsal stream
- Random dot motion task:
- Monkeys have to choose which way dots are moving in order to get a reward → gives insight into the perception of motion
Temporal Stream (vision)
1) temporal lobe
2) names: what pathway / vision for perception
3) deals with recognition and discrimination of visual shapes/objects
Important temporal stream area
Fusiform face area (FFA)
- Part of the inferior temporal cortex
- Particularly important for processing faces
Not only faces; expertise hypothesis – helpful for discriminating very similar objects
- In experts: humans are experts at faces and experts at other things
Prosopagnosia
face blindness
- Ventral stream problem