Bio psychology Flashcards
What is the central nervous system made up of ?
Made up of the brain and spinal cord
What is the peripheral nervous system split into
Autonomic nervous system and the somatic nervous system
What does the ANS control ?
Vital body functions like breathing, heart rate, disgestion, sexual response and stress responses
What does the SNS control ?
Muscle movement and recieves information from sensory receptors
What does the endocrine system control ?
It controls glands and horomones working alongside the nervous system to control vital bodily functions
Which gland produces hormones such as thyroxine
The thyroid produces thyroxine
What is the key hormone gland
The pituitary gland
How do the endocrine and ANS work together for fight or flight
A stressor triggers the hypothalamus to activate the pituitary gland , in turn triggering acticity in the sympathetic brach of the ANS
Then the ANS changes from the resting parasympathetic state to the aroused sympathetic state
Adrenaline is released into the blood stream
Once the threat has gone the body returns to the parasympathetic resting state
Explain synaptic transmission
- An action potential causes an electrical impulse to travel down the neuron to the pre synaptic nerve terminal
- triggering a realise of neurotransmitters from the vesticles into the synaptic cleft
- neurotransmitters travel across the synaptic cleft and bind to their complimentary postsynaptic recepotor sites
- this opens ion channels allowing either postive or negatively charged ions to flow i to the next neuron
- exillatory neurotransmitters cause the absorbtion of positively charged ions
- inhibitory neurotransmitters cause the absorption of negatively charged ions
- the action potential is set to the overall charge from the absorbed negative and positively charged ions, the higher the positive charge the more likely it is to fire the next eletrical impulse
