Biological psychology Flashcards
Name the functions of the Medulla
- controls HR
- respiration
- important for survival
- extension of the spinal cord.
Name the functions for the reticular formation
- regulates sleep
- wakefulness
- levels of arousal
Name the functions of the cerebellum
- fine motor control (including speech)
- balance and skilled action
Name the function of the pons
Relay between cerebellum and the brain
Name the 4 areas of the Hindbrain
- Medulla
- Reticular function
- Cerebellum
- Pons
Damage to Pons leads to…
- paralysis and patient only able to move eyes but cognition preserved
What is damaged to Pons Caused by
stroke
What are the areas of the midbrain?
- Substantial nigra
- Tectum
- Tegmentum
What is the role of substantial nigra?
- reward and movement
Why does substantial nigra look dark
high dopamine neuron conc
why is there less substantial nigra in Parkinson’s brain?
degeneration of brain -> melanin not functioning correctly
what is the function of the Tegmentum?
- movement
- arousal
- orientating organism to stimuli
- pleasure seeking -> ^ dopamine
Name the function of the Tectum
- orientates organism in enviro -> recieves info from eyes, ears and skin and moves them in coordination of stimuli
What did Plato state about the brain?
Pontified + questioned whether mental states arised in the brain
What did Aristole question about the brain?
whether mental experiences arise in the heart
What did Decartes propose about the Mind-body problem?
dualism- the mind and body are seperate
What did the dual-aspect theory propose?
Mind and body are two levels of explanation of same entity
What does the biological reudctionist theory propose about the mind-body problem?
mind explained in bio theory.
Psychology = temporary answer for full bio explanations
What is functional specialisation?
(Phrenology)
Different parts of cortex have different functions.
i.e personality differences manifest in different cortial size + bumps in skull
Why was Phrenology wrong?
- not all psychological traits founded in science
- observing differences doesn’t mean found in brain
- certain areas in skull morphology wrong
What is the functional specialisation: continuum?
- a scale ranging from equipotentiality to specialised cells.
- is there specialisation for certain thigs or does it stem from elsewhere
What are the three general areas of the brain?
- Hindbrain
- Midbrain
- Forebrain
What are the references of the brain?
Dorsal/Superior = top of brain
Ventral/inferior = bottom of brain
Posterior/caudal = back of brain
Anterior/rostal = front of brain
What is the structure of the brain?
- Grey matter = neuronal cell bodies
- White matter= axons, myelin and gila cells
- corpus callousm= white matter tract communicating between two H.
What does the Brodmann area do?
shows how diff parts of brain are connected but not all the same
what are the two cells within nervous system?
neurons + gila
What is the structure of a neuron?
presynaptic neuron -> synapse -> postsynaptic neuron + output = action potential
What is the electricity of neurons?
Single atoms have positive charge or negative electrical charge = ions
What is electrical potential?
overall difference between nearby areas leading to voltage
What is the chemistry and biology of neurons?
Chemistry= particles diffuse to equate concentrations
Biology= go through specialised channels; can’t diffuse across membrane
What are the 4 events of action potential?
- Neurotransmitter binds to receptor
- channel opens triggering cascade
- producing depolarisation causing overshoot 4. repolarisation triggered leading to undershoot before resting state.
What is the saltatory condition?
- Ions exhchanging at notes of Raviner -> action potential jumps to next note at 150 m/s
- myelin allowing action potential move along channel ^ AP
What is a sensory neuron?
input coming from sensory receptor cell turn physical stimuli into AP
What is the structure of a sensory neuron?
Receptor cell
Myelin sheath + axon
cell body
terminal buttons
What do motor neurons
What is learning?
Long-term change in beh by experience causing structural change
What is Hebbian learning?
Neurons that fire together, wire together; synapse are consistently firing causing growth + metabolic change in cells
What is Long-term potentiation?
presynaptic neuron and positsynaptic neuron fires together as response
How does LTP cause structural change?
Neurons physically change and get stronger to new response
why is response stronger when conditioned?
- LTP has occurred where the CS now associated w CR
- e.g, Bell + food associated as neurons fire at same time -> synapse connected between them
Why is timing important for strengthening responses?
- longer gap between CS and UCS -> harder to get connection
Cause before effect -> strong relationship
What is spike time dependent on + what happens ?
- dependent on plasticity
- CS before UCS -> action potential (LTP)
- UCS before CS -> Weakened connection(Long-term depression)
What is aquisition?
two stimuli assoiciated and conditioned together
What increases salivation response?
Extinction & spontaneous recovery
How are anxiety disorders related to CC?
NS(fear) becomes the CR
How does CC treat phobias?
exposure therapy -> extinction as stress response reduced
What are the public health implications of drug consumption?
Drug consumption rooms
- harm reduction
- safe environment
What is habituation?
Repeated or prolonged exposure to stimulus -> gradual reduction in responding
What did Watson propose about learning?
Organisms experience stimuli and observable changes can be measured
shows mind not needed in explaining phenomenons
What is the mechanism for classical conditioning?
Gradual increase in learning: starts slow, rapidly increases then slows down.
Post learning -> Cs independently elicits CR
What is second-order conditioning?
US able to produce learning from earlier procedure which was used as CS.
Or at times not directly associated
What happens in extinction?
CS not presented without US -> Cr diminishing quickly until no longer occurs.
beh declines + continues to drop until eventually dog ceases to salivate to the sound of the tone.
What happens after a rest period?
Spontaneous recovery where learnt beh recovers from extinction after rest period
what does spontaneous recovery show about extinction?
beh acquired through learning weakened
but not eliminated.
Why does beh become extinct?
Excitatory association: process increasing likelihood of response
Inhibitory association: process decreasing likelihood of response
What type of beh does CC learn?
Involuntary beh associated w neural activity
What does Thorndike mean by law of effect?
environment elicit voluntary beh + beh change due to consequences
What is a mix of CC and OC?
Animals show natural beh + use shaping to get new beh.
What is the primary and secondary reinforcers?
Primary: don’t need to be learnt + needed to survive
Secondary: learnt + influence our daily lives, effectiveness acquired through experience w primary reinforcer
What is positive reinforcement?
^ the likelihood of beh when stimulus presented
What is negative reinforcement?
increases the likelihood of beh when stimulus removed
What is positive punishment?
decrease likelhood of beh when stimulus presented
What is negative punishment?
decreases the likelihood of beh when stimulus removed
What is the premack principle of reinforcement?
Most effective reinforcement = preferred reinforcer used to reinforce non-preffered tasks.
establish hierarchy of beh to determine maximal reinforcers
What are the limiting conditions of reinforcement?
- rewards can decrease in desired beh; extrinsic reinforcement undermines why people engage in beh
- intrinsic rewards undermine extrinsic reinforcement.
What did Lepper and Greene find in their study of reinforcement?
drawing time in 1st group dropped when no longer resented w reward compared to 2nd group presented w reward.
Reward changed motivation in children -> overjustification effect
What are the basic principles for reinforcement?
- discrimination: learning under stimulus control certain response when certain stimulus present = discriminative stimulus
- extinction: response rate drops + spontaneous recovery seen.
What are the 4 schedules of reinforcement?
What does the schedule of reinforcement do?
- Fixed ratio
- Variable ratio
- Fixed interval
- Variable ratio
Changes the rate and pattern of beh depending on presentation of reinforcement
What is the difference between interval and ratio reinforcement?
interval reinforcement based on amount of time elapsed since previous reinforcement vs ratio based on how many reinforcements made.
What is the difference between fixed interval and variable interval?
Variable interval provides next reinforcement once reinforcer responded meaning length of time varies whereas, fixed interval reinforcement when time elapsed even though response mightn’t be given.
What is the difference between fixed ratio and variable ratio?
fixed ratio specific number of reinforcement given then response made whereas, variable ratio reinforcement delivered after specified average num reached.
Intermittent reinforcement produces….
beh more resistent to reinforcement than continuous reinforement because more diffcult to detect when placed on extinction
What shaping in reinforcement?
Learning result from reinforcement of successive steps/approximations to final desire
What is superstitious beh?
What did Skinner find in his experiment?
- repeating beh accidentally reinforced whic produces abnormal beh
- found pigeons idiosyncratic beh ^ occurance when reinforced w food every 15 secs.
What are the natural elements of OC?
- Brain structures contribute to reinforcement process
- pleasure centres -> limbic system produced when positive experience occurs
How is pleasure produced in the brain?
structures in pathway meander from midbrain to hypothalamus -> accumbens stimulation producing pleasure.
How does dopamine contribute to reinforcement?
High dopamine associated w positive emotion from reward centre.
Rats want to stimulate pathway at expense of other basic needs
How does reinforcement explain why people take drugs?
- drugs block action of dopamine
- opiates and cocaine activate pathways + centres -> ^ pleasure and desire to take more
How does OC work in motor impairments?
more effortful movement -> less movements -> contraction of cortial representations -> permanent damage
unsuccessful motor attempts -> punishment -> beh suppression + permanent damage
How is reinforcement used in rehabilitation?
- Constraint-induced movement therapy -> constrain unaffected limbs forcing affected limb to be used.
- gradually improve performance of affected limb
What change occurs in dopamine during acquisiton?
dopamine represent reward prediction error; dopamine responds to bell not food
What is the forebrain divided into?
- cerebral cortex
- subcortial structures
What is in the subcortial structures?
- Pituitary gland
- hippocampus
- amygdala
- hypothalamus
Name the functions of the Thalamus
- relays + filters info from senses + transmit info into cerebral cortex
- receieves input from all major senses except smell
- closes pathways of incoming sensations during sleep
What are the functions of the hypothalamus?
- regulates body temp, hunger, thirst + sexual beh
- fighting, fleeting, feeding and mating
What happens when the hypothalamus is damaged?
overeating + no desire to eat
What does the Pituitary gland do?
Master gland for hormone-producing systems -> release hormones directing functions to other glands
How does the hypothalamus and pituitary gland interact?
stress stimulated -> sensory neurons -> hypothalamus -> release ACTH from pituitary gland -> adrenal gland -> hormone activates sympathetic NS
What does the limbic system do?
group forebrain structures for motivation, emotion, learning and memory.
what does the hippocampus do?
create new memories + intergrate into knowledge -> store it into other pats of cortex
what happens when the hippocampus is damaged?
keep new info temporarily
only remember everyday memory for facts and events in consciousness
What does the amygala do?
- role in emotional processes -> fear, punishment or reward to neutral stimulus
- formation of memories
- emotionally arousing situations -> stimulates hippocampus to remember details
What is the function of the basal ganglia?
receieves info from cerebral cortex and send output to motor centres in brainstem.
what 4 functions are completed in the frontal lobe?
- movement, abstract thinking, planning, memory and judgement.
- manipulate info and retrieves memories use to plan beh + interact socially.
- motor cortex: voluntary movement + sends message to basal ganglia, cerebellum and spinal cord.
- 1/10 neurons = mirror neurons → imitation beh
What functions are completed in the paretial lobe?
- somatosensory cortex →outermost layer: representation of body map
- → each H represents skin on contralateral surface. More sensitive area → larger areas in S → homunculus
What fucntions are completed in the occipital lobe?
- process visual info
- sensory receptors(eyes) → thalamus → primary areas of OL
- damage → blindness; info processes by eye
What functions does the temporal lobe fufil?
- hearing and language
- auditory cortex → receives sensory info for ears based on frequencies of sounds. analogous to somatosensory cortex.
- secondary areas process info into meaningful units → speech and words.
- visual association areas interpret visual stimuli + recognise common objects in environment.
cont…
- epresentation of info in lobes → 3rd level
- association areas → neurons provide sense and meaning to info registered in cortex. → visual cortex (outer occpital lobe) →shape and motion interpreted
- auditory cortex → register sound frequencies; association areas interpret sound meaning.
- association areas → neurons provide sense and meaning to info registered in cortex. → visual cortex (outer occpital lobe) →shape and motion interpreted
How is action potential recorded?
what does action potential teach?
intracellular recording -> recording activity of neurons
teaches about memory and hippocampus beh in sleep
- asleep: same sequence of cells firing
- replay: memory reconsolidation STM -> LTM
How is action potential recorded in humans?
record local field potentials by recording activity of general area neurons are in
- electrodes implanted on surface + monitored to understand epileptic procedure
What results are found from studying electrodes?
- different sounds + vowels activate different electrodes
- cortial representation of speech understood by recording cortex directly
What are the executive functions of the frontal lobes?
Hot EF: impulses and urges = biological imperative or emotionally charged -> protect from danger
Cold EF: logical choices presented w problem rationally
Tell me about picking up objects in Sperry’s split brain research
Patients able to pick up object w left hand but not able to describe what’s seen -> info registered in RH but not transferred to LH
What do EEGs do?
- record electrical activity in brain while awake or asleep
- amplify brain signals in synapse and AP
- detect diff states of consciousness in brain activity
What did Hubel and Wisel discover about EEGs + primary visual cortex?
- inserting electrodes in OL in cats -> observe AP of individual neurons
- certain neurons in primary visual cortex activated -> contrast between light and dark backgrounds
- neurons in visual cortex selectively respond to aspects of visual images
what causes the recognition of faces?
Variety of features detected by sensory neurons cause neurons in temporal lobe to activate
What causes Prosopagnosia?
Damage to visual processing neurons in temporal lobe preventing faces to be detected.
function lost damage area corresponds w info processed in brain area make up mental life supporting mind-body dualism
What are CT scans?
- recombines multiple X-ray photos into single image.
- locates tumors + lesions
What are MRI scans?
magnets causing molecules in soft tissue to realign -> measureable field distortions
Why are MRI better than CT scans?
- better resolution
- clearer image of brain structure + localise brain damage
What are functional brain imaging?
- watch brain action
- rely on activated brain area + demand more blood neurons to work -> increased blood flow in active areas.
What are PET scans?
- use radioactive markers to measure blood flow in brain
- Radioactive substance dropped into bloodstream + brain scanned by radioactive detectors during cognitive task completed
- active areas demand more blood flow + energy -> ^ radioactivity
what are fMRIs and their functions?
- magnet causing haemoglobin molecules to realign to measure blood flow in brain.
- detects and provide picture of level of activation in brain area. = Blood oxgyen dependent signals (BOLD)
What are the advantages of functional imaging scans?
- insight into info processing in specific areas of brain
- fMRI reveal strong activity in visual association cortex: fusiform gyrus → damage: struggle recognising faces
- amygdala → emotional arousal
- increased activity in frontal lobe involved in emotional regulation.
What is associationism?
diff beh/cognitive functions associated w diff parts of brain. (phrenologist + some neurologist)
What is wholism?
cognitve functions not decomposable, brain works as a whole to support them.
What is double association?
Two patients (or patient groups) show opposite patterns of impairment
How is Broca and Wernicke an example of double dissociation?
Broca had two patients w damage to left inferior frontal lobe -> impaired speech production but could comprehend speech
WHEREAS,
Wernkie had patients w posterior temporal damage -> fluent but disordered speech + impaired speech comprehension.
