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A Level Pychology > Biological psychology - Brain Structure > Flashcards

Biological psychology - Brain Structure Flashcards

1
Q

function of nervous system

A
  • collects processes and responds to info in the environment
  • coordinated the workings of different organs and cells in the body
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2
Q

what is the central nervous system made up of

A
  • spinal cord
  • brain
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3
Q

features of the spinal cord

A
  • connected to the brain via brainstem
  • responsible for reflex actions by passing messages to and from the brain/ linking it to the nervous system
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4
Q

features of the brain

A
  • the source of conscious awareness and is where decision making takes place
  • the brain controls of the body is contralateral as the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and the right hemisphere controls the left
  • outer layer of the brain is called the cerebral cortex, which is a thin layer of nerves that lie over the brain and distinguishes mental functioning
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5
Q

what are the subcortical structures (below the cortex)

A
  • Thalamus
  • Hypothalamus
  • Limbic system
  • Cerebellum
  • Corpus callosum
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6
Q

what does the Thalamus do

A
  • receives info from various senses (except smell) and pass it on to the appropriate areas of the cerebral cortex for higher level processing
  • plays a role in sleep, wakefulness and OCD
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7
Q

what does the hypothalamus do

A
  • controls motivational behaviours e.g sex and hunger
  • has a key role in the body’s stress response through the control of fight and flight
  • maintains a balance in bodily functions e.g temp and regulates the activity of the endocrine system (hormone) through the connections with the pituitary gland
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8
Q

what does the limbic system do

A
  • consist of the amygdala which plays a role in regulating emotional responses
  • has a role in memory and learning
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9
Q

what does the cerebellum do

A
  • coordinates posture balance and movement by receiving and integrating information form the spinal cord and other areas
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10
Q

what does the corpus callosum do

A
  • allows communication between the hemispheres by passing signals back and forth which allows the brain to have contralateral control of the body
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11
Q

what is lateralisation

A

that each hemisphere in the brain have different functions but the same structure

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12
Q

what is localisation

A

that within each hemisphere of the brain there are certain areas (lobes) with specific functions

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13
Q

names of 4 lobes in brain

A
  • Frontal lobe
  • Parietal lobe
  • Temporal lobe
  • Occipital lobe
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14
Q

what does the frontal lobe do

A
  • control high level cognitive functions e.g decision making
  • contain a motor cortex, a long strip of neurons that runs along the boundary of both hemispheres, which controls voluntary movements on the opposite side of the body
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15
Q

what does the parietal lobe do

A
  • responsible for receiving and processing sensory input such as touch, pressure, heat, cold, and pain
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16
Q

what does the temporal lobe do

A
  • contains an auditory cortex which deals with sound and process the location, volume and pitch of the sounds and have a role in understanding language
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17
Q

what does the occipital lobe do

A

processes visual information

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18
Q

what is the central nervous system

A

consists of the brain and the spinal cord and is the origin of all complex commands and decisions

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19
Q

what is a neuron

A

neve cells that process and transmit messages through electrical and chemical signals

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20
Q

structure of neuron

A

the neuron contains the:
- cell body (soma) - includes a nucleus which contains the genetic material of the cell
- dendrites - carry impulses from neighbouring neurons towards the cell body
- axon - carries impulses from the cell body down the length of the neuron
- myelin sheath - protects the axon and speeds up electrical transmission of the impulse
- nodes - are gaps in the myelin sheath increase the speed of an impulse by forcing the impulses to jump across the gaps along the axon
- terminal button - involved in the communication across the synapse

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21
Q

types of neurons

A
  • sensory neurons
  • motor neurons
  • relay neurons
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22
Q

what do sensory neurons do

A

carry messages receptors along nerves in peripheral nervous system to the central system, they have long dendrites and short axons

23
Q

what do motor neurons do

A

carry messages from CNS along nerves to peripheral nervous system, they have short dendrites and long axons

24
Q

what do relay neurons do

A

connect sensory and motor neurons together and connect to other relay neurons, they have short dendrites and short axons and only found in the CNS

25
Q

How do neurons form an electrical impulse

A

1) when a neuron is in a resting state the inside of the cell is negatively charged compared to the outside
2) the neuron is then activated by a stimulus causing the inside of the cell to become positively charged for a split second
3) this rapid switch from negative to positive charge is called depolarisation and creates an electrical impulse (an action potential) that travels towards the terminal buttons of the neuron

26
Q

processes of synaptic transmission (using neurotransmitter)

A
  1. Presynaptic Neuron becomes active by a stimulus
  2. This produces an action potential (an electrical signal)
  3. action potential reaches the presynaptic terminal button causing synaptic vesicles to become stimulated.
  4. These releases thousands of neurotransmitters which carry the electrochemical messages and flood out into the synaptic cleft.
  5. They bind to receptor cells of the postsynaptic neuron.
  6. Once enough neurotransmitters have attached themselves to the receptor cells, the neurotransmitters are converted back into an electric signal in the postsynaptic neuron
  7. the neurotransmitters that remain in the synapse is reabsorbed to the presynaptic neuron through the process of reuptake
27
Q

what do excitatory neuron do

A

they increase the likelihood that the neuron will fire an action potential

28
Q

what do inhibitory neurons do

A

they decrease the likelihood that the neuron will fire an action potential.

29
Q

what are neurotransmitters

A

chemicals released from synaptc vesicles that send signals from one neuron to another across a synapse.

30
Q

what is a synaptic transmission

A

the process by which neighbouring neurons communicate with each other by sending chemical messages across the tiny gap that separates neurons

31
Q

examples of recreational drugs

A
  • cocaine
  • heroin
32
Q

what does cocaine do to you

A

cocaine affects the nervous system by blocking the uptake of dopamine by binding to the dopamine transporters on the terminal button of the presynaptic neuron, which are responsible for recycling the dopamine back into the neuron that produced it. as cocaine prevents this the synapse is flooded with large amounts of dopamine all available to bind to the post synaptic neuron receptors

33
Q

what are the long term effects of cocaine

A

after long use of cocaine dopamine receptors become downregulated resulting in them shutting down and being damaged, causing the the quantity of dopamine produced to reduce. This leads to craving for the frig and higher doses to get the same effect (causing tolerance to the drug)

34
Q

the role of dopamine

A

a release of dopamine in the reward centre of the brain results to a sense of pleasure when activated

35
Q

what does heroin to the body

A
  • it slows down the CNS activity
  • once it reaches itthe brain it is processed into morphine, which binds to the opioid receptor at the synapse found in the cerebral cortex, limbic system and hypothalamus
36
Q

why is heroin an agonist drug

A

as mimics the action of another natural biochemical

37
Q

what is antagonist drug

A

a drug that blocks a receptor

38
Q

long term effects of heroin

A

repeated use of heroin can lead to opioid receptors constantly binding with morphine molecules which desensitises them to the effect of the drug (causing tolerance to the drug)

39
Q

strengths of recreational drugs EVALUATION

A
  • face validity to explain this: observation of drug users and self reports from drugs users match what neurobiology of recreational drugs would predict
  • supporting research; OLDS AND MILNER studied rats and connected wires to their brains, to trigger the pleasure centre in the septum area of the brain using electricity. The rats give their brains a pleasurable shock by pressing a lever. They found that rats would press the lever and ignore their other sources of pleasure e.g food, so behaved liked drug addicts
40
Q

weakness recreational drugs EVALUATION

A
  • supported with research using animals to understand drug affects on human CNS transmission, this means that the results are non representative as the human brain is more complex than animals
  • plus studies usually focus on one neurotransmitter which can oversimplify the whole process of transmission as its unlikely that the complexity of recreational drugs effects on transmission can be explained by just one mode of action of the drug
41
Q

application of drugs EVALUATION

A
  • can allow us to find treatments for dug addictiveness
    e.g once it was discovered that heroin was identified as an agonist that binds to opiate receptors other drugs can be develop to reverse mode of action such as naloxone which can block opiate receptors and prevents heroin from occupying them. It also does not produce euphoria so can help manage withdrawal processes and reduce symptoms.
42
Q

CLASSICAL STUDY: Raine et al (1997) - AIM

A
  • To find out if there is a difference in the structure of brain activity between people who have committed murder (NGRIs) and non-murderers.
  • To find out the role played by the prefrontal cortex, the corpus callosum, the amygdala, the hippocampus and the thalamus in predisposing people towards aggression to see if the findings of studies linking brain structure to aggression in animals could be generalised to humans.
43
Q

CLASSICAL STUDY: Raine et al (1997) - SAMPLE

A
  • 41murders pleading NGRI (39 men and 2 women) - 23 suffering from brain damage, 3 with drug abuse, 6 with schizophrenia 2 with epilepsy and 7 with other disorders
  • 41 non murders - these people was the same age and sex with no history of crime or mental illness, except 6 Controls who had schizophrenia
    matched pair design was used
44
Q

when was the raine study done

A

1997

45
Q

CLASSICAL STUDY: Raine et al (1997) - PROCEDURE

A

1) participants were free from all medication in the two weeks up to their brain scan
2) murderers were matched on sex, age and ethnicity with the control group
3) each pp were injected with a radioactive tracer to show the brains metabolism on the scanner
4) each then completed a continuous performance task (CPT) to encourage uptake of the tracer in the areas of the brain the researcher was testing
5) the positron emission tomography (PET) scan was condicted immediately

46
Q

CLASSICAL STUDY: Raine et al (1997) - RESULTS

A

in the cortical regions this included the prefrontal areas - murderers had lower glucose metabolism than controls, but they showed a higher metabolism than controls in the occipital area, which is not linked to violence
in subcortical region this included the amygdala, hippocampus and corpus callosum - murderers had lower glucose metabolism than non murderers but had greater activity in the right amygdala, right medial temporal lobe and right thalamus

47
Q

CLASSICAL STUDY: Raine et al (1997) - CONCLUSION

A
  • NGRI have different brain structure to control
  • NGRI has impairments in the brain linked to violent behaviour
  • Researchers concluded that dysfunction in one area of the brain does not explain aggression but the impairments of the networks of interacting brain area do cause aggression that is only expressed when in certain social, environmental and psychological conditions
48
Q

EVALUATION OF CLASSICAL STUDY: RAINE ET AL (1997) - GENERALISABILITY

A
  • Used a large sample of 82 so anomalies, such as pps who disrupted the test by not focusing on the CPT, would not skew the data. This makes the results reliable and representative of a wider population.
49
Q

EVALUATION OF CLASSICAL STUDY: RAINE ET AL (1997) - RELIABILITY

A
  • Uses a standardised procedure through the CPT to ensure that all the participants were concentrating on the same thing, which should ensure they all had similar types of brain activity
  • The CPT also ensures that all the participants were concentrating on the same thing, which should ensure they all had similar types of brain activity. This is a standardised procedure that also adds to reliability.
50
Q

EVALUATION OF CLASSICAL STUDY: RAINE ET AL (1997) - APPLICATION

A
  • application is to be cautions about biological evidence
  • as the research appears to suggest that particular brain structures that causes aggression can be identified and so aggression can be treated with changing biological structures through medication or surgery however Raine states that their findings do not show that treatment would be justified as the brain structure only offers a partial explanation
51
Q

EVALUATION OF CLASSICAL STUDY: RAINE ET AL (1997) - VALIDITY

A
  • high degree of control such as the matched pair design, which matched the NGRIs with the controls on three confounding variables, the use of standardised procedure e.g the same CPT scan was used by all pps for 32 minutes and all were showed the CPT so had high internal validity
  • weak
52
Q

Developmental psychology

A
  • Development of the brain - more primitive structures are highly developed at birth, which makes sense as the brain stem regulates bodily functions that are essential for surviving, the parts of the brain involved in more mental functions take longer to develop so children become more capable sophisticated and adult like thinking as the cortex changes
  • Different rates of development- two crucial brain structures are involved in aggression at different rates, the amygdala develops early so a child becomes rapidly sensitive to environmental threats, but the prefrontal cortex which is involved in the control of impulsive behaviour takes years to mature, this combination of a rapidly developing amygdala and slowing maturing prefrontal cortex contributes to aggression behaviour in childhood
  • developmental and survival- the role of evolution governs behaviours present at birth which enhance survival, it also plays a part in the way we acquire behaviours during development
  • prenatal influences - the influence of testosterone on aggression may occur prenatally (before birth as embryos that develop to become males expose higher levels of testosterone in the womb compared to females, it is also though that expose to testosterone has profound effects on brain development which may explain postnatal differences in aggressive behaviour between different sex’s
53
Q

Individual differences

A
  • Genes and drug responses- individuals vary in their responses to recreational drugs, this is due to social and psychological factors, genetic influences are also involved as genes affect how sensitive or responsive an individuals nervous system is to recreational drugs
  • Personality and aggression- individual differences in aggression behaviour can be explained by the varying degrees of success we have in the stages of childhood development, Freud argued that we develop in childhood through a series of psychological challenges, and that sone people will deal with these challenges more successfully than others and if we fail to overcome a challenge we become stuck in that stage which affects our personality
  • social versus physical aggression - Bridgend study shows that children’s early aggressiveness is physically and genetically influence. But children quickly learn that this is socially unacceptable so they move onto less risky social methods of aggression. These findings suggest that this transfer from physical to social aggression begins to take place at a very age.
  • brain structure and function - Brain scan studies e,g Raine measure the average activity of brain areas, this technique can identify important individual differences in the brain structure and function

A Level Pychology (7 decks)

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