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Psychology > Biology, Brain And Behaviour > Flashcards

Biology, Brain And Behaviour Flashcards

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1
Q

WHAT HAVENT YOU REVISED

A

BRAIN STRUCTURE AND NEURON STRUCTURE

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2
Q

What does the parietal lobe do?

A

It functions in Processing sensory information regarding the location of parts of the body

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3
Q

What are two key assumptions of psychology?

A

– All behaviour is determined by biological factors
– genes influence behaviour
– the central nervous system is a major influence on behaviour

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4
Q

What is the strength of correlational studies?

A

They use correlations to decide if they should do further research so it is more effective

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5
Q

What is a weakness of correlational studies?

A

You can only see a relationship between two variables and it is impossible to tell which one is the casual variable

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6
Q

What is a strength of CAT scans?

A

Not painful or invasive

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7
Q

What is a weakness of CAT scans?

A

There is a slight chance of cancer

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8
Q

What is the strength of pet scans?

A

There are reliable and can be replicated easily

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9
Q

What is a weakness of pet scans?

A

They produce complex images that are open to bias

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10
Q

What is the strength of FMRI scans?

A

It is non-invasive and doesn’t involve exposure to radiation

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11
Q

What is a weakness of FMRI scans?

A

Implanted medical devices may cause problems in an MRI scan

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12
Q

What is the strength of case studies of brain damage patients?

A

Evidence gathered will be qualitative and therefore high in detail

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13
Q

What is a weakness of case studies of brain damage patients?

A

Reliability is very low

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14
Q

What is a strength of lab based Experiments using animals?

A

Animals are good participants

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15
Q

What is a weakness of lab-based experiments with animals?

A

They cannot necessarily be generalised to humans

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16
Q

What is the CNS made of?

A

The brain and spinal cord

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17
Q

What does the brain do in the CNS?

A

It draws together information from all over the body and send information back out to the body in response

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18
Q

What does the spinal-cord do in the CNS?

A

It contains the nerves that carry messages between the brain and the body

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19
Q

What is the CNS?

A

Is the central processing of information in the control Centre for human behaviour

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20
Q

What does the CNS do?

A

Acts as an information processing and control Centre for information we receive and responses that we make in our environment

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21
Q

What does the frontal lobe do?

A

It is the control panel of our personality and ability to communicate

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22
Q

What does occipital lobe do?

A

It is the visual processing centre

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23
Q

What does the temporal lobe do?

A

It is involved in primary auditory perception such as hearing

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24
Q

What are the functions of the prefrontal cortex?

A

It has several executive functions such as inhibiting inappropriate responses, decision-making and motivational behaviour

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25
Q

What is the right hemisphere of the brain concerned with?

A

Creativity intuition and the movement of the left hand side of the body

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26
Q

What is the left hemisphere of the brain concerned with?

A

Analytic thoughts, logic, language, the right side of the body

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27
Q

How are these two hemispheres connected?

A

By a massive bundle of neurons called the corpus callosum

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28
Q

What is the function of the corpus callosum?

A

To ensure the two hemispheres are able to communicate with each other

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29
Q

What does the limbic system control?

A

The basic emotions

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30
Q

What does the thalamus do?

A

Relays information from the five senses to relevant parts of the cortex

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31
Q

What does the amygdala do?

A

Emotions such as anger and fear are linked to this structure.
The fight or flight response is linked to this area

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32
Q

What does the hippocampus do?

A

It plays a key role in memory formation. It converts short-term memory into long-term memory

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33
Q

What does the hypothalamus do?

A

It regulates bodily functions via stimulating the release of hormones

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34
Q

What is a neuron?

A

A specialised cell within the nervous system

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35
Q

What does the axon do?

A

Passes down electrical impulses to the end of the neuron to allow it to communicate with others

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36
Q

What do dendrites do?

A

They receive messages from other neurons

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37
Q

What does the axon hillock do

A

It generates electrical impulses down the axon called action potential

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38
Q

What does the myelin sheath do?

A

Provides electrical insulation for the axon and allows electrical impulses to be passed along speedily

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39
Q

What does the synapse do?

A

To transfer electrical impulses between the presynaptic neuron and post synaptic neuron

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40
Q

What are the three main elements of the synapse?

A

The presynaptic neuron, the postsynaptic neuron and the synaptic cleft

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41
Q

What is the function of a neuron?

A

The function of neurons is to communicate with thousands of other cells at a time in a huge network

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42
Q

How do neurons keep the body working correctly?

A

They make a chain with each other forming some sort of passage-way that allows messages to be sent from one part of the brain to another

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43
Q

How do neurons form new connections when we learn something new?

A

The terminal of the presynaptic neuron forms a connection with the receptor sites on the dendrites of the postsynaptic neuron

44
Q

What are neurons?

A

There are chemical messengers that take information around the brain

45
Q

What does serotonin do?

A

– Inhibits violent tendencies
– lifts mood
- involved with feeling pain, sleep, learning and memory
- decreases our worries

46
Q

What does dopamine do?

A
  • It provides feelings of pleasure related to emotion

- learning and motivates us

47
Q

What can a lack of dopamine cause?

A

– Fatigue
– lack of focus
– insomnia

48
Q

What does Noradrenaline do?

A

It is involved with the fight or flight response

49
Q

What is exocytosis?

A

When vesicles of chemicals fuse of the membrane of the presynaptic neuron allowing for chemicals to be released

50
Q

What are recreational drugs?

A

They are drugs that are used in the absence of medical grounds but are taken by users for personal enjoyment

51
Q

What do drugs target?

A

They target the reward pathways in the brain

52
Q

How can dopamine pathways be activated?

A

By natural rewarding behaviours such as having sex or eating food

53
Q

What does the majority of recreational drugs alter?

A

They alter neurotransmission in the dopamine system

54
Q

What do drugs increase?

A

The levels of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens and the ventral tegmental area

55
Q

What do most recreational drugs change?

A

The way that the neurotransmitter dopamine works in the synapses of the brain, they alter the communication between neurons is enabled by dopamine

56
Q

What did drugs act to do?

A

Intensify and prolong the activity in the reward system by ensuring there is an increase in dopamine levels

57
Q

How does nicotine work?

A

It stops the action of enzymes that would normally break down the neurotransmitter so more dopamine is left in the synaptic cleft

58
Q

How does Heroin work?

A

It increases the amount of dopamine released into the synaptic cleft

59
Q

What happens if the brain is getting too much dopamine from these drugs?

A

The brain will reduce how much dopamine it naturally produces so it means the brain will no longer operate properly without the drug

60
Q

How does cocaine work?

A
  • by blocking the transporter receptors on the presynaptic dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area
  • then the presynaptic neurons don’t re-uptake dopamine and so it stays in the synaptic cleft for longer
  • Because the VTA activates another area of the brain that’s associated with euphoric feelings, the user experiences euphoria for longer
61
Q

What are the risks of taking heroin?

A
  • Overdoses can lead to comas and even death

- sharing needles can put you in danger of getting serious infections

62
Q

What is relapse in relation to drug abuse?

A

Resuming the use of the drug after one or more periods of abstinence

63
Q

What a drug associated cues?

A

When people experience stimuli in their environment that associated with when they used to take a drug

64
Q

What did Van den over study look into? ( VDO )

A

The neurobiology of heroin addiction with a focus on synaptic changes linked to the drug associated cues and relapse

65
Q

How is the rat trained in VDO study?

A

It is trained so that when a light appears and a tone is heard the rat will receive a dose of heroin if it pokes its nose through a hole

66
Q

What are the drug associate cues in VDO study?

A

The light and the auditory tones

67
Q

What is VDO Study concerned with?

A

The causes of relapse in heroin addiction

68
Q

What was the aim of VDO study?

A

To investigate acute changes in the molecular composition and the function of synapses in the medial prefrontal cortex upon re-exposure to Heroin cues after long-term abstinence from self administration

69
Q

What happened in stage one of the study?

A

– One group of rats were trained to self administer heroin

– a separate group of rats will train to self administer a sucrose solution

70
Q

What happenedIn stage two of the study?

A

After becoming addicted to the heroin, the experimental group of rats were split in 2

71
Q

What were the two groups the rats were split into in stage two?

A

– Half were kept in a separate cage in a forced abstinence

– others were put in the self administration box but did not receive the heroin when those poking

72
Q

What happened on stage three of the study?

A

– After 21 days of abstinence or extinction the two groups both split in half

  • Half of each group were exposed to the drug associated cues for 60 minutes but did not receive any heroin
  • The other half are placed in the self administration boxes they were not supposed any drug associated cues
73
Q

What happened on stage four of the study

A

All the rats were decapitated and the brains were frozen and later analysed using the mass spectrometry technique

74
Q

What was the follow-up procedure of VDO study?

A

The rats went through the exact same procedure as the initial study however one group was injected with a drug that prevented endocytosis

76
Q

What were the results of the observational evidence of relapse behaviour in VDO study?

A

After a period of abstinence from heroin the rats that were exposed to the drug associated cutes showed more drug seeking behaviour than those who weren’t

77
Q

What were the results of the composition of synapses in a medial prefrontal cortex in VDO study?

A

After a period of absence from heroin, rats that were exposed to drug associated cues had lower levels of AMPA receptors.

78
Q

PEEC of a strength of VDO study?

A

P - The study used standardised procedures

E- this makes it strength as standardised procedures increases the reliability of the study because it makes it more replicable

E - All rats were trained with the same Audio visual cues and they all had the same amount of time in abstinence

C - Therefore this study is high in scientific credibility as her reliability is an important characteristic of science

79
Q

PEEC of a weakness of van den oever study?

A

P - One weakness is that The sample consisted of male Wister rats which is not representative sample of drug addicted humans

E - this is a weakness as a rat brain is very different to human brain so cannot necessarily be generalised to drug addiction in humans

E- The medial prefrontal cortex in rats is much smaller compared to humans which could influence the way synapses change when we are exposed to the heroin associated cues

C - however, the use of rats allows a great deal of control and would be unethical to do the same study on humans so rats are an appropriate sample

80
Q

What were the results of the drug treatment in VDO study?

A

Rats they had not been injected with the drug to prevent endocytosis showed a greater amount of drug seeking behaviour compared to rats who had been injected

81
Q

What are hormones?

A

The chemical substances produced in a specialised gland and transported in blood to stimulate specific cell or organs into action

82
Q

What is the name of the system of glands that produce hormones?

A

The endocrine system

83
Q

What is the name of the structure in the brain that is the command centre for the endocrine system?

A

The hypothalamus

84
Q

How do hormones get around the body?

A

In the bloodstream

85
Q

How to hormones work?

A

They are secreted by glands and then carried around in the bloodstream to stimulate parts of the body

86
Q

What are the female hormones?

A

Oestrogen and progesterone

87
Q

What happens when a child is exposed to stressful environment?

A

They release of stress hormone cortisol is which can cause anxiety impulsive responses and fear later on in life

88
Q

What happens when hormones reach a particular destination the body?

A

They bind with the receptors on target cells specific to the hormone and then the cell responds according to its function

89
Q

What are the three interacting processes that human behaviour can be seen as being made up of?

A

– Sensory input
– integration
– motor output

90
Q

How can the senses be influenced by hormones?

A

Hormones can change the way we perceive our environment e.g. oxytocin

91
Q

How Can integration be influenced by hormones?

A

Hormones can influence the central nervous system by making neurons more or less sensitive

92
Q

How can hormones affect motor output?

A

Hormones affect the way our body develops

93
Q

What are the characteristics of hormones?

A

– Take longer to work

– They tend to have a long-term influence in the body

94
Q

What is the strength of using hormones to explain human behaviour?

A

Much of the research linking hormones to human behaviours has high levels of scientific validity

95
Q

What is a weakness of using hormones to explain human behaviour?

A

It is limited by ethical issues because of protection of participants

96
Q

How to hormones and behaviour have a reciprocal relationship?

A

Behaviour can stimulate the release of hormones so is reciprocal e.g. hugging releases oxytocin

97
Q

What is evolution?

A

The gradual development of different kinds of living organisms from earlier forms throughout history of the Earth

98
Q

What is natural selection?

A

It is a gradual process by which hereditable traits become more or less common in an environment depending on how they can help you survive

99
Q

How are variations made?

A

They are caused by random genetic mutations

100
Q

What is evolutionary psychology?

A

A branch of biological psychology that looks At explaining human behaviour in terms of any particular behaviour has aided our survival

101
Q

What are some human behaviours that may have developed as a result of evolution by natural selection?

A

– Mate choice
– phobia
– aggression

102
Q

Why have humans evolved to have a prolonged period of childhood and juvenile growth?

A

Human brains are more complex so they take more time to be fully formed as our brain must learn to do things such as speaking and cognitive reasoning

103
Q

PEEC of how evolution can explain human development?

A

P - Evolution can explain why humans have phobias
E- this is because we may have learnt to stay away from something or be scared of something that could hurt us or kill us.
E - such as animals like sharks and also things such as fire.
C - therefore we know to stay away from these things because we are scared of them. It’s because they have a chance of hurting us so it aids us in prolonging our survival

104
Q

What is a strength of using evolution by natural selection to explain human behaviour?

A

The assumptions that the theory makes are directly observable and therefore have very high scientific credibility

105
Q

What is a weakness of using evolution by natural selection to explain human behaviour?

A

The evidence for the assumption of evolutionary psychology that human behaviour has evolved is limited. It is also reductionism

106
Q

What is the main assumption of evolutionary psychology?

A

Our brain has evolved to allow behaviours to be inherited by offspring that serve an adaptive function in the environment of evolutionary adoption

Psychology (1 decks)

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