Biology of the Mind

Question 1

Biopsychology.

Answer 1

• Scientific study of the
  biology of mind and
  behavior

Question 2

Neurons

Answer 2

• Receive and send
  electrochemical signals.
• Approx. 100 billon
  neurons in the brain.
• Approx. 100 trillion
  connections between
  them.

Question 3

Two main divisions. (Nervous System)

Answer 3

• Central Nervous System
  (CNS).
• Peripheral Nervous
  System (PNS).

Question 4

CNS.

Answer 4

• Brain.
• Spinal cord.

Question 5

PNS.

Answer 5

• All nerves outside of the
  brain and spinal cord.
• Composed of two
  divisions: somatic
  nervous system and
  autonomic nervous
  system.

Question 6

Somatic Nervous
System

Answer 6

• Afferent nerves carry
  sensory signals from skin,
  sensory organs, skeletal
  muscles, and joints to the
  CNS.
• Efferent nerves carry
  motor signals from the
  CNS to the muscles.
  Controls voluntary
  movement.

Question 7

Autonomic Nervous System

Answer 7

• Afferent nerves carry
  sensory signals from the
  internal organs to the
  CNS.
• Efferent nerves carry
  automatic motor signals
  from the CNS to the
  internal organs. Controls
  automatic movements
  (e.g., heart rate,
  digestion).
• The ANS is divided into
  the Sympathetic and
  Parasympathetic
  nervous system.

Question 8

Sympathetic Nervous
System.

Answer 8

• Increases arousal and
  energy.
• Activates the fight-orflight response (e.g.,
  release of stress
  hormones, increased
  respiration, increased
  heartrate, slows
  digestion, increased
  blood flow to extremities,
  etc.).

Question 9

Parasympathetic
Nervous System.

Answer 9

• Conserves energy.
• Activates the rest-anddigest system.
• Actions tend to be in
  opposition to those of the
  sympathetic nervous
  system.

Question 10

Meninges.

Answer 10

Protect Brain and spinal cord

Meninges. Consists of
three layers.
1. Dura mater.
2. Arachnoid membrane.
- Subarachnoid space.
3. Pia mater.

Question 11

Cerebrospinal fluid
(CSF).

Answer 11

• Clear fluid.
• Protects brain.
• Supports brain.
• Provides the brain with
  necessary nutrients.
• Helps clean the brain.
• Located in the
  subarachnoid space (of
  the Meninges), the
  central canal of the
  spinal cord (hollow canal
  that runs the length of
  the spinal cord), and the
  cerebral ventricles of
  the brain (four hollow
  chambers in the brain).

Question 12

Blood Brain Barrier

Answer 12

Protective barrier
between the brain and
the cerebral blood
vessels.
The endothelial cells of
the cerebral blood vessels
are squeezed tightly
together to form tight
junctions.

Question 13

Tight junctions allow
for the passage of:

Answer 13

• small, uncharged
  molecules.
• fat-soluble molecules.

Question 14

Tight junctions
prevent the passage
of:

Answer 14

• large molecules.
• proteins.
• charged molecules.

Question 15

Three general
divisions of the brain.

Answer 15

1. Forebrain.
2. Midbrain.
3. Hindbrain.

Question 16

Medulla.

Answer 16

• Lowest part of brain
  stem.
• Regulates fundamental
  life systems (e.g.,
  breathing, heart rate).
• Regulates reflexes (e.g.,
  swallowing, vomiting).

Question 17

Reticular formation.

Answer 17

• Tract of nerves that
  traverses the center of
  the brain stem from the
  medulla to the midbrain.
• Regulates arousal.
• Many other roles (e.g.,
  sleep-wake cycle,
  selective attention,
  muscle tone
  maintenance).

Question 18

Pons.

Answer 18

• Contains tracts of the
  reticular formation.
• Regulates sleep-wake
  cycle.
• May play a role in
  dreaming.

Question 19

Cerebellum.

Answer 19

• Regulates motor
  coordination and balance.
• Also plays a role in
  higher cognitive functions
  (e.g., attention, planning,
  learning, language,
  decision making,
  memory, moral
  judgements, visual
  perception).
• Contains approx. 70% of
  all neurons in the brain.

Question 20

Midbrain

Answer 20

Two main divisions of the
midbrain:

Question 21

1. Tectum. (Divisions of the mid Brain)

Answer 21

• Processes visual and
  auditory information.
• Automatically directs
  the body towards or away from the sensory stimuli

Question 22

2. Tegmentum. (Divisions of the mid Brain)

Answer 22

• Movement.
• Contains the substantia
  nigra. The substantia
  nigra contains dopamineproducing neurons that
  supply dopamine to other
  brain regions to facilitate
  movement.

Question 23

Parkinson’s
disease

Answer 23

e is caused by the
death of these dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra.

Question 24

Forebrain

Answer 24

The forebrain controls the
most complex functions.

Question 25

The forebrain can be
divided into the cerebral
cortex and subcortical
structures (i.e.,
structures below the
cerebral cortex).

Question 26

The cerebral cortex

Answer 26

the
outermost layer of the
forebrain. It is often
referred to as grey
matter. The layer
beneath the cerebral
cortex is known as white
matter.

Question 27

longitudinal fissure

Answer 27

Separates the left and right cerebral
hemispheres

Although the
hemispheres are
separated by the
longitudinal fissure, they
remain connected to each
other by the corpus callosum
.

Question 28

The central sulcus and
the lateral fissure

Answer 28

divide
the cortex into four lobes:
the frontal lobe, the
parietal lobe, the
temporal lobe, and the
occipital lobe.

Question 29

The Frontal Lobe

Answer 29

The frontal lobe contains
the prefrontal cortex and
the primary motor cortex.

Question 30

Primary motor cortex.

Answer 30

• The left primary motor
  cortex controls the right
  side of the body, and the
  right primary motor
  cortex controls the left
  side of the body.
• Different areas of the
  primary motor cortex are
  responsible for controlling
  different body parts. See
  the diagram on the
  PowerPoint for the
  mapping of the body
  across the motor cortex.
• Body parts that require
  more fine motor
  movement (e.g., fingers
  and hands) have more
  cortex dedicated to them
  than body parts that
  require less (e.g., elbow).

Question 31

Prefrontal Cortex.

Answer 31

• Responsible for our
  highest cognitive
  functions (e.g., planning,
  decision making,
  reasoning, language, and
  emotional and behavioral
  regulation).

Question 32

Broca’s area.

Answer 32

speech production.
People with damage to
the brain area in and
around Broca’s area
experience Broca’s
Aphasia (i.e., expressive
aphasia). People with
Broca’s Aphasia have
difficulty producing
speech but can
understand speech. Their
speech will be meaningful

Question 33

Prefrontal cortex
influences

Answer 33

personality
and emotional
regulation.

Question 34

The Parietal Lobe

Answer 34

Contain the Primary
Somatosensory Cortex.
- this area is responsible
for processing tactile
sensations.
- Different areas of the
somatosensory cortex
receive information from
different body parts.
- Body parts that are
more sensitive have more
area of somatosensory
cortex dedicated to them.

Question 35

Proprioception.

Answer 35

The sense of the positioning of our body
parts.
- The somatosensory
cortex allows for my
sense of proprioception
by processing information
about muscle tension.

Question 36

Visual-spatial
information.

Answer 36

The parietal lobe is
responsible for processing
information about the
locations of objects in
space (e.g., where a cup
is located on a table
relative to my distance
from the table).
- The parietal lobe
integrates proprioception
information with visualspatial information to
allow us to interact
smoothly with objects in
space (e.g., reaching out
and grabbing the cup).

Question 37

Damage to the Parietal
Lobe.

Answer 37

• Difficult reaching for and
  grabbing an object (e.g.,
  reaching past the cup or
  grabbing too strongly).
• Astereogonosia (i.e.,
  inability to recognize
  objects by touch alone).
• Asomatognosia (i.e.,
  inability to recognize that
  a body part belongs to
  you).
• Contralateral Neglect
  (i.e., inability to attend to
  stimuli on one side of
  space). Typically, the
  result of damage to the
  right parietal lobe and
  people no longer attend
  to stimuli on the left side
  of space. Not a problem
  with vision but a problem with attention

Question 38

Occipital Lobe

Answer 38

Contains the Primary
Visual Cortex.

Question 39

Damage to the primary
visual cortex

Answer 39

can result in
cortical blindness.
Cortical blindness can be
complete or localized to
an area in visual space.
People who are cortical
blind have normal eye
function but no conscious
visual perception.
- People with complete
cortical blindness are
unable to generate visual
images.

Question 40

Temporal Lobe

Answer 40

Contains the Primary
Auditory Cortex.
Contains Wernicke’s
area.
- Left temporal lobe of
most people.
- Plays a role in
understanding language.
- Damage to Wernicke’s
area can cause

Question 41

Wernicke’s aphasia.

Answer 41

People with Wernicke’s
aphasia have difficulty
understanding language.
Although their speech will
have normal pace and
include grammatical
elements, it will often not
make any sense (e.g.,
word salad, gibberish).

Question 42

Damage to the inferior
temporal lobe can result

Answer 42

in visual agnosia (i.e.,
inability to recognize
objects).
Prosopagnosia.
- Inability to recognize
faces.
- Caused by damage to
the fusiform face area in the temporal lobe.

Question 43

Subcortical Structures:
The Basal Ganglia

Answer 43

The basal ganglia are
clusters of neurons
that function together
as a system.
- Caudate Nucleus.
- Putamen.
- Globus Pallidus.
- Nucleus Accumbens.

Question 44

Many of the basal
ganglia play an
important role in
movement.

Answer 44

• The ability to initiate
  desired movements and
  inhibit undesired
  movements.
• The movement function
  of the basal ganglia is
  dependent on a supply of
  dopamine from the
  Substantia Nigra (a
  midbrain structure).
  People with Parkinson’s
  disease experience a
  loss of dopamine
  producing neurons in the
  Substantia Nigra.
  Nucleus Accumbens.
• Dopamine activity in the
  nucleus accumbens
  influences motivation and
  reward (e.g., pleasurable
  experiences).

Question 45

Subcortical Structures:
Thalamus

Answer 45

Two-lobed structure
that acts a sensory
relay station for all
sensory modalities
except smell.

Question 46

Smell has its own private
relay station called the

Answer 46

olfactory bulb.

Question 47

Subcortical Structures:
Hypothalamus

Answer 47

Regulates biological
drives (e.g., hunger,
sleep, sex, and thirst).

Contains the biological
clock that regulates
sleep-wake cycles.
Controls Autonomic
Nervous System.
Who’s the boss!
- Hypothalamus controls
the pituitary gland (i.e.,
an endocrine gland
responsible for releasing
hormones that travel in
the blood influencing
organs and other glands
throughout the body).
- So-called Master
Gland.

Question 48

Subcortical Structures:
The Limbic System

Answer 48

For the sake of this class,
we listed the
hypothalamus, thalamus,
amygdala, and
hippocampus as
structures of the limbic
system.
The limbic system has
been termed by some as
the emotional brain.
- Several concerns about
the use of the term
Limbic System.

Question 49

Subcortical Structures:
Amygdala

Answer 49

Important role in emotion,
particularly fear.
- Appraises a stimulus as
a threat or not.

Question 50

Subcortical Structures:
Hippocampus

Answer 50

Important role in the
formation of new
memories.
- Damage to the
hippocampus can impair
memory formation (e.g.,
H.M).
- Spatial memories
(e.g., the Morris Water
Maze and rats).

Question 51

Lateralization

Answer 51

Some brain abilities are
localized to a specific
hemisphere.
- Language skills are
localized to the left
hemisphere in most
people (e.g., Broca’s area
and Wernicke’s area).