BIOPSYCH

Question 1

What is a hormone?

Answer 1

A hormone is a chemical messenger that circulate in the blood stream and only affects the target.

Question 2

What is a gland?

Answer 2

A group of cells specialised to secrete a chemical substance such as a hormone.

Question 3

What is the pituitary gland also known as and why?

Answer 3

the ‘master gland’ because it controls the release of hormones from all the other endocrine glands.

Question 4

What happens in the flight or fight response?

Answer 4

1. The hypothalamus recognises there is a threat
2. A message is sent to the adrenal gland
3. this triggers the release of adrenaline to the endocrine system and noradrenaline in the brain causing changes physically.

Question 5

What does the parasympathetic action do?

Answer 5

It brings the body back to its resting state and works in opposition to the sympathetic nervous system therefore its actions are antagonistic.

Question 6

What does the sympathetic branch do?

Answer 6

Flight or fight response.

Question 7

What is the ANS responsible for?

Answer 7

governs vital functions in the body such as breathing, sexual arousal and stress responses

Question 8

What is the SNS responsible for?

Answer 8

governs muscle movement and receives info from sensory receptors

Question 9

What does the axon do?

Answer 9

carries impulses away from the cell body

Question 10

What does the myelin sheath do?

Answer 10

protective fatty layer that wraps around the axon and speeds up electrical transmission of the impulse.

Question 11

What are the nodes of ranvier?

Answer 11

They are the gaps in the myelin sheath and they speed up the transmission of the impulse by making them ‘jump’ across the gaps along the axon.

Question 12

What are terminal buttons?

Answer 12

communicates with the next neuron in the chain across a gap known as the synapse.

Question 13

How does an action potential occur?

Answer 13

When the neuron is in a resting state the inside of the nucleus is negatively charged. When the neuron is activated by a stimulus it becomes positively charged causing an action potential to occur.

Question 14

Outline the role of adrenaline.

Answer 14

-Adrenaline is released from the adrenal medulla due to the activation of the sympathomedullary pathway
-They prepare the body for fight/flight by increasing bloody supply and oxygen to the brain.
-increases heart rate/constricts blood vessels.

Question 15

Why can neurons only transmit info in one direction at a synapse?

Answer 15

-the synaptic vesicles containing the neurotransmitter are only present on the pre-synaptic membrane
-the receptors for the neurotransmitters are only present on the post synaptic membrane
-binding of the neurotransmitter to the receptor is what causes the signal
-diffusion of neurotransmitters can only go from high to low concentration so it can only go from pre-synaptic to postsynaptic membrane.

Question 16

What is excitation?

Answer 16

When there is a high chance for an electrical impulse to be triggered in the post-synaptic neuron

Question 17

What is inhibition?

Answer 17

When there is a low chance for an electrical impulse to be triggered in the post-synaptic neuron.

Question 18

What is summation?

Answer 18

-If net effect of neurotransmitters is inhibitory then post-synaptic neuron less likely to fire.
-if net effect of neurotransmitters is excitatory, then post-synaptic neuron is more likely to fire.

Question 19

What is lateralisation?

Answer 19

The idea that two halves of the brain are functionally different.
-physical or psychological functions are dominated by a particular hemisphere

Question 20

Where is the motor area and what does it do?

Answer 20

The motor area is at the back of the frontal lobe which controls voluntary movement in the opposite side of the body.

Question 21

Where is the somatosensory area and what does it do?

Answer 21

At the front of both parietal lobes which is where the sensory information from the skin is represented.

Question 22

Where is the visual area and what does it do?

Answer 22

occipital lobe- eg: right visual field to left visual cortex

Question 23

Where is the auditory area and what does it do?

Answer 23

temporal lobes- analyses speech-based information

Question 24

What did Broca find?

Answer 24

Broca’s area- small part in the left frontal lobe responsible for speech production.
damage to the broca’s area results in broca’s aphasia where speech is slow, laborious and lacking in fluency.

Question 25

What did Wernicke find?

Answer 25

Wernicke’s area-region in the left temporal lobe to be responsible for language and understanding.
Damage to wernicke’s area causes Wernicke’s aphasia where you produce nonsense words as part of the content of their speech.

Question 26

What is one strength for localisation of function? (evidence from neurosurgery)

Answer 26

-damage to areas of the brain is linked to mental disorders
: neurosurgery is the last resort when it comes to mental disorders- Eg: cingulotomy involves isolating a region called cingulate gyrus which has been implicated in OCD. Dougherty reported 44 people with OCD who had undergone a cingulotomy. Post surgical follow up after 32 weeks showed about 30% met the criteria for successful response to the surgery and 14% for partial response- success of these procedures show that behaviours associated with serious mental disorders may be localised.

Question 27

What is one strength for the localisation of function? (evidence from brain scans)

Answer 27

Petersen used brain scans to demonstrate how Wernicke’s area was active during a listening task and Broca’s area was active during a reading task therefore objective methods have provided scientific evidence that many brain functions are localised.

Question 28

What is one limitation of the localisation of function? (questioning language localisation)

Answer 28

-language may not be localised just to Broca’s and Wernicke’s area: Dick and Tremblay found that 2% of researchers think that language in the brain is completely controlled by B’s and W’s area. Advances in brain imaging techniques such as fMRI mean that neural processes in the brain can be studied with more clarity than before. This suggests that language may be organised more holistically in the brain which contradicts the theory of localisation.

Question 29

What is hemispheric lateralisation?

Answer 29

Understanding that
one side of the brain controls the opposite side of the body and processes information in the opposite visual field, and
that each hemisphere is responsible for different functions.

Question 30

What research was conducted for hemispheric lateralisation?

Answer 30

Sperry & Gazzaniga split brain research: on patients whose corpus callosum was cut they found that when they were presented with a word in their right visual field, they could say what they saw; they could not say what they saw when presented with a word in their left visual field therefore language functions are only located in the left hemisphere
- they feel the object the right hand feels and could say what it is left couldnt
-draw a picture when seeing it drawing

Question 31

What is research that opposes hemispheric lateralisation?

Answer 31

Turk found evidence of the right hemisphere’s ability to process and produce speech. J.W, a patient who suffered damage to the left
hemisphere but developed the capacity to speak in the right hemisphere.

Question 32

What is a limitation of hemispheric lateralisation?

Answer 32

limited scope for generalisation- split-brain procedures are hardly carried out in modern day healthcare which means split brain patients are hard to recruit therefore we have limited samples and cannot generalise our findings to the wider population

Question 33

What is the limitation of of plasticity?

Answer 33

Negative behavioural consequences- evidence has shown that the brain’s adaptation to prolonged drug use leads to poorer cognitive functioning in later life as well as increased risk of dementia (Medina).
-60-80% of amputees have been known to develop phantom limb syndrome
This suggests that the brain’s ability to adapt to damage is not always beneficial

Question 34

What is one strength of plasticity?

Answer 34

Plasticity may be a life-long ability
Ladina demonstrated how 40 hours of golf training produced changes in the neural representations of movement in P’s aged 40-60. This shows that neural plasticity can continue throughout the lifespan.

Question 35

What is one strength of fMRI’s?

Answer 35

it doesn’t rely on the use of radiation. It also produces images that have very high spatial resolution, providing a clear image of how brain activity is localised.

Question 36

What is one limitation of fMRI’s?

Answer 36

It is expensive compared to other neuroimaging techniques. It has poor temporal resolution because there is around a 5-second time lag behind an image on the screen. Therefore, fMRIs do not represent moment-to-moment brain activity.

Question 37

What is one strength of the EEG?

Answer 37

It has been useful in studying stages of sleep and in the diagnosis such as epilepsy .
-EEG has temporal resolution and can detect brain activity at a resolution of a single milli-second therefore there is real-life usefulness of the technique.

Question 38

What is one limitation of the EEG?

Answer 38

It is not useful for pinpointing the exact source of neural activity therefore does not allow researchers to distinguish between activities originating in different locations

Question 39

What is a strength of event related potentials?

Answer 39

It has excellent temporal resolutions therefore it can be used to measure cognitive functions and allocate maintenance of the working memory

Question 40

What is a limitation of the event related potentials?

Answer 40

It has a lack of standardisation therefore makes it difficult to confirm findings.
-To establish pure data in ERP studies any extraneous material such as background noise must be eliminated.

Question 41

What is one strength of post-mortem examinations?

Answer 41

Broca and Wernicke both relied on this to establish links between language, brain and behaviour.
-Also used to study HM’s brain to identify areas of damage.

Question 42

What is one limitation of post-mortem examinations?

Answer 42

Ethical issues may be raised. P’s may not provide informed consent before death Eg: HM still had post-mortem examinations take place w/o giving consent.

Question 43

What is one strength into