Biopsychology Flashcards
What are neurons?
Cells that conduct nerve impulses
How fast do neurons go?
Messages in the brain can travel at speeds to 286 mph
What does the nucleus do?
The control centre of a cell which contains the cells DNA
What is a dendrite?
Receives the nerve impulses or signal from adjacent neurons
What is an axon?
Where electrical signals pass along
What is myelin sheath?
Protects the axon from external influences that might effect the transmission of nerve impulses down the axon
What is nodes of ranvier?
These speed up the transmission of the impulse by forcing it to ‘jump’
What are terminal buttons?
Sends signals to an adjacent cell
What are the function of a sensory neuron?
Carries messages from PNS to brain and spinal cord
What are the length of the fibres in the sensory neuron?
Long dendrites and short axons
What is the function of a relay neuron?
Transfers messages from sensory neurons to other interconnecting neurons or motor neurons
What are the length of the fibres in a relay neurons?
Short dendrites and long or short axons
What are the function of the motor neuron?
Carries messages from CNS to muscle effectors
What are the length of the fibres in a motor neuron?
Short dendtites and long axons
What are neurotransmitters?
Chemicals that are released from a synaptic vesicle into the synapse by neurons
What is action potential?
An explosion of electrical activity, this means that’s some event causes the resting potential to move forward
When does action potential occur?
When neurons send information down the axon, away from the cell body
What are excitation?
Make it more likely a neuron will fire
What is inhibition?
Make it less likely the next neuron will fire
What is the nervous system?
Specialised network of cells in the human body and is our primary internal communication system
What are the two factors of the nervous system?
- to collect,process and respond to information in the environment
- to coordinate the working of different organs and cells
What are the two subdivisions of the human nervous system?
Peripheral Nervous System
Central Nervous System
What is the peripheral nervous system?
Transmits messages via millions of neurons to and from the central nervous system
What is the central nervous system?
Passes info to and from brains and connects nerves to PNS
What are the two subdivisions of the PNS?
Autonomic Nervous system
Somatic Nervous system
What is the autonomic nervous system?
Governs vital/ involuntary functions in the body e.g. breathing, heart rate, digestion, sexual arousal and stress response
What is the Somatic Nervous system?
Responsible for carrying sensory and motor info to and from the spinal cord
What are the subdivisions of the central nervous system?
Brain
Spinal cord/Spine
What does the brain do?
Centre of all conscious awareness
What is the spine for?
Extension of the brain
Responsible for reflex actions
What are the subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system?
Sympathetic Nervous System
Parasympathetic Nervous System
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
Uses adrenaline to stimulate the fight or flight response. This included stopping digestion, increasing blood pressure and heart rate
What is the Parasympathetic nervous system?
Resets the body after the fight or flight response
What is the endocrine system?
Is in charge of body processes that happen slowly, such as cell growth and gland control
What is the pitruitary gland?
Controls the release of hormones from all other endocrine glands
What are the adrenal glands?
This releases adrenaline directly into the bloody system which prepares the body for fight or flight response
What are the ovaries?
This facilities the release of the female hormones
What are testes?
Facilitates the release of male hormones
What is localisation?
The idea that specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological functions
What is lateralisation?
The dominance of one hemisphere of the brain for particular physical and psychological functions
What is the difference between the left and right side of the brain?
The presence of language area which are found on the left
What is Aphasia?
Inability to produce speech
What does the motor cortex do?
Responsible for the generation of voluntary movements
Located in the frontal lobe of both hemispheres
What does the somato sensory cortex do?
Detects sensory events arising from different regions of the body
Located in both hemispheres
Where are the visual centres located?
Occipital lobe
What are the different parts of the brain?
Frontal lobe Broca’s area Wernicas areas Temporal lobe Cerebellum Occipital lobe Pariental lobe Somatosensory cortex Somatomotor cortex
What does Broca’s area do?
Involves language
Involved in responding to many demanding cognitive tasks like maths
Located in the left hemisphere
What does the Wernickes area do?
Responsible for processing spoken language in the posterior proportion of the left temporal lobe
What does post mortem mean?
After death
What is plasticity?
The quality of being easily shaped or moulded. This describes the brain ability to change and adapt as a result of experience or learning
What is functional recovery?
A form of plasticity where the brain can be redistributed or transfer functions usually performed by a damaged area to another area of the brain
When does the brain experience a rapid growth in synaptic connection?
During infancy
What is synaptic pruning?
Deleting those aren’t used and strengthening those that are
What did Maguire study?
Compares taxi drivers to none taxi drivers hippocampus through MRI scans
What did maguire find in her study?
More grey in the hippocampus of the taxi drivers than controls
A positive correlation between length of time in job and size difference
What did draganski study?
The brain of medical students before and after final exams
What did draganski find?
Learning induced changes occurred in the hippocampus and parental lobe
Supports plasticity
What is human echolocation?
A learned ability for a human to sense their environment from echos and sound
Studies found that the auditory info is processed by the brains regions usually processing visual information
How does the brain recover from trauma?
Neural reorganisation
Neural regeneration
What is neural reorganisation?
Transfer of functions to in damages areas
What is neural regeneration?
Growth of new neurons and/of connections to compensate for damaged areas
What happens in the brain when it recovers?
Axonal sprouting
Neural unmasking
Reformation of blood vessels
Recruitment of similar areas on the opposite side of the brain
What is axonal sprouting?
Growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells
What is neural unmasking?
The unmasking of dormant synapses can open to regions of the brain that are not normally activated
What is hemisphere lateralisation?
The idea that the two halves of the brain are functionally different and certain processes or behaviour are controlled by one hemisphere rather that the other
What does the left hemisphere control?
Language and the right side of the body
What does the right hemisphere control?
Face recognition
Drawing ability
spatial activity
Left side of body
Who are split brain patients?
A group of patients had the corpus callusum severed so that the two hemispheres are separated and don’t communicate with each other
What is commissurotomy?
Where the corpus callusum severed so the two hemispheres are separated
What is the circadian rhythm?
Daily activity
How long does the circadian rhythm operate for?
24/25 hr cycle
What does the brains circadian clock regulate?
Sleeping pattern Feeding pattern Brain wave activity Hormone production Alertness Core body temp Regulation of glucose and insulin levels Urine production Cell regeneration
What is melatonin?
Produced in the pineal gland
Causes drowsiness and lowers body temperature
What is cortisol?
Produced in the adrenal gland
Used to form glucose or blood sugar
Controls stress
Physically, where is the circadian clock located?
Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus of the brain, one in each hemisphere
What is the SCNs responsibility?
Sending signals to several other parts of the brain to regulate the daily sleep/wake cycle
Who conducted the cave study?
Michel siffre (1962)
What was the purpose of the cave study?
To find out the circadian rhythm length
What does the cave study suggest?
The circadian rhythm is 25hrs and free running
What is a weakness of the cave study?
Can’t actually track when you went to sleep accurately
What is a strength of the cave study?
Has been replicated and shown the same results
What are endogenous pacemakers?
Body’s internal biological clocks
What does the body regulate in our internal clock?
Sleep pattern
Feeding pattern
Brain wave activity
Hormone production
What are exogenous zeitgebers?
External cues that help to regulate the internal body clocks
What are examples of exogenous zeitgebers?
Light
Clocks
Schedule (mealtimes)
What does ultra mean?
More than
What does ultradian mean?
Occur more than once a day
What does infra mean?
Less than
What does infradian mean?
Occur less than Once a day
What are the four main cycles of sleep?
Stage 1-3 are called Non rapid eye movement
Stage 4 called REM (Rapid Eye Movement)
What happens in stage 1 of the sleep cycle?
Waves are called theta waves
Can have hypnagogic hallucinations
Can have hypnic jerks
What happens in stage 2 of the sleep cycle?
Have more theta waves
Can have sleep spindles and K complex
What do sleep spindles and K complex do?
Keep you asleep
What happens in the 3rd stage of sleep cycle?
Slower wave sleep
Has delta waves
Deep sleep in this stage
Can sleep walk and talk
What happens in the stage 3 of the sleep cycle?
Called REM ( Rapid Eye Movement) PonZ happens Paradoxical with active mind but paralysed
What is PonZ?
Keeps us paralysed while asleep
How long does the whole four stages of the sleep cycle take?
90 mins
What are the two types of infradian rhythms?
Menstrual cycle
Seasonal affective disorders
What exogenous factor can change the mentrual cycle of women, not on hormonal contraception?
Stress
Diet
Exercise
Smell
How did McClintock test if smell can change the mentrual cycle?
Getting people to smell people armpits
What are the confounding variables to McClintocks research?
Stress
Other researchers haven’t replicated her findings. Why?
Manipulated her results therefore not reliable
Why is it a problem that a lot of research is on animals?
Can’t extrapolate the data
What is the regularity of the mentrual cycle?
24hrs to 35hrs
How long is ovulation is into the cycle?
Two weeks
When does ovulation occur?
When oestrogen is at its peak
Why does progesterone increase?
Preparing for pregnancy
What does SAD stand for?
Seasonal Affective Disorder
What is a Circannual rhythm?
Where’s rhythms a year
What are the ways of measuring the brain?
FMRI
EEG
ERPs
Post Mortem Examinations
What does FMRI stand for?
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
What does FMRI show?
Detecting the change in blood oxygenation
What are the strengths to FMRI?
Virtually risk free
High spatial resolution
What are the weaknesses of FMRI?
Expensive
Poor temporal resolution
Can’t tell the exact activity of individual neurons
What does EEG stand for?
Electroencephalogram
What does an EEGshow?
Measure electrical activity within the brain via electrodes
What are the strengths to am EEG?
Valuable at helping diagnose conditions
Contributed to our understanding stages of sleep
High temporal resolution
What are the weakness of EEG?
Only general information is received
Not useful in pinpointing the exact source of neural activity
What does ERP stand for?
Event related potential
What are ERPs?
Brains electrophysiological response to an specific sensory,cognitive or motor event that can be isolated through statistical analysis of EEG
What are the strengths of ERPs?
Much more specific to the measurements of neural processes
Good temporal resolution
What are the weaknesses of ERPs?
Lack of standardisation in ERP methodology
Not always be possible to completely eliminate background noise and extraneous variables
What is post mortem examinations?
Analysis of a persons brain following their death
What are the strengths of Post mortem examinations?
Vital in providing a foundation for ear,understanding of key processes in the brain
Improve medical knowledge
What are the weaknesses of post mortem examininations?
Causation is an issue
Raise ethical issues
