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Psychology-Paper 2 > Biopsychology > Flashcards

Biopsychology Flashcards

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1
Q

What are neurons?

A

Cells that conduct nerve impulses

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2
Q

How fast do neurons go?

A

Messages in the brain can travel at speeds to 286 mph

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3
Q

What does the nucleus do?

A

The control centre of a cell which contains the cells DNA

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4
Q

What is a dendrite?

A

Receives the nerve impulses or signal from adjacent neurons

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5
Q

What is an axon?

A

Where electrical signals pass along

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6
Q

What is myelin sheath?

A

Protects the axon from external influences that might effect the transmission of nerve impulses down the axon

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7
Q

What is nodes of ranvier?

A

These speed up the transmission of the impulse by forcing it to ‘jump’

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8
Q

What are terminal buttons?

A

Sends signals to an adjacent cell

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9
Q

What are the function of a sensory neuron?

A

Carries messages from PNS to brain and spinal cord

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10
Q

What are the length of the fibres in the sensory neuron?

A

Long dendrites and short axons

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11
Q

What is the function of a relay neuron?

A

Transfers messages from sensory neurons to other interconnecting neurons or motor neurons

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12
Q

What are the length of the fibres in a relay neurons?

A

Short dendrites and long or short axons

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13
Q

What are the function of the motor neuron?

A

Carries messages from CNS to muscle effectors

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14
Q

What are the length of the fibres in a motor neuron?

A

Short dendtites and long axons

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15
Q

What are neurotransmitters?

A

Chemicals that are released from a synaptic vesicle into the synapse by neurons

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16
Q

What is action potential?

A

An explosion of electrical activity, this means that’s some event causes the resting potential to move forward

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17
Q

When does action potential occur?

A

When neurons send information down the axon, away from the cell body

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18
Q

What are excitation?

A

Make it more likely a neuron will fire

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19
Q

What is inhibition?

A

Make it less likely the next neuron will fire

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20
Q

What is the nervous system?

A

Specialised network of cells in the human body and is our primary internal communication system

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21
Q

What are the two factors of the nervous system?

A
  • to collect,process and respond to information in the environment
  • to coordinate the working of different organs and cells
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22
Q

What are the two subdivisions of the human nervous system?

A

Peripheral Nervous System

Central Nervous System

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23
Q

What is the peripheral nervous system?

A

Transmits messages via millions of neurons to and from the central nervous system

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24
Q

What is the central nervous system?

A

Passes info to and from brains and connects nerves to PNS

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25
Q

What are the two subdivisions of the PNS?

A

Autonomic Nervous system

Somatic Nervous system

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26
Q

What is the autonomic nervous system?

A

Governs vital/ involuntary functions in the body e.g. breathing, heart rate, digestion, sexual arousal and stress response

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27
Q

What is the Somatic Nervous system?

A

Responsible for carrying sensory and motor info to and from the spinal cord

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28
Q

What are the subdivisions of the central nervous system?

A

Brain

Spinal cord/Spine

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29
Q

What does the brain do?

A

Centre of all conscious awareness

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30
Q

What is the spine for?

A

Extension of the brain

Responsible for reflex actions

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31
Q

What are the subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system?

A

Sympathetic Nervous System

Parasympathetic Nervous System

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32
Q

What is the sympathetic nervous system?

A

Uses adrenaline to stimulate the fight or flight response. This included stopping digestion, increasing blood pressure and heart rate

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33
Q

What is the Parasympathetic nervous system?

A

Resets the body after the fight or flight response

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34
Q

What is the endocrine system?

A

Is in charge of body processes that happen slowly, such as cell growth and gland control

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35
Q

What is the pitruitary gland?

A

Controls the release of hormones from all other endocrine glands

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36
Q

What are the adrenal glands?

A

This releases adrenaline directly into the bloody system which prepares the body for fight or flight response

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37
Q

What are the ovaries?

A

This facilities the release of the female hormones

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38
Q

What are testes?

A

Facilitates the release of male hormones

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39
Q

What is localisation?

A

The idea that specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological functions

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40
Q

What is lateralisation?

A

The dominance of one hemisphere of the brain for particular physical and psychological functions

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41
Q

What is the difference between the left and right side of the brain?

A

The presence of language area which are found on the left

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42
Q

What is Aphasia?

A

Inability to produce speech

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43
Q

What does the motor cortex do?

A

Responsible for the generation of voluntary movements

Located in the frontal lobe of both hemispheres

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44
Q

What does the somato sensory cortex do?

A

Detects sensory events arising from different regions of the body
Located in both hemispheres

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45
Q

Where are the visual centres located?

A

Occipital lobe

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46
Q

What are the different parts of the brain?

A 
Frontal lobe
Broca’s area
Wernicas areas
Temporal lobe
Cerebellum 
Occipital lobe 
Pariental lobe 
Somatosensory cortex
Somatomotor cortex
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47
Q

What does Broca’s area do?

A

Involves language
Involved in responding to many demanding cognitive tasks like maths
Located in the left hemisphere

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48
Q

What does the Wernickes area do?

A

Responsible for processing spoken language in the posterior proportion of the left temporal lobe

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49
Q

What does post mortem mean?

A

After death

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50
Q

What is plasticity?

A

The quality of being easily shaped or moulded. This describes the brain ability to change and adapt as a result of experience or learning

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51
Q

What is functional recovery?

A

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

52
Q

When does the brain experience a rapid growth in synaptic connection?

A

During infancy

53
Q

What is synaptic pruning?

A

Deleting those aren’t used and strengthening those that are

54
Q

What did Maguire study?

A

Compares taxi drivers to none taxi drivers hippocampus through MRI scans

55
Q

What did maguire find in her study?

A

More grey in the hippocampus of the taxi drivers than controls
A positive correlation between length of time in job and size difference

56
Q

What did draganski study?

A

The brain of medical students before and after final exams

57
Q

What did draganski find?

A

Learning induced changes occurred in the hippocampus and parental lobe
Supports plasticity

58
Q

What is human echolocation?

A

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

59
Q

How does the brain recover from trauma?

A

Neural reorganisation

Neural regeneration

60
Q

What is neural reorganisation?

A

Transfer of functions to in damages areas

61
Q

What is neural regeneration?

A

Growth of new neurons and/of connections to compensate for damaged areas

62
Q

What happens in the brain when it recovers?

A

Axonal sprouting
Neural unmasking
Reformation of blood vessels
Recruitment of similar areas on the opposite side of the brain

63
Q

What is axonal sprouting?

A

Growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells

64
Q

What is neural unmasking?

A

The unmasking of dormant synapses can open to regions of the brain that are not normally activated

65
Q

What is hemisphere lateralisation?

A

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

66
Q

What does the left hemisphere control?

A

Language and the right side of the body

67
Q

What does the right hemisphere control?

A

Face recognition
Drawing ability
spatial activity
Left side of body

68
Q

Who are split brain patients?

A

A group of patients had the corpus callusum severed so that the two hemispheres are separated and don’t communicate with each other

69
Q

What is commissurotomy?

A

Where the corpus callusum severed so the two hemispheres are separated

70
Q

What is the circadian rhythm?

A

Daily activity

71
Q

How long does the circadian rhythm operate for?

A

24/25 hr cycle

72
Q

What does the brains circadian clock regulate?

A 
Sleeping pattern 
Feeding pattern 
Brain wave activity 
Hormone production 
Alertness
Core body temp 
Regulation of glucose and insulin levels 
Urine production
Cell regeneration
73
Q

What is melatonin?

A

Produced in the pineal gland

Causes drowsiness and lowers body temperature

74
Q

What is cortisol?

A

Produced in the adrenal gland
Used to form glucose or blood sugar
Controls stress

75
Q

Physically, where is the circadian clock located?

A

Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN) in the hypothalamus of the brain, one in each hemisphere

76
Q

What is the SCNs responsibility?

A

Sending signals to several other parts of the brain to regulate the daily sleep/wake cycle

77
Q

Who conducted the cave study?

A

Michel siffre (1962)

78
Q

What was the purpose of the cave study?

A

To find out the circadian rhythm length

79
Q

What does the cave study suggest?

A

The circadian rhythm is 25hrs and free running

80
Q

What is a weakness of the cave study?

A

Can’t actually track when you went to sleep accurately

81
Q

What is a strength of the cave study?

A

Has been replicated and shown the same results

82
Q

What are endogenous pacemakers?

A

Body’s internal biological clocks

83
Q

What does the body regulate in our internal clock?

A

Sleep pattern
Feeding pattern
Brain wave activity
Hormone production

84
Q

What are exogenous zeitgebers?

A

External cues that help to regulate the internal body clocks

85
Q

What are examples of exogenous zeitgebers?

A

Light
Clocks
Schedule (mealtimes)

86
Q

What does ultra mean?

A

More than

87
Q

What does ultradian mean?

A

Occur more than once a day

88
Q

What does infra mean?

A

Less than

89
Q

What does infradian mean?

A

Occur less than Once a day

90
Q

What are the four main cycles of sleep?

A

Stage 1-3 are called Non rapid eye movement

Stage 4 called REM (Rapid Eye Movement)

91
Q

What happens in stage 1 of the sleep cycle?

A

Waves are called theta waves
Can have hypnagogic hallucinations
Can have hypnic jerks

92
Q

What happens in stage 2 of the sleep cycle?

A

Have more theta waves

Can have sleep spindles and K complex

93
Q

What do sleep spindles and K complex do?

A

Keep you asleep

94
Q

What happens in the 3rd stage of sleep cycle?

A

Slower wave sleep
Has delta waves
Deep sleep in this stage
Can sleep walk and talk

95
Q

What happens in the stage 3 of the sleep cycle?

A 
Called REM ( Rapid Eye Movement)
PonZ happens 
Paradoxical with active mind but paralysed
96
Q

What is PonZ?

A

Keeps us paralysed while asleep

97
Q

How long does the whole four stages of the sleep cycle take?

A

90 mins

98
Q

What are the two types of infradian rhythms?

A

Menstrual cycle

Seasonal affective disorders

99
Q

What exogenous factor can change the mentrual cycle of women, not on hormonal contraception?

A

Stress
Diet
Exercise
Smell

100
Q

How did McClintock test if smell can change the mentrual cycle?

A

Getting people to smell people armpits

101
Q

What are the confounding variables to McClintocks research?

A

Stress

102
Q

Other researchers haven’t replicated her findings. Why?

A

Manipulated her results therefore not reliable

103
Q

Why is it a problem that a lot of research is on animals?

A

Can’t extrapolate the data

104
Q

What is the regularity of the mentrual cycle?

A

24hrs to 35hrs

105
Q

How long is ovulation is into the cycle?

A

Two weeks

106
Q

When does ovulation occur?

A

When oestrogen is at its peak

107
Q

Why does progesterone increase?

A

Preparing for pregnancy

108
Q

What does SAD stand for?

A

Seasonal Affective Disorder

109
Q

What is a Circannual rhythm?

A

Where’s rhythms a year

110
Q

What are the ways of measuring the brain?

A

FMRI
EEG
ERPs
Post Mortem Examinations

111
Q

What does FMRI stand for?

A

Functional magnetic resonance imaging

112
Q

What does FMRI show?

A

Detecting the change in blood oxygenation

113
Q

What are the strengths to FMRI?

A

Virtually risk free

High spatial resolution

114
Q

What are the weaknesses of FMRI?

A

Expensive
Poor temporal resolution
Can’t tell the exact activity of individual neurons

115
Q

What does EEG stand for?

A

Electroencephalogram

116
Q

What does an EEGshow?

A

Measure electrical activity within the brain via electrodes

117
Q

What are the strengths to am EEG?

A

Valuable at helping diagnose conditions
Contributed to our understanding stages of sleep
High temporal resolution

118
Q

What are the weakness of EEG?

A

Only general information is received

Not useful in pinpointing the exact source of neural activity

119
Q

What does ERP stand for?

A

Event related potential

120
Q

What are ERPs?

A

Brains electrophysiological response to an specific sensory,cognitive or motor event that can be isolated through statistical analysis of EEG

121
Q

What are the strengths of ERPs?

A

Much more specific to the measurements of neural processes

Good temporal resolution

122
Q

What are the weaknesses of ERPs?

A

Lack of standardisation in ERP methodology

Not always be possible to completely eliminate background noise and extraneous variables

123
Q

What is post mortem examinations?

A

Analysis of a persons brain following their death

124
Q

What are the strengths of Post mortem examinations?

A

Vital in providing a foundation for ear,understanding of key processes in the brain
Improve medical knowledge

125
Q

What are the weaknesses of post mortem examininations?

A

Causation is an issue

Raise ethical issues

Psychology-Paper 2 (8 decks)

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