Biopsychology Flashcards by Holly COOK

What is the somatic nervous system?

Receives information from senses and controls muscles

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What is the autonomic nervous system?

Controls unconscious (automatic) function like heart rate

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Which either the autonomic or somatic is responsible for fight or flight?

Autonomic

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In the sympathetic nervous system, what happens to eyes, heart and sweat glands?

Eyes - dilate
Heart - increase
Sweat glands - increase secretion

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In the parasympathetic nervous system, what happens to the eyes and heart

Eyes - constrict
Heart - decrease

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What is the endocrine system?

Glands producing hormones

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What is a hormone?

A chemical messenger that affects any bodily cells

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Example of glands and their functions?

adrenal gland - releases adrenaline
Testes - releases testosterone

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What are the 3 types of neurones?

Sensory, motor, relay

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What is broccas area responsible for? And where?

Speech production
Left hemisphere

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What is wernickes area responsible for and where?

Language comprehension
Left hemisphere

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What is broccas aphasia?

When damaged, they experience aphasia where speech is slowed/influent

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What is wernickes aphasia?

When damaged, speech is nonsense due to incomprehension

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What is hemispheric lateralisation?

The 2 sides of the brain having different and separate functions

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What are the research to support localisation?

Phineus gage, Broca’s aphasia & wernickes aphasia
Clive wearing (episodic and procedural memory in diff locations)

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What did Peterson find? What sort of study? What does this support?

Brain scan, found that wernickes are active during listening task and brocas during speaking tasks
Localisation

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What did FMRI scans show and what does this go against?

Language is processed in other areas of the brain too. Goes against localisation

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What else goes against localisation?

Recovery after trauma, phineas gage personality change

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What is said to be lateralised?

Language

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What is the role of the corpus collosum?

Allows information to be shared between two hemispheres.

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What did Sperry and Gazzaniga find?

Split Bain research with people who had their corpus collosum severed
When shown word in right eye, they were able to sat it as language processed in left hemisphere
When shown word in left eye, right hemisphere cannot share info so they were unable to say the word BUT can draw it
Supports lateralisation

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what is neuroplasticity?

the concept of the brain changing and developing in response to the environment

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what did Maguire find and what does this suggest?

taxi drivers have a larger hippocampus. supports brain plasticity

what is the hippocampus responsible for?

spatial memory and navigation

what are the limitations to brain plasticity?

60-80% of amputees experienced phantom limb disease - brain hasn’t adapted to having no limb

what are the strengths of brain plasticity?

Maguire, bezola - golf training in 40-60 year old's showed higher motor cortex activity

what are the mechanisms that contribute to recovery after trauma?

axonal sprouting, reformation of blood vessels, neural reorganization

what are the factors that affect recovery after brain trauma?

age, education, perseverance in neurorehabilitation

what are the 4 ways to study the brain?

FMRI, EEG's, ERP's, post-mortem

what are FMRI's?

detects change in blood flow (increased activity)

what are EEG's?

electrodes placed on scalp

what are ERP's?

carries out tasks repeatedly in order to detect activity while doing it

what are post mortem examinations?

study of the brain, after death, on patients who had rare conditions

what are the strengths and limitation of FMRI's?

have high spatial resolution (can see exactly where) expensive, requires them to stay still

what are the strengths and limitations of EEG's?

high temporal resolution low spatial resolution

what are the strengths and limitations to ERP's?

good temporal resolution requires you to get rid of background noise which is hard

what are the strengths and limitations to post-mortem?

improve medical understanding only can study structure, may not have full consent

what are endogenous pacemakers?

internal time keepers

what are exogenous zeitgebers?

external cues

what are circadian rhythms? example?

24 hour cycle - sleep wake cycle

what are infradian rhythms? example

more than 24hours - menstral cycle

what are ultradian rhythms? example?

less than 24hours - sleep cycle

what is the endogenous pacemaker that maintains our sleep/wake cycle?

suprachiasmatic nuclei (SCN) in hypothalamus

what did Siffre do and find?

cave study - cut out all exogenous zeitgebers. found we have a free running 25 hour sleep/wake cycle

what did Aschoff and Weaver find and what does this support?

participants spent 4 weeks in WW2 bunker, all but one settled for a 24/25 hour cycle. supports siffre

what did Folkard find and what does this support?

altered the time on the clocks. only one participant was able to comfortably adjust

what is a negative to the studies into rhythms?

all allowed artificial light, extraneous variable as maybe reset their cycle siffre, case study, not generalisable

RWA for circadian rhythms?

shift work - accidents occurring around 6am

what did McClintok find and what does this support?

rubbed pad with donor sweat on upper lip of women. 68% of women said their periods moved closer to donors cycle

what is SAD and what does it show?

seasonal affective disorder - low levels of light

what did DeCoursey find and what does it support?

SCN severed in chipmunks then released into the wild no regular sleep/wake cycle, nearly all died. supports SCN (endogenous pacemakers)

what did Ralph find and what does this support?

Bred hamsters with sleep/wake cycle of 20hours. Implant SCN into baby hamsters and they have 20h cycle. Support SCN

what did Campbell and murphy find and was does this suggest? Or go against?

shone light on back of peopls knees, disrupted their sleep/wake. light acts as an exogenous zeitgeber SCN as endogenous pacemaker as back of knees have one

What is localisation?

Functions such as memory and speech are localised to particular regions of the brain

What did Lashley find and what does this support?

Rats ran maze, destroyed their brain cortex Ability to re-run maze affected by how much brain cortex destroyed not areas Holistic view

How do you work out summation in synapse?

Excitatory - inhibitory = total Total has to exceed threshold to initiate AP