Biopsychology Flashcards

Question

What is spatial summation?

Answer 1

Many different excitatory post synaptic potentials are generated on the same neurone increasing the chance of it firing

Answer 2

To secrete the hormones which are required to regulate many bodily functions. To provide a chemical system of communication via the blood stream.

Answer 3

An organ in the body that synthesises chemicals like hormones and releases them into the blood

Answer 4

A regulatory substance produced in the body and transported in blood / tissue fluid to stimulate cells

Answer 5

HR increases BP increases Digestion decreases Lungs speed up Muscles tense

Answer 6

An evolved reaction to perceived threat To survive

Answer 7

Sympathetic

Answer 8

Stimulates the release of hormones from the pituitary gland

Answer 9

Hormones released from the gland stimulate the release of hormones from other glands

Answer 10

Releases adrenaline and noradrenaline - important in fight / flight

Answer 11

Releases cortisol - stimulates the release of glucose but suppresses the immune system

Answer 12

Increases blood flow to brain and muscles Prepares body for action Increases oxygen to brain for rapid response

Answer 13

Release testosterone - Responsible for the development of male sex characteristics during puberty, also promotes muscle growth

Answer 14

Controls the regulation of the female reproductive system including the menstrual cycle and pregnancy

Answer 15

Releases thyroxine - regulates metabolism

Answer 16

Releases melatonin - important for the sleep wake cycle

Answer 17

Sources of stress that are short term. They require immediate attention They may threaten survival Our ancestors may have experienced them when facing a predator

Answer 18

Amygdala registers a threat and sends a signal to the hypothalamus Hypothalamus activate the sympathetic nervous system The sympathetic nervous system sends a signal to the adrenal medulla which releases adrenaline The adrenaline circulates in the blood stream causing increased HR, BP, breathing etc We are now ready to attack or run

Answer 19

Long term stressors over weeks or months

Answer 20

the bodies response to chronic stress

Answer 21

The **H**pothalamus releases CRH into blood stream The **P**ituitary gland is activated and releases a hormone targeting the adrenal gland The **A**drenal cortex releases the stress hormone of cortisol

Answer 22

Human behaviour isn't limited to just 2 responses - freeze (found by Gray) Negative affects in the modern day e.g. increased BP and contribution to heart disease Affects women differently e.g. tend (to children) and befriend (other women) found by Taylor

Answer 23

The brain is split into different areas controlling different functions Based on phrenology

Answer 24

25 Year old An explosive went off and catapulted a large iron rod into his head (frontal lobe) Phineas survived but experienced large changes in his personality This tells us the frontal lobe affects mood and personality

Answer 25

Emotions, decisions, concentration Contains the **motor cortex** which controls voluntary movement

Answer 26

Back top of brain Processing, orientation, sensory discrimination Contains the **somatosensory cortex** which processes sensory info entering the brain

Answer 27

Back of brain Visual processing, Interpreting what we see Contains the **visual cortex** which sees colour. Damage to his area can result in blindness. Back of brain

Answer 28

**Below frontal and parietal lobes** Auditory processing, producing and interpreting speech, memory processing Contains the **auditory cortex** which puts together meaningful language. Damage can cause hearing loss. **Behind Wernickes area**

Answer 29

Below parietal lobe in front of auditory cortex Speech comprehension Patients speak with no meaning. W for weird

Answer 30

Left hemisphere between frontal and parietal lobes Slow and difficult speech. A case of a person saying only tan

Answer 31

R.S. - from neurosurgery. Dougherty reported on 44 people with OCD who had their cingulate gyruses removed. 30% had a successful response to the surgery 32 weeks later and 14% had a partial response Opposed by equipotentiality (Lashley) who argued that very basic sensory functions are localised but more complex behaviour is distributed through the brain. the fact the brain still works after damage supports this T.L - some contradictory research finding (Only 2% of modern neurosurgeons thing that language is localised to Brocas and Wernickes area) - **Dick and Tremblay** Nomothetic so can be applied to everyone and **rigorous testing has been done** but ignores potential differences

Answer 32

The 2 hemispheres of the brain are lateralised. The right side controls the left and visa versa

Answer 33

Right side of body Speech production and comprehension Logic Analyser

Answer 34

Left side of body Creative abilities Better drawing ability Emotion

Answer 35

Patients with sever epilepsy had their corpus callosum severed so neither hemisphere can pass info to the other

Answer 36

An image or word is projected so it only enters with right (processed in left occipital lobe) or left eye (right occipital lobe) In an normal brain, this information would be shared across the 2 hemispheres however on a spilt brain patient, this doesn't happen

Answer 37

Pictures shown to the right visual field meant left brain processing. The person can say what they see Pictures shown to the left visual field mean right brain processing so the person struggles to describe what they see

Answer 38

Right hand (left brain processing) - The patient could describe verbally what they felt. Or they could identify the test object presented in the right hand left hemisphere), by selecting a similar appropriate object, from a series of alternate objects. Left hand (right brain processing) - The patient could not describe what they felt and could only make wild guesses. However, the left hand could **identify a test object presented in the left hand (right hemisphere), by selecting a similar appropriate object, from a series of alternate objects**.

Answer 39

Pictures shown to the left visual field mean right brain processing. If they are given a pen in their **left** hand, they would be able to draw it (Creative right brain support) Pictures show to the right visual field (left brain processing) - right hand would attempt to draw picture but never as clear as left hand

Answer 40

It is assumed the main adavantage of lateraliastion is that neural processing capacity increases **Rogers** found in a domestick chicken, lateraliastion is associated with the ability to do 2 things simultaneously e.g. searching for food and remaining vigilatnt for predators. **Provides evidence for advantage of lateralisation** However because this is animal research, we cannot draw same conclusions for humans. Split brain procedures are rarely carried out now - Lack of generalisability (Only 11 split brain patients) (**Idiographic approach**). These people also had epilepsy however the control group didn't introducing a confounding variable Lateralisation may change with age. **Szaflarki et al** found that language became more lateralised to the left hemisphere with increasing age in children and adolescents, but **after the age of 25, lateralisation decreased with each decade of life**. This raises questions about lateralisation, such as whether everyone has one hemisphere that is dominant over the other and whether this dominance changes with age May overestimate the differences between the hemispheres which has spread misconceptions about the brain. It has been suggested that you have a "dominant side" but of 1000 brain scans (**Nielsen**, it was determined that people use different hemispheres for different things but have no dominance

Answer 41

Refers to the idea that the brain is plastic - it can change and shape itself

Answer 42

Everyone - it was previously thought only children but adult brains still do. Localisation of function isn't permanently set

Answer 43

2-3 15000 synaptic connections This declines to half in adult hood

Answer 44

Synaptic pruning - connections that are strong and used regularly are kept but those that are weak are pruned away to make space for new neural pathways

Answer 45

Maguire All london taxi drivers must pass "the knowledge" which is very memory based. The hippocampus in taxi drivers is bigger than controls Draganski Imaged the brains of med school students 3 months before and after finals. Changes to their hippocampus and parietal cortex

Answer 46

The brain regains functions that may have been lost as a result of damage

Answer 47

When damage occurs, function is lost Over time, the damage is repaired and functions recovered This doesn't happen in all cases

Answer 48

The opposite side of the brain could take over Your brain activates dormant path ways (neural unmasking) Your brain grows new axons

Answer 49

Jody had sever epilepsy so right side of brain removed This resulted in severe functional deficits immediately after the operation Within 10 days she walked out of hospital and had regained most movement of her left side

Answer 50

Discovered neural unmasking The brain makes dormant synapses that activate after damage Their function is blocked but they are their anatomically They become active when damage occurs so the brain continues communicating

Answer 51

Plasticity is the brains ability to strengthen itself that are used a lot Functional recovery is the brains ability to repair itself after damage

Answer 52

R.S - Kemperman showed rats brains change size when housed in more stimulating environments Most research is done off animal studies who have simpler behaviours and brains than us so can't be generalised Helped develop neuro-rehabilitation . The spontaneous recovery after and operation slows down so therapy is required to further develop recovery Nomothetic as plasticity is a general law. This allows greater scientific testing but ignores the role of differences in behaviour. It is possible plasticity may be different in some individuals Plasticity can be maladaptive e.g. phantom limb syndrome which 60-80% of amputees suffer

Answer 53

fMRI EEG ERP Post mortem

Answer 54

Detects change of blood oxygenation and flow that occurs as a result of neural brain activity in specific areas Active parts of the brain use more oxygen 3D images of brain shows where more O2 is being used

Answer 55

Measure electrical activity within the brain via electrodes on the scalp We see the actions of neurones

Answer 56

Same as EEG but you are presented with a stimulus Of interest to cognitive neuroscientists Isolates specific neural responses

Answer 57

A scan of the brain after death, often after mental disorders Areas of damage in the brain are scanned to see why the person suffered My be scanned with a healthy one for comparison

Answer 58

fMRI + Risk free, easy, high resolution, non invasive - expensive, patient must be still, can't see individual neurons (only blood flow) EEG + helpful for epilepsy diagnosis, real time reading - very generalised activity, low spatial res, hard to see individual parts of the brain ERP + Partly address EEg issues. Multiple types to explain cognitive function - Lack of standardisation, can be no background noise Post mortem + Gave us the early understanding we needed, improved medical understanding - Causation is an issue, patients may have not given consent

Answer 59

Takes less than 24 hours to complete e.g. sleep cycle

Answer 60

Stage 1 - light sleep Stage 2 - Sleep deepens, breathing/ HR slows Stage 3 (slow wave sleep) - We move into deep sleep. Brain activity begins to be delta waves Stage 4 (Slow wave sleep) - Very deep sleep, brain activity is slow REM - We dream, body paralysed, full brain activity

Answer 61

Put EEg's on people while they were asleep - discovered REM Woke sleepers at points during sleep and found 80% of people report dreaming when woken in REM

Answer 62

Research replication of Kleitment and Dement consistently report different sleep stages thereby supporting sleep cycles as ultradian rhythms **C.A.** However they used a small sample size R.L - attached to monitors that measure rhythms - may be invasive = end up sleeping in a way that isn't the same as their ordinary sleep cycle = extremely difficult to study ultradian rhythms as a **lack of ecological validity** could lead to incorrect conclusions Ignores individual differences e.g. lucid dreams which not everyone experiences Only takes biology into account but culture should be too. A research study done on 11-16 Y.O. found that Israelis sleep the least and Swiss slept the most.**Culture affects type of sleep** Research into this has been able to explain some decline in old age. Cauter believes that reduced alertness in old age may be a result of lowered amounts of slow wave sleep

Answer 63

Takes longer than 24 hours e.g. menstrual cycle

Answer 64

28 days to complete and involves increased levels of oestrogen resulting in an egg being released. Hormones increases throughout the period until the cycle restarts

Answer 65

An internal biological rhythm

Answer 66

An external time giving factor

Answer 67

An endogenous pacemaker

Answer 68

Women in close proximity menstrual cycles will line up

Answer 69

29 women Collected sweat from 9 of these Put it on the lips of the other women 68% experienced a change in menstrual cycle Therefore can be affected by exogenous zeitgebers

Answer 70

135 F uni students Those who spent time together had synched cycles

Answer 71

Backed up by evolutionary theory - if females were in synch, offspring at same time. Therefore resources can be shared and they can help each other raise children. This will increase survival rate of babies (especially if mother dies during birth) Research into seasonal affective disorder has led to treatments such as light therapy where individuals are exposed to certain frequencies of light. However this has been found to be largely the placebo effect R.S. - stern and McClintlock C.A. - Yang and Shank found no synchronisation between 186 Chinese women Finally, evidence supports the role of melatonin in SAD. **Terman** found that the rate of SAD is more common in Northern countries where the winter nights are longer. For example, Terman found that SAD affects roughly 10% of people living in New Hampshire (a northern part of the US) and only 2% of residents in southern Florida. These results suggest that SAD is in part affected by light (exogenous zeitgeber) that results in increased levels of melatonin.

Answer 72

Every 24 hours e.g. sleep wake cycle

Answer 73

Determines when we feel sleepy and go to bed and when we naturally wake in the moring

Answer 74

205 days isolated in a cave Got rid of light, temp and electromagnetic factors No way of knowing outside time He settled into a 25 hour day

Answer 75

Participants spent a month living underground Participants could sleep wherever they wanted They kept a regular cycle of activity After 2 weeks, they were half a day out of sync with the outside world 25 hour clock

Answer 76

12 people lived underground for 3 weeks. They went to sleep at 11:45 and woke at 7 During the research, the investigators sped up the clock to be a 22 hour cycle None of the participants could adjust to this well

Answer 77

Application of people who do night shifts. Shift work has been found to lead to **desynchronization of circadian rhythms** and can lead to adverse and physiological effects. People are more 3x more like to have heart disease than those who work normal hours (Knutsson) **work has been done to reduce impact on shift patterns** . Solomon argues stress could be causing these effects have night shift workers have high divoce rates due to sleep deprivation or missing events Siffre was the only participant. Therefore not generalisable People have large differences in circadian rhythm. They can reportedly be from 13-65 hours (**Czeisler**). Age can also play a role for example teens staying up later and getting up later **Duffy** - found some people are morning or night people Research often used artificial light which at the time was believed to have no effect on circadian rhythms however this has now been challenged and could impact the circadian rhythm

Answer 78

An endogenous pace maker Suprachiasmatic nucleus

Answer 79

A bundle of nerves located in the hypothalamus. It receives info about light from eyes that can help wake us up Melanopsin carries signals to SCN which sends signal to pineal gland which released melatonin

Answer 80

30 chipmunks SCNs removed Put back in the wild Died as had no sleep wake cycle

Answer 81

Bred hamsters with a 20 hour sleep wake cycle. Transported SCN cells from the foetal tissue from these into normal hamsters brains and they began a 20 hour sleep wake cycle

Answer 82

The pineal gland which induces sleep. At night, it increases production of melatonin. (the chemical is a cause of seasonal affective disorder)

Answer 83

Suppresses melatonin from the pineal gland which affects sleep wake cycle

Answer 84

Woke 15 people at various points A light pack was shone on the backs of their knees This changed cycles by up to 3 hours

Answer 85

Human infants don't have a sleep wake cycle. Circadian rhythms begin at 6 weeks so their schedules will match with parents

Answer 86

The adjustment of one behaviour either to synchronise or to be in rhythm with another behaviour

Answer 87

Adapting to local times for sleeping and eating is an effective way of entraining biological rhythms

Answer 88

Research tries to isolate endogenous pacemakers from zeitgebers and visa versa (e.g. using artificial light to look at pace makers) however in real life, it is impossible to isolate the 2. Furthermore it was blieved artifical light had no impact however we now know this isnt true Research from Ralph et al however - Mostly animal research - unethical and we can't assume humans would respond in the same way Eskimos spent 6 months in total darkness but have the same sleep wake cycle year round (zeitgebers affect people differently) Skene and Arendt (2007) showed that the majority of blind people who still have some light perception have normal circadian rhythms whereas those without any light perception show abnormal circadian rhythms. **shows importance of exogenous zeigabers and their importance on endogenous pace makers** Could lead to light therapies to affect people with disrupted rhythms Nonetheless the variablity in the blind people idicates the need for further response Biologically reductionist - the behavioural approach would state that bodily rhythms are influenced by other people and social norms, i.e. sleep occurs when it is dark because that is the social norm and it wouldn’t be socially acceptable for a person to conduct their daily routines during the night

Answer 89

Somatic is consciously controlled Autonomic is unconsciously Both part of peripheral nervous system

Answer 90

 the synaptic vesicles containing the neurotransmitter are only released from the presynaptic membrane  the receptors for the neurotransmitters are only present on the postsynaptic membrane  it is the binding of the neurotransmitter to the receptor which enables the signal to be passed/transmitted on (to the next neurone).  Diffusion of the neurotransmitters mean they can only go from high to low concentration, so can only travel from the presynaptic to the postsynaptic membrane.

Answer 91

Commissurotomy

Answer 92

* Neurons enable communication within the nervous system * the cell body (soma) contains the genetic material * branch-like dendrites extend from the cell body (often with dendritic spines) * dendrites carry functional information towards the cell body * dendrites can receive information from other neurons * axons carry messages away from the cell body * axons can be myelinated to increase speed of nerve transmission (saltatory conduction between nodes of Ranvier) * terminal boutons are at the end of axons, these make synaptic connections with other cells * axon terminals contain neurotransmitters.

Answer 93

* Broca’s area is responsible for speech production whereas Wernicke’s area is responsible for language comprehension * Broca’s area enables speech to be fluent whereas Wernicke’s area enables speech to be meaningful.