Biopsychology

Question 1

What are circadian rhythms

Answer 1

Biological rythms that occur every 24 hours
Eg sleep-wake cycle

Question 2

Give a strength and weakness of circadian rhythms.

Answer 2

Strength: prepares your body for expected changes in the environment. Eg time to sleep.
Weakness: if you have circadian rhythm disorder which could be caused by aging you may have symptoms of extreme day time sleepiness, problems with memory.

Question 3

What are infradian rhythms

Answer 3

Cycles that last longer than 24 hours. Eg menstrual cycle.

Question 4

What are ultradian rhythms.

Answer 4

Cycle that repeat within a 24 hour cycle. Eg sleep

Question 5

What is FMRI give a strength and weakness.

Answer 5

Measures the small changed that occur in the blood that occur with brain activity.
Strength: excellent spatial, good temporal resolution.
Weakness: huge overlap of results across different cognitive tasks and domains.

Question 6

What is EEG give a strength and weakness.

Answer 6

Measures the electrical activity in the brain.
Strength: good temporal resolution.
Weakness: hard to figure out where in the brain electrical activity is coming from.

Question 7

What is ERP give a strength and weakness.

Answer 7

Measures how the brain is functioning in response to the stimulation of the senses.
Strength: good temporal resolution.
Weakness: lack of spatial precision.

Question 8

What is post-mortem give a strength and weakness.

Answer 8

Measures the exact cause of death.
Strength: can access the hypothalamus and hippocamus other scans cant.
Weakness: raises ethical issues of consent from patient before death.

Question 9

What are endogenous pacemakers

Answer 9

Internal biological clocks

Question 10

What exogenous zeitgebers

Answer 10

External stimuli, such as levels of light, temp and social cues which influence biological rhythms.

Question 11

Name the 6 parts of the brain and their functions.

Answer 11

Somatosensory: information
Wernickes area: language comprehension
Visual cortex: vision
Audiotory cortex: hearing
Motor cortex: voluntary movements
Bricas area: speech production

Question 12

Whar is a type 1 and 2 error

Answer 12

Type 1 is when the researcher rejects the null hypothesis when the effect is due to chance.
Type 2 is when the researcher accepts the null hypothesis when the effect is due to chance.

Question 13

What is the endocrine system

Answer 13

Is a system of glands that release hormones into the body each with a different job.
Example of glands: pituitary gland, thyroid gland, adrenal gland

Question 14

What is the fight or flight response.

Answer 14

Is the way an individual responds when in danger or when stressed. The body becomes physiologically aroused in order to fight am agressor ir flee.

Question 15

What is synaptic transmission.

Answer 15

Is the process by which neurones communicate by sending chemical messages across the synapse or gap that seperates them.

Question 16

What is the stucture and purpose of a sensory neuron.

Answer 16

Carry messages from the PNS to CNS
has long dendrites short axons

Question 17

What is the stucture and purpose of a relay neuron.

Answer 17

Connects sensory neurones to motor neurons.
Has short dendrites and short axons.

Question 18

What is the stucture and purpose of a motor neuron.

Answer 18

Connect CNS to muscles and glands
Has short dendrites and long axon.

Question 19

What is localisation of function.

Answer 19

Is the theory that different parts of the brain are responsible for different activities.

Question 20

What is hemispheric lateralisation.

Answer 20

Refers to the fact that the left and right hemispheres of the brain have centres that are specifically associsted with different brain activities.

Question 21

Give a strength and weakness of hemispheric lateralisation.

Answer 21

Strength: using only 1 hemisphere to engage in a task leaves the other hemisphere free to engage in snither function. This provides evidence for the advantages of the brain lateralisation and demonstrates how it cam enhance brain efficiency in cognitive tasks.
Weakness: tend to have very small sample sizes.

Question 22

What is split brain research.

Answer 22

The study of epileptic patients who have experienced a surgical speration of the hemispheres of the brain.

Question 23

Give a strength and weakness of split brain research.

Answer 23

Strngth: been able to demostrate lateralised brain functions.
Weakness: issues with generalising its findings as the smaple size is very small and unusual.

Question 24

What is plasticity.

Answer 24

The brains ability to change and adapt bith functionally and physically as a result if learning and experience.

Question 25

Give a strength and weakness of plasticity

Answer 25

Strength: it has practicle application and has contributed to the field of neurorehabilation.
Weakness: generalisations about plasticity following trauma are difficult to make.

Question 26

What is functional recovery.

Answer 26

A type of plasticity which refers to the brains ability to transfer or redistribute functions from damaged areas to undamged ones.

Question 27

Give a strength and weakness of functional recovery.

Answer 27

Strength: redistribute or transfer functions from damaged areas to undamged ones.
Weakness: generalisations about functional recovery following trauma are difficult to make.

Question 28

What is the frontal lobe

Answer 28

Frontal lobe: important for voluntary movement expressive language wmd higher level executive functions.

Question 29

What is the temporal lobe

Answer 29

Temporal lobe: commonly associated with processing auditory information and with the encoding of memory.

Question 30

What is the parietal lobe

Answer 30

Parietal lobe: processes your sense of touch and asembles input from your other senses into a form you can use.

Question 31

What is the occipital lobe

Answer 31

Occipital lobe: is the visual processing area of the brain.