biopsychology

Question 1

central nervous system

Answer 1

comprises the brain and spinal cord
recieves information from the senses and controls the body’s responses

Question 2

spinal cord

Answer 2

a bundle of nerve fibres enclosed within a spinal column and which connects nearly all parts of the body with the brain

Question 3

peripheral nervous system

Answer 3

the part of the nervous system which is outside the brain and spinal cord

Question 4

somatic nervous system

Answer 4

the part of the peripheral nervous system responsible for carrying sensory and motor information to and from the central nervous system

Question 5

autonomic nervous system

Answer 5

governs the brains involuntary activities eg stress and heartbeat and is self regulating (autonomous)
its divided into sympathetic branch (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic branch (rest and digest)

Question 6

dendrites

Answer 6

short branch extension of a nerve cell, along which impulses recieved from other cells at synpases are transmitted to the cell body

Question 7

soma/cell body

Answer 7

non-process part of a neuron or other brain cell type
houses nucleus and other organelles essential fo9r cell survival
cell body plays a key role in supplying energy, proteins and other materials to the axon

Question 8

axon

Answer 8

bundle of fibres that use electrical and chemical signals to transmit sensory and motor information from one body to another

Question 9

myelin sheath

Answer 9

fatty layer that covers the axon of a nerve cell and increasesz the speed of nerve impulses

Question 10

synaptic terminal

Answer 10

most distal part of a neuron’s axon and is critical for neural communication

Question 11

motor neurons

Answer 11

from synapses with muscles and control their contractions

Question 12

relay neuron

Answer 12

these neurons are the most common type of neuron in the CNS
they allow sensory and motor neurons to communicate with each other

Question 13

sensory neuron

Answer 13

carry nerve impulses from sensory receptors to the spinal cord and brain

Question 14

action potential

Answer 14

change in electrical potential that propagates along the axon of a neuron- allows an electrical signal to transmit information

Question 15

neurotransmitter

Answer 15

chemical substances that play an important part in the workings of the nervous system by transmitting nerve impulses across a sunapse

Question 16

synaptic vesicles

Answer 16

store various neurotransmitters that are released at the synapse

Question 17

synapse

Answer 17

the conjunction of the end of the axon of one neuron and the dendrite or cell body of another

Question 18

synaptic transmission

Answer 18

refers to the process by which a nerve impulse passes across the synaptic cleft from one neuron (presynaptic neuron) to another (postsynaptic neuron)

Question 19

endocrine glands

Answer 19

special groups of cells within the endocrine system, whose function is to produce and secrete hormones

Question 20

endocrine system

Answer 20

a network of glands throughout the body that manufacture and secrete chemical messengers known as hormones

Question 21

hormones

Answer 21

bodys chemical messengers, travel through bloodstream, influence many processes: mood, stress response, bonding between mother and baby

Question 22

pituitary gland

Answer 22

the ‘master’ gland whose primary function is to influence the release of hormones from the other glands

Question 23

fight or flight response

Answer 23

a sequence of activity within the body that is triggered when the body prepares itself for defending or attacking (fight) or running away to safety (flight)
This activity involves changes in the nervous system and the secretion of hormones that are necessary to sustain arousal

Question 24

HPA axis

Answer 24

describes the sequence of bodily activity in response to stress that involves the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal cortex

Question 25

localisation of function

Answer 25

refers to the belief that specific areas of the brain are associated with specific cognitive processes

Question 26

hemispheric lateralisation

Answer 26

refers to the fact that some mental processes in the brain are mainly specialised to either the left or right hemisphere

Question 27

split brain research

Answer 27

research that studies individuals who have been subjected to the durgical separation of the two hemispheres of the brain as a result of severing the corpus collosum

Question 28

brain plasticity

Answer 28

refers to the brains ability to modify its own structure and function as a result of experience

Question 29

functional recovery

Answer 29

refers to the recovery of abilities and mental processes that have been compromised as a result of brain injury or disease

Question 30

functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI)

Answer 30

a technique for measuring brain activity, works by detecting changes in blood oxygenatation and flow that indicate increased neural activity

Question 31

electroencephalogram

Answer 31

method of recording changes in the electrical activity of the brain using electrodes attached to the scalp

Question 32

event-related potentials (ERP's)

Answer 32

technique that takes raw EEG data and uses it to investigate cognitive processing of a specific event, it achieves this by taking multiple readings and averaging them in order to filter out all brain activity that is not related to the appearance of the stimulus

Question 33

post mortem

Answer 33

way of examining brains of people showing particular psychological abnormalities prior to death to try and establish the neurobiologival cause for this behaviour

Question 34

circadian rythms

Answer 34

a pattern of behaviour that occurs or reocurrs approx every 24 hours which is set and reset by envirnmental light levels

Question 35

infradian rhythms

Answer 35

rythms that have a duration if over 24 hours and may be weekly, monthly or annually

Question 35

ultradian rythms

Answer 35

cycles that last less than 24 hours such as the cycle of sleep stages that occur throughout the night

Question 36

endogenous pacemakers

Answer 36

mechanisms within the body that govern the internal biological bodily rythms

Question 37

exogenous zeitgebers

Answer 37

an environmental cue, such as light that helps to regulate the biological clock in an organism