Biopsychology Flashcards
What is Brocas area?
speech production
What is wernickes area?
Language understanding
What is the CNS made up of?
Brain and spinal chord
What is the PNS made u of?
Autonomic nervous system and somatic nervous system
What is the 2 role of the somatic nervous system?
Governs muscle movement
Receives info from sensory receptors
What is the role of the autonomic nervous system?
Governs vital functions in the body
like breathing, heart rate and digestion
What is the role of the endocrine system?
Information system that instructs glands to release hormones directly into the bloodstream
What is a gland?
An organ in the body
Thyroid gland hormone
Thyroxine
Adrenal gland hormone
Adrenaline
What are characteristics of a sympathetic state?
Increased heart rate, Increased breathing rate, Dilates pupils, Inhibits digestions and saliva production
What are characteristics of a parasympathetic state?
decreased heart rate, decreased breathing rate, Constricts pupils, Stimulates digestions and saliva production
What are the three types of neurons?
Sensory, relay and motor
What does lateralisation mean?
How each hemisphere has its own functions
What is the role of the relay neuron?
Connects the sensory and motor neuron together
What does contralateral mean?
Each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body
What are neurotransmitters?
Chemicals that diffuse across the synapse to the next neuron across the chain
What is Wernickes aphasia?
Nonsense word production
What is Brocas aphasia?
slow influent speech
What are the 4 brain lobes?
Frontal, Temporal, parietal and Occipital
Which hemisphere for the language centres?
Left hemisphere
What is Post-Mortem examination?
Focus on analysing someones brain after their death
What are 2 strengths of post mortem examinations?
- Real life evidence
Broca and Wernicke in linking language/speech to the brain, led to their areas - Real Life applications
HM and his brain damage impacting his memory deficit
What are 2 limitation of of post mortem examinations?
- Ethical issues
Informed consent - causation issue
Brain damage could be due to past traumas/events rather than the issue being reviewed
What are the 4 ways of studying the brain
Post mortem examinations
FMRIs
Electroencephalogram
Event-related potentials
How do EEGs measure brain activity?
Electrodes connected to an individuals skull through a cap
What is a weakness of ERPs?
Lack of standardisation in methodology
Must limit extraneous variables like background noise
What are 2 weakness of FMRIs?
- Expensive
- Poor temporal resolution (5 second time lag)
- does not present moment-to-moment BA
What is a strength of using EEGS?
Real life uses
- learning stages of sleep
High temporal resolution
What is a strength of ERPs?
High temporal resolution
What does brain plasticity mean?
The ability of a brain to change through out life
What is synaptic pruning?
The idea that rarely used connections in the brain are deleted and frequently used ones are strengthened
What did Eleanor Magiure study into?
Brain plasticity with taxi drivers
What was Eleanor Magiures study for brain plasticity?
London Taxi drivers brains
Larger grey matter volume in the posterior hippocampus compared to the control group
LTD must do ‘the knowledge test’
What info is in the posterior hippocampus?
The development of spatial and navigational skills
What are the 2 evaluations on brain plasticity?
Limitation - Negative plasticity
phantom limb syndrome 60-80%
Unpleasant/painful
brains ability to adapt to damage is not always beneficial
Strength - Age and plasticity
Neural plasticity can continue through a lifespam
40hrs golf training
FMRI increased motor cortex activity
What are the strength evaluations of brain lateralisation?
Strength - Lateralisation in the connected brain
- Fink et al and PET scans for a visual processing task
-When looking at overall image (Forest) RH was more active
- When looking at finer details (Trees) LH was active