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Biopsychology Flashcards

1
Q

What is the central nervous system?

A

Brain - highly developed in humans
Spinal chord - connects the brain to the PNS

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2
Q

What is the Peripheral nervous system?

A

Autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic).
Somatic nervous system (body).

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3
Q

What is the endocrine system?

A

Hormone reactions, glands, fight or flight

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4
Q

What is the pituitary gland?

A

The master gland. Tells other glands what to do.

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5
Q

What are the types of neurons?

A

Sensory, relay, motor

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6
Q

What is the structure of a neuron?

A

Cell body that contains the nucleus, has dendrites.
Axon that’s covered in myelin sheath. Divided by nodes of Ranvier.

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7
Q

What is a synapse?

A

The junction between two neurons that allows a signal to pass between them.

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8
Q

How does synaptic transmission work?

A

Presynaptic vesicles release neurotransmitters.
Postsynaptic receptor sites receive the neurotransmitters from dendrites of the adjoining neuron.

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9
Q

What is the drug that increases serotonin activity?

A

SSRI’s

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10
Q

What is localisation of the brain?

A

Theory that different behaviours are controlled by specific areas of the brain.

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11
Q

What is lateralisation?

A

The brain is split in half and each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body.

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12
Q

What are the four lobes of the brain?

A

Frontal lobe.
Parietal lobe.
Occipital lobe.
Temporal lobe.

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13
Q

What is Broca’s area?

A

The production of speech

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14
Q

What is Wernicke’s area?

A

Related to the understanding of speech and language

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15
Q

Localisation of function evaluation

A

Evidence from neurosurgery - isolation of cingulate gyrus improves OCD in 30% of participants.
Evidence from brain scans - Petersen et al identified brocas and wernickes areas.
Counterpoint - learning in rats is holistic not localised.
Language localisation questioned - multiple pathways not just broca and wernickes areas.

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16
Q

What hemisphere is the language area in?

A

The left hemisphere for most people.

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17
Q

What is the LH

A

The analyser

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18
Q

What is the RH

A

The synthesiser

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19
Q

Hemispheric lateralisation evaluation

A

Lateralisation in the connected brain - global elements processed by RH and finer detail by LH (fink et al).
One brain - certain hemispheres dedicated to certain tasks but no dominant RH or LH.

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20
Q

What was the procedure of split brain research?

A

11 participants who had the split brain operation for epilepsy.

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21
Q

What did split-brain research find?

A

Object shown in the RVF (LH), person described object, shown to LVF (RH), nothing there.
Object shown to LVF (RH) - cannot name but can select item with left hand.
Pinup picture to LVF - participant giggles but reports nothing.

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22
Q

Split brain research conclusions

A

Lateralised brain - LH is verbal and the RH is silent but emotional.

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23
Q

Split brain research evaluation

A

Research support - split-brain participants faster at some LH tasks normally slowed down by inferior RH.
Generalisation issues - epilepsy is a confounding variable when comparing participants to ‘normal’ controls.
Ethics - operation not done for the study and participants gave informed consent, may not have fully understood and participation was stressful.

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24
Q

What is Brian plasticity?

A

The brains ability to change and adapt after trauma in the brain.
Research suggests that neural connections can change or new connections can be formed.

25
Research into plasticity
Hippocampus in taxi drivers changes structure after learning knowledge of the roads. Changes in students before and after exams.
26
Plasticity evaluation
Negative plasticity - drug use may cause neural changes. Phantom limb syndrome due to reorganisation in somatosensory cortex. Age and plasticity - reduces with age. Golf training caused neural changes in over-40s.
27
What is functional recovery?
Where parts of a healthy brain take over lost functions after trauma.
28
What happens in the brain during recovery?
New synaptic connections, secondary pathways unmasked. Axonal sprouting, denervation super-sensitivity, recruitment of homologous brain areas.
29
Functional recovery evaluation.
Real-world application - knowledge of axonal growth leads to constraint-induced movement therapy. Cognitive reserve - 40% recovery for people with 16 years education, 10% for those with less than 12 years’ education.
30
What are the ways of studying the brain?
fMRI, EEG, ERP, Post-mortems
31
What is an fMRI?
Detects changes in blood flow to show active areas, 3D.
32
What is an EEG?
Measures brainwave patterns from thousands of neurons via electrodes.
33
What is an ERP?
Types of brainwave triggered by particular events filtered out from EEG recordings.
34
What is a port-mortem?
Study of brain after death, in order to link brain areas to observed behaviour deficits.
35
What is the evaluation of fMRI?
Risk free, non-invasive and high spatial resolution. Expensive, poor temporal resolution.
36
What is the evaluation of EEG?
Real world uses, high temporal resolution. Comes from 1000s of neurons, can’t identify source.
37
What is the evaluation of ERP?
More specific that EEG, higher temporal resolution than fMRI. No standardised method, background noise not easy to control.
38
What is the evaluation of post-mortem.
Early research (e.g. Broca). Causation an issue, content issues (e.g. HM)
39
What is a circadian rhythm?
Bodily rhythm that takes about 24 hours to complete.
40
What is a biological rhythm?
It’s controlled by internal body clocks (endogenous pacemakers) and external cues (exogenous zeitgabers)
41
What is the sleep/wake cycle?
Governed by daylight and by biological clock (suprachiasmatic nucleus), gets light information from the eyes.
42
What is the sleep/wake cycle?
Governed by daylight and by biological clock (suprachiasmatic nucleus), gets light information from the eyes.
43
What did Siffre’s study find?
His free-running rhythm extended slightly to 25 hours when deprived of daylight.
44
Circadian rhythms evaluation.
Shift work - reduced concentration at 6am, more accidents, heart disease 3x more likely. Counterpoint - studies are correlational, effects may be due to disruptive social routines. Medical treatment - timing of drugs, aspirin more effective at night for heart attack. Individual differences - cycle lengths vary, generalisations may be meaningless.
45
What is an infradian rhythm?
Bodily rhythm that takes more than 24 hours to complete
46
What is an example of an infradian rhythm?
The menstrual cycle
47
What is seasonal effective disorder?
Form of depression triggered in the winter months and regulated by melatonin, a circannual rhythm.
48
Infradian rhythms evaluation
Evolutionary basis - synchronisation may have an adaptive function, leads to shared care for babies. Methodological limitations - many confounding variables not controlled, synchronisation may occur by chance.
49
What is an ultradian rhythm?
Doily rhythm that takes less than 24 hours to complete.
50
What are the 5 stages of sleep?
1&2 - alpha waves and sleep spindles. 3&4 - deep sleep and delta waves. 5 - REM sleep, theta waves.
51
Ultradian rhythms evaluation
Improved understanding - SWS reduces with age, explains issues in old age like reduced alertness. Individual differences - differences found in duration of each sleep stage (3+4 especially)
52
What is an endogenous pacemakers?
Internal mechanism that governs biological rhythms like the circadian sleep wake cycle
53
What does the suprachiasmatic nucleus do?
SCN receives information about light from optic chiasm.
54
What happened in the animal studies of the SCN?
The sleep/wake cycle disappeared when the SCN was destroyed.
55
Where does the SCN pass information to?
Passes to the pineal gland that controls melatonin.
56
Endogenous pacemakers evaluation
Beyond the master clock - other body clocks. E.g. circadian rhythms of liver cells in mice altered by SCN unaffected. Interactionist system - research looks at pacemakers/zeitgebers in isolation, lacks validity.
57
What is an exogenous zeitgeber?
External cues, including light that help to regulate internal body clocks.
58
What is an example of an exogenous zeitgeber?
Light - shining on back of knees changed rhythm by up to 3 hours. Social cues - babes’ rhythms and get lag are entrained by bedtimes and mealtimes.
59
Exogenous zeitgeber evaluation
Environmental observations - EZs don’t have the same effect on people who live in darkness in the summer and little light in the winter. Case study evidence - man blind from birth with sleep/wake cycle of 24.9 hours, could not adjust despite social cues like mealtimes.

Psychology (11 decks)

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