brain and neurons Flashcards
what is psychology?
the scientific study of behaviour and mental processes
what is behaviour? examples
any observable action made a living person or animal eg sneezing, watching tv, blinking
what is a mental process? examples
an experience that occurs within an individual, that cannot be directly observed eg love, anger, guilt.
examples of fields of psychology
sport, forensic, counselling, clinical, educational
what is the difference between psychology and psychiatry ?
the main difference is that a psychiatrist has trained as a medical doctor and can prescribe medication. Although both are trained to understand how your brain works, how you think and how you behave
what is biology?
the study of life and living organisms?
central nervous system
brain and spinal cord, spinal cord allows brain to communicate with rest of body, brain is control centre of body
peripheral nervous system
any nerve outside of brain and spinal cord, function is to communicate info from the bodys organs, muscles and glands to the brain vice versa.
somatic nervous system
responsible for carrying messages from the brain to the skeletal muscles (voluntary) and carrying messages from the senses to the brain to be processed.
motor neurons
communicate messages from the CNS to the particular muscles that the the organism intends to move
sensory
carry messages from the senses to the CNS so our brain can interact with the enviroment
Autonomic nervous system
controls non-skeletal muscles and internal organs and glands to carry out the basic bodily functions for survival. does everything we don’t think about
subdivisions of autonomic nervous system
sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
sympathetic
prepares us for action, fight or flight
parasympathetic
calms our body down, returns us to baseline/normal
