CHAPTER 2 COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Flashcards
what is cognitive neuroscience?
the study of the neurophysiological basis of cognition
describe the levels of analysis term
refers to the idea that a topic can be studied in a number of different ways
looking at the processes behind behaviour as looking under the hood of the car is an analogy of?
levels of analysis
what kind of experiences can involve chemical processes? what kind of processes?
initial; creating electrical signals in neurons
what happens when individual brain structures are activated?
multiple brain structures are activated
chemical and electrical processes are stored into experiences which forms a_____
memory
what do neurons do?
create and transmit information about experiences and knowledge
what would 19th century anatomists do to increase the contrast between different brain tissue types?
applied special stains
what is the nerve net theory?
states there is a continuous network providing a complex pathway for conducting signals uninterrupted
in 1870 who developed a staining technique?
Camillo Golgi
what was Golgi’s technique?
stains created pictures in which fewer than 1% of the cells were stained to stand out from the rest using a single slice of brain tissue
who used the Golgi stain and studied tissues from newborn animals because of their lower density?
Ramon y Cajal
what did Cajal discover?
the nerve net is not continuous but is made up of individual units connected together
what was Cajal’s neuron doctrine?
the idea that cells transmit signals in the nervous system and that these cells are not continuous with other cells as proposed by the nerve net theory
what is the cell body of a neuron?
the metabolic center of the neuron: contains mechanisms that keep the cell alive
what are the dendrites of the neuron?
projections from the cell body that receive signals from other neurons
what are the axons of the neuron?
long processes that transmit signals to other neurons
what are Cajal’s 3 conclusions about neurons?
- small gap between axons of one neuron and dendrites of another neuron is the synapse
- neurons are not connected indiscriminately to other neurons but to form connections to specific neurons to form neural circuits
- in addition to neurons in the brain there are neurons that receive information from the environment using receptors
what was needed to make small electrical signals generated by neurons visible
electric amplifiers
in the 1920s what did Edgar Adrian use?
microelectrodes
what are microelectrodes?
small shafts of hollow glass filled with a conductive salt solution that could pick up electrical signals at the electrode tip and conduct the signals back to the recording device
what is the resting potential inside the cell in comparison to the outside
-70mV
what is a resting potential?
the charge on the inside of the neuron when there are no signals in it
what is a nerve impulse?
when the neuron receptor is stimulated and it travels down the axon