Chapter 2: Neuroscience Approaches To Understanding Psychopathology Flashcards
Frontal lobe
Involved with planning, higher cognitive processes such as thinking and problem solving, as well as moral and social judgements.
Central sulcus
Receives sensory information from our body, including the experience of touch.
Parietal lobe
Involved in special processing such as knowing where you are in space and performing special problems.
Occipital lobe
Involved with processing visual information and receives information from our eyes.
Temporal lobe
Receives information from our ears such as language.
Neurotransmitters
Chemicals released into the synapsis space that are involved in increasing or decreasing the likelihood for action potentials to be produced: they also maintain the communication accords the synapses. Their presence or lack there of is related to particular psychological disorders.
Electroencephalography
A technique for recording electric activity from the scalp, which measures the electrical activity of the brain at the levels of synapsis.
Event-related potentials/evoked potentials
They show electroencephalography activity in relation to a particular event.
Magnetoencephalopathy
Brain imaging technique that measures the small magnetic field gradients exiting and entering the surface of the head that are produced when neurons are active.
Positron emission tomography
A brain imaging technique that measures the blood flow in the brain that is correlated with brain activity.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Brain imaging technique that measures increased blood flow in active areas of the cortex by determining the ratio of hemoglobin with and without oxygen.
Diffusion tensor imaging
Procedure that uses magnetic resonance imaging magnet to measure fiber tracts (white matter) in the brain.
Neuroethics
A field of ethical inquiry related to the ethical, legal, and social policy implications of neuroscience, which explores questions about who should have access to data and scans of an individual’s internal processes.
Small world framework
A model of the brain connectivity based on the idea that the ability to socially contact any two random individuals in the world can be accomplished in a limited number of connections.
Central executive network
The neural network involved in performing such tasks as planning, goal setting, performing.
Salience network
The neural network involved in monitoring and noting important changes in biological and cognitive systems.
Default intrinsic network
Neural network that is active during internal processing.
Executive functions
Cognitive unctions involved in planning, understanding new situations and cognitive flexibility.
Modularity
The concept that specific areas of the brain are dedicated to certain types of processing.
Connectivity
The concept that different areas of the brain work together in specific conditions.
Epigenetics
Study if the mostly environmental factors that turn genes on and off and are passed on to the next generation.
Mendel’s first law or law of segregation
For the dominant trait to appear, only one dominant element is needed; for the recessive trait to appear both non-dominant elements must be present.
Mendel’s second law or the law of independent assortment
The inheritance of the gene of one trait is not affected by the inheritance of the gene for another trait.
Chromosomes
Thread-like structures located inside the nucleus of animal and plan cells. Each chromosome is made of protein and a single molecule of DNA. Passed from parent to offspring, DNA contains the specific instructions that make each type of living creature unique.
