Chapter 3 Flashcards
What are neurons?
cells in the nervous system that communicate with one another to perform information-processing tasks
What are Golgi-Stained Neurons?
- highlights the appearance of neurons
- Santiago Ramon y Cajal
- nuerons don’t actually touch
- different types of neurons
- each neuron is composed of a body, dendrite, and axon
What is the cell body?
coordinates information-processing tasks and keeps the cell alive
What is Dendrite?
receives information from other neurons and relates it to the cell body
What is the axon?
transmits information to other neurons, muscles, or glands
What is the myelin sheath?
provides insulating layer of fatty material
What are glial cells?
Support cells found in the nervous system
What is a synapse?
The gap between neurons
What are sensory neurons?
Receive information from the outside world and convey info to the brain via the spinal cord
What are motor neurons?
Carry signals from the spinal cord to the muscles to produce movement
What are interneurons?
Connect sensory, motor, and other neurons
What is a Purkinje cell?
Neuron with elaborate treelike assemblage of dendrites
What is a Pyramidal cell?
Neuron with a triangular cell body and a single, long dendrite with may smaller dendrites
What is a Bipolar cell?
Neuron with only one dendrite and a single axon
Together, conduction and transmission are referred to as…
Electrochemical action
What is resting potential?
The difference in electric charge between the inside and outside of a neuron’s cell membrane
What is action potential?
The electric signal that is conducted along a neuron’s axon to a synapse; threshold is reached, all or none
What are breaks in the myelin sheath called?
Nodes of Ranvier; the electric impulse jumps from node to node, speeding the conduction of info down the axon
What does Acetylcholine do (Ach) do?
Voluntary motor control
What does Dopamine (DA) do?
rewarding behaviors
What does Glutamate do?
Speeds up neural communication
What does GABA do?
Slows down neural communication
What does Norepinephrine (NE) do?
Influences mood and arousal
What does Serotonin (5-HT) do?
regulation of sleep and wakefulness
What doe Endorphins do?
Body’s natural pain killers
What are agonists?
Drugs that increase the action of a neurotransmitter (L-dopa for dopamine)
What are antagonists?
Drugs or chemical in opposition of a neurotransmitter
The Nervous system is split into…
The Peripheral and Central Nervous Systems
What is the CNS?
The brain and spinal cord
What does the PNS do?
Connects CNS to body’s organs and muscles; Automatic and Somatic nervous systems
What does the Somatic Nervous System do?
Controls voluntary movements of skeletal muscles
What does the Automatic Nervous system do?
Conveys involuntary and automatic commands that control internal organs and glands; Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
What does the Sympathetic nervous system do?
(arousing) action
What does the Parasympathetic nervous system do?
(calm) at rest
What is the Pain Withdrawal Reflex?
doesn’t require the brain’s input; reflexive activity controlled by the spinal cord
What is the hindbrain?
Coordinates information coming into and out of the spinal cord and controls the basic functions of life; medulla, reticular formation
What is the midbrain?
Orientation movement, and attention; tegmenjtum and tectum
What is the forebrain?
Highest level of brain; critical for complex, cognitive, emotional sensory, and motor functions; cerebral cortex, subcortical structures of the spinal cord
Medulla
Respiration and heart rate
Reticular formation
Wakefulness and arousal
Cerebellum
Fine motor skills
Pons
structure that relays information from the cerebellum to the rest of the brain
Tectum
orientation with sight and sound
Tegmentum
Attention and arousal
Thalamus
relays and filters into from the senses and transmits the info to the cerebral cortex, except for scent
Hypothalamus
Body temperature, hunger, thirst, fight/flee, sex; works with pituitary gland
Pituitary gland
“master” gland of the body’s hormone producing system, which releases hormones that direct the functions of many other glands in the body
Basal Ganglia
Set up subcortical structures that directs intentional movements
The limbic system consists of…
Hypothalamus, Amygdala, and Hippocampus; structures that involve motivation, emotion, learning, and memory
Amygdala
Central role in many emotional processes, particularly formation of emotional memories
Hippocampus
Critical for creating new memories and integrating them into network of knowledge so they can be stored in other parts of cerebral cortex
Commissures corpus callosum
Thick band of nerve fibers that connects large areas of the cerebral cortex on each side of the brain and supports communication of info across the hemispheres
Occipital lobe
processes visual info
Parietal lobe
Information and touch
Temporal lobe
hearing and language
frontal lobe
movement, abstract thinking, planning, memory and judgement
Association areas
Neurons that help provide sense and meaning to info in cortex
Mirror neurons
Activated when organism engages or observes another engage in that behavior
Somatosensory cortex
Represents skin areas on contralateral surface of body
Homonculus
rendering of the body in which each part is shown in proportion to show where the somatosensory cortex is devoted to
Gene
Hereditary transmission; sections of DNA strands
Chromosomes
Strands of DNA wound around each other in a double helix formation
Heritability
Measure of the variability of behavioral traits among individuals accounted for by genetic factors
Epigenetics
DNA, methylation, and histone modification play a key role in the long lasting effects of early life experiences
Heritability is a…
- abstract concept
- population concept
- dependent on the environment
- not fate
Broca and Wernicke provided some of the earliest evidence that…
There is a loss of specific brain functions when the brain is damaged
Lateralization of two hemispheres…
Sperry: left=verbal, right=spatial
Split brain studies
2 hemispheres perform different functions and can seamlessly work together if corpus callosum is intact
