Chapters 1-4 Midterm Flashcards
What are the 10 brain imaging techniques?
Lesioning, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMD), brain mapping, electroencephalograms (EEG), CT or CAT scans, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional MRIs (fMRI), position emission tomography (PET scan), diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), Magneto-encephalograohy (MEG)
What is lesioning?
by lesioning (cutting off/killing) certain areas of the brain and seeing what behavior changes result
What is transcranial magnetic stimulation?
where you temporarily tamp down or booth the function in specific cortical areas
TMS is not so much of a _______ tool as a _______ one.
brain mapping, therapeutic
When is brain mapping used?
to guide the most delicate of brain surgeries
During brain surgery, the patient is ______, _______, and ______ to the touch of an ________ on various parts of the brain
awake, conscious, responding, electrical probe
What do EEgs do?
Read the electrical impulses of the brain (brain wave activity) via electrodes attached to the scalp
How to CT and CAT scans take pictures?
take a bunch of cross sectional x-rays of the brain to see structures
What are CT an CAT scans great for locating? (3)
gross abnormalities, tumors, injury
How do MRIs take pictures?
using super strong magnets
____ provide pictures with greater resolution and clarity than do _____
MRIs, CAT
MRIs have no risks associated with _____
x-rays
____ are much fatser than _____, can take pictures with astonishing detail and clarity, and display the brain’s structure and ______
fMRIs, MRIs, function
fMRIs show brain function by taking pictures of what?
relative blood flow and oxygenation (whats using up most blood)
MRIs take advantage of the body’s natural ______ field, measuring changes in the field’s ____ as patients are exposed to different ______ frequencies
magnetic, energy, radio
MRIs can be rendered in 3D because the MRI machine slices along 3 or more ____ instead of 1, like CT scans.
planes
How are fMRIs able to display function?
They use immense magnetic feilds to temporary displace hydrogen atoms in our tissue, and when they are released they wobble back to their original orientation and emit signals indicating the relative oxygenation of the blood at that site. This information can then be used to determine tumors, areas of high/low neural activity, and tissue density
What does a PET scan show us?
shows us which areas of the brain are more active than others by measuring glucose and oxygen levels.
How does a PET scan track glucose?
first you inject a glucose substance traced with radioactive isotopes, and then scan and the isotopes will cause areas of the brain to “light up” where glucose is really being used, and come up dark where there is brain damage.
What do DTI look at in the brain?
looks specifically at how different regions of the brain are wired together
What do DTI machines track?
tracks how water flows through white matter, and flows its route like the path of a river.
DTI are useful in diagnosing?
brain function diseased like Alzheimer’s
What doe MEGs measure?
the firing of neurons
How to MEGs rack the firing of neurons?
by detecting minute changes in tiny magnetic signals produced by active neurons
What are MEGs ideal for tracing?
the order in which different brain regions are activated during various tasks
What are the 2 basic types of neural cells?
neurons and glial cells
What do glia (glial cells) do?
they are basically life support for neurons; they absorb nutrients to feed neurons, clean up chemical waste and toxins, and make protective coverings for parts of neurons.
Glia can ____ and ____ neural signals over long distances
boost, inhibit
What do glia determine about new synapses?
where they are formed and how many are formed
Glia can repair damage to _____.
neural pathways
What are neurons responsible for?
receiving, transferring, and storing information
Can neurons regenerate?
yes, very much so in children
Where is a hotbed of neural stem cells creation?
the olfactory bulb and the hippocampus
What are the 3 main structures of a neuron?
soma, dendrite, axon
What is the structure and function of the soma?
structure: body of the neuron; contains DNA
function: produced chemical manufacturing for the transmission of messages
What is the structure and function of dendrites?
structure: smaller branches off the soma
function: handle incoming messages from surrounding sister cells (receiver)
What is the structure and function of the axon?
Structure: large, single, insulated branch off the soma
function: transmits outgoing messages (sender)
What is the myelin sheath and what is its purpose?
insulation along the axon of a neuron, its purpose is to speed up messages and make sure the messages dont get scrambled
What is the myelin sheath made of?
white fatty tissue
What autoimmune disease destroys the myelin sheath of motor neurons?
multiple sclerosis
When is a neuron polarized?
when it is at rest
What does it mean for a neuron to be polarized?
it means there is a slightly greater negative electrical charge inside the cell and a slightly greater positive charge outside the cell
How are nerons stimulated by other cells?
graded potentials
What 2 things can happen when a neuron is strongly stimulated by other cells?
hyperpolarization or depolarization
What happens when a cell is hyperpolarized?
polarization increases making the inside and outside electrical difference even greater.
A neuron is even more at ____ when it is hyperpolarized, and less likely to ____.
rest, fire
How does a neuron become hyperpolarized?
Doesn’t allow ions come in; it makes it even more difficult for ions to pass into the cell
hyperpolarization is the result of ____ messages from surrounding neurons, so the action is ____
inhibitory, inhibited
What happens when a neuron becomes depolarized?
the electrical difference between the inside and outside of the cell is reduced because ions are allowed in
depolarization preps the cell for _____, and makes it ready to _____.
action, fire
depolarization is the result of ______ messages from surrounding neurons
excitatory
graded potential cause brief ____ changes in the dendrites, then spread down the ____ ______.
voltage, cell membrane
effects from graded potentials are cumulative, so stimulation that depolarizes one section of the cell can be ________ by stimulation from another cell that hyperpolarizes, OR the same type of stimulation can add up causing a ripple all the way down to the ___,
cancelled out, axon
If an excitatory/depolarizing cumulative ripple reaches the axon, what will happen?
the cell membrane will become temporarily permeable, allowing ion channels to open letting positive ions into the cell. This momentarily reverses the original charges (now they’re positive inside, negative outside), but then reverts to its original state, and this happens all the way down the axon.
The brief reversal and subsequent restoration of charges is referred to as what?
action potential
How does the action potential from one neuron get sent to another neuron?
By changing the electrical message to chemical messages using neurotransmitters. The electrical action potential forces synaptic vesicles to pop and release neurotransmitters, which leave the pre-synaptic neuron across the synaptic cleft and bind to the receptor sites on the receiving/post-synaptic neuron’s surface. This causes ion channels to open causing graded potentials on the receiving neuron.
Where are neurotransmitters stored in the pre-synaptic neuron?
in synaptic vesicles
The sum total of all such graded potential messages received by a neuron will determine what?
the type of message sent (inhibitory, or excitation)
Inhibitory neuron account for ___% of all our neurons
10-20%
Inhibitory neurons work exclusively to do what?
calm the brain down
Inhibitory neurons are key to brain ____, ____, and _____. They also play a role in many _______ disorders by _____ the level of activity in neighboring neurons.
development, learning, memory, neurological, repressing
inhibitory neurons prevent the brain from spinning out of control into _____ or _____.
hyper-excited states, full-blown epilepsy
After an excitatory message, what remains of the neurotransmitters need to become _____ so that the cell can be ready to pick up the next message coming its way
deactivated
How is a neurtransmitter deactivated?
An enzyme in the synapse made by glial cells break the neurotransmitter down, or the chemical return to the pre-synaptic neuron’s terminal buttons through re-uptake.
Why is deactivation necessary?
because the post-synaptic cells might keep firing on and on causing seizures or even death
What are mirror neurons?
neurons that fire when we see something else preform an action
Where are mirror neurons mostly located?
in areas related to understanding others actions, intentions, emotions, feelings, and language
What are mirror neurons essential for?
modelling, observational learning, and development of empathy
How do mirror neurons relate to autism?
Autistic people have profound malfunctions of the mirror neurons, which is why they act the way they do.
What are the 5 main types of neurotransmitters?
serotonin, glutamate, gamma aminobutryic acid (GABA), epinephrine & norepinephrine, and dopamine
What type of neurotransmitter is serotonin?
inhibitory
What does serotonin regulate? (6)
mood, sleep, eating, arousal, pain, and thought processes
What can extremely low levels of serotonin cause? (9)
emotional instability, lowered inhibitors, impulsivity, compulsivity, a tendency to overreact, and increased risk of aggression, suicide, impulse over-eating, or sexual activity
Antidepressant medications known as SSRIs like prozac, celexa, paxil are what?
serotonin elective re-uptake inhibitors
What type of neurotransmitter is glutamate?
excitatory
Glutamate plays a large role in ____ and ____.
learning, memory
suppression of glutamate is implicated in alcoholic ____ and _____.
black outs, brown outs
What type of neurotransmitter is GABA?
inhibitory
Which neurons release GABA?
inhibitory neurons (i-neurons)
GABA tell surrounding cells to what? (3)
shut down, hyperpolarize, to stop firing
GABA relaxes _____ groups, and lowers levels of ___, ___, and ____.
muscle, anger, hostility, aggression
Alcohol and benzodiazapines like valium and lorazepam help GABA bind to receptors of specialized neurons thereby damping down _____ responses.
runway anxiety
GABA reduces overall ___ levels and moderates ___ responses.
arousal, emotional
What type of neurotransmitter is epinephrine and norepinephrine?
excitatory
epinephrine and norepinephrine are chemically identical to what made by the endocrine system?
adrenaline and noradrenaline
epinephrine and norepinephrine are involved in our basic ___ or ___ responses.
fight, flight
What is the main differnces between neurotransmitters and hormones?
hormones are made by glands in the endocrine system and released into the blood stream for a wide range of effects on the body and brain.
neurotransmitters are released synapse to synapse in the brain.
Beta Blockers block the effects of what neurotransmitter?
norepinephrine
Beta blockers help lower ____ and ____ because they block norepinephrine.
blood pressure, heart rate
beta blockers are now being used to prevent and treat what?
PTSD
What type of neurotransmitter is dopamine?
excitiatory
dopamine is associated with ___, ___, ___, activity, and ____>
out-going, exploratory, pleasure-seeking, addictions
Dopamine is the key neurotransmitter of ____, which determines what we pay attention to, and what our brain deems important.
salience
Dopamine switches on other circuits, enabling other chemicals to have their ____.
influence
How is parkinsons’ disease treated?
L-dopa, a dopamine substitute, which is why they’re all shaky because dopamine switches on neurons in your loco-motor system
the central nervous system consists of what?
the brain and spinal cord
The peripheral nervous system consists of what?
all the nerves outside the central nervous system
The peripheral nervous system connects the _____ (muscles, skin, tendons, sense of the body, internal organs, and glands) to the central nervous system
periphery
What are the two branches of the peripheral nervous system?
the somatic branch, and autonomic nervous system branch
What does the somatic nervous system control?
all you involuntary muscles and sense organs, and involuntary stuff like posture and balance.
What does the autonomic nervous system control?
“automatic” functions like heart beat, respiration, digestion, and secretion of hormones
What are the two subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system?
sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system
What does the sympathetic nervous system do?
cues up our fight or flight response when we’re under threat; makes heart pound, adrenaline and cortisol flow, blood redirect to limbs and away from digestion.
What does the parasympathetic nervous system do?
it inhibits nerve firing to bring us back to homeostasis; lowers heart rate and blood pressure, calms us down, conserves our energy, directs blood flow to internal organs and digestion.
How heavy is the human brain? how big?
~3 pounds, the size of your two closed fists
what 3 brain areas/systems work together to do basic life support like reflexes, respiration, blood pressure, circulation, heart beat (medulla), primitive choking reflexes, regulating arousal, and consciousness?
the hind brain/brain stem which houses the top of the spinal cord, the pons, medulla oblongata, the cerebellum, and reticular formation
Problems with the recticular formation may lead to what?
coma
What is the cerebellum known for coordinating?
smooth well learned movements, balance, and posture
Too much alcohol can effect what area of the brain leading to slurred speech and staggering around?
the cerebellum
Too many blows to the head in boxing, MMA, and other sports can damage the _____ region leading to behavioral deficits similar to drunkenness.
cerebellum
Where is the midbrain located?
deep within the brain above the brainstem
What are the 2 regions of the midbrain?
tectum and tegmentum
What is the tectum involved in?
primitive hearing and vision, like orientation to sound or visual stimuli
What is the tegmentum mostly involved in?
generating movement
What part of the tegmentum deteriorates in those with parkinsons?
substantia nigra
Some sections of the midrange are involved in our very primitive learning about experience of ___ or ____ or ____ or ____.
pleasure, reward, pain, punishment
Where are the forebrain structures?
subcortical , as it sits below the outer cerebral cortex of the brain.
the forebrain includes what structures?
hypothalamus, thalamus, and the inner cerebrum structures like the basal ganglia. encases what is known as the limbic system
What does the hypothalamus do?
helps regulate our eating, sleeping, sexual activity, motivation, fight or flight responses,
______ activates the pituitary gland when stressful events occur getting the endocrine (hormonal) system involved in the ffs
hypothalamus
The hypothalamus does double duty as part of the ___ system and part of the ___ system.
limbic, endocrine
What is the hypothalamus’s most vital work?
to maintain homeostasis
The thalamus is above the _____
hypothalamus
What is the most famous role of the thalamus?
being the sensory relay station; it takes on the most sensory information first (like danger) does simple analyses, filters them, and then passes the information on to higher brain centers straddling the top of the thalamus
The limbic system deals with basic ___, ___, ____, and ____.
emotion, motivation, learning, memory
What are the parts of the limbic system?
thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, and basal ganglia
What does the amygdala do?
runs our baser, unconscious emotional responses, learning from and remembering emotionally significant events (especially negative ones involving fear and rage)
what is the amygdala involved in?
recognition of facial expressions
What is the role of the hippocampus?
to aid in the formation and retrieval of new long term conscious or “explicit” memories
What is the basal ganglia involved in?
posture, muscle tone, and movement and judgements that require little thought (like quickly clarifying the things we hear and see)
What part of the brain is nicknamed the “thinking cap”?
the cerebral cortex
What functions occur in the cerebral cortex?
higher cognitive functions such as perceiving language, learning, planning, complex thinking, and behaviors originate
In what part of the brain is our personality, sense of humor, and sense of self located?
cerebral cortex
What are the 4 main lobes of the cerebral cortex?
occipital lobes, parietal lobes, frontal lobes, and temporal lobes.
The cerebral cortex consists of several lobes with both ____ areas, and ___ areas.
primary, association
What do the primary areas of the cerebral cortex do? (2)
straight-forward, specific sensory work like sensing sounds, sights, touch, body position (from information provided by thalamus), carrying out intentional movements.
What do the association areas of the cerebral cortex do? (6)
more subtle work of learning, synthesizing info, remembering, organizing and planning behavior, holding memory traces
_____ areas are more flexible and respond more to learning and experiences, whereas neurons in the primary area have a bit more _____ basic functions that are similar for most people.
association, specific
What is the main function of the occipital lobes?
vision
Where are sensory information from our eyes sent for analysis?
the occipital lobes
What is done in the association area of the occipital lobes?
visual memories are stored, and visual thinking and planning is done
What is the main function of the parietal lobes?
perception of the body and spatial skills (detect touch, read, write, and use spatial information)
Where is the entire surface of our body mapped out in our brain?
right at the top of the brain on strips of the primary motor cortex (frontal lobe) and somatosensory cortex (parietal lobe)
What is the primary function of the frontal lobes?
executing intentional movements with the help of the premotor and motor cortex.
What is the front/anterior third of the frontal lobe called, and what is its role?
prefrontal cortex, role is to plan, time, and sequence our behavior, control our impulses, social skills, short-term/working memory.
What part of the limbic system is responsible for forming long term memories?
the hippocampus
What lobes of the cerebral cortex have a special role in disorders featuring body image disorders?
the parietal lobes
Where does our sense of self-awarness, aspects of personality, insight, initiative, ability to plan, and change strategies mid-flow originate?
the frontal lobes
Deficicts in the frontal lobes leads to?
impulse control problems like alcoholism, aggression, and antisocial behaviors
An area in the right frontal cortex is involves in “getting” more ____ jokes and humor.
sophisticated
Where is broca’s area located and what is it associated with?
left frontal lobe, language production
What will happen if you damage your left frontal lobe?
expressive/broca’s aphasia, where you are able to understand what is said to you and know what you want to say, but can’t put it into intelligible speech (struggle, stutter, can’t find words)
What is the primary function of the temporal lobes?
hearing/audition (and some visual association)
What happens if you damage the left portion of your temporal lobe?
wernicke’s/receptive aphasia, where you can speak fluently and effortlessly, but have trouble making sense of what you hear and even what you produce (sounds smooth but may make no sense)
What happens if you damage the right portion of your temporal lobe?
affects nonverbal skills; problems with picture or object recognition. You can also get visual agosia or prosopagnosia which is the inability to recognize faces
Where is the neural circuitry associated with religious or spiritual experiences located?
the temporal lobes
The brain is divided into two halves called ____.
hemispheres
What separates the right and left hemispheres?
corpus callosum
What does it mean when you say the brain is lateralized?
the two hemispheres are somewhat different in their function
In general, what is the right hemisphere more involved in/dominant for?
nonverbal spatial skills (orienting objects in space, sense of direction), synthesizing information, intuition, creativity, music, pattern and facial recognition, getting sophisticated jokes involving irony and subtext
In general, what if the left hemisphere responsible for?
analytic thought logic, language, reading, science and math, extracting elements from a pattern/whole, recognize things that occur in order (2, 4, 6, 8)
the left brain is very ____ and likes to make sense of everything, even ______.
literal, nonsense
What does it mean that there are contralateral functions in the brain?
controls for the left side of our bodies are found in the right hemisphere section of the motor cortex, and vice versa for the right side
What are some subtle sex differences of the brain?
male brains more fixedly lateral/specialized (better at math, and visual spatial tests), female brain are more fluid with larger corpus callosums
What happens when someone has split brain surgery?
their corpus callosum is severed
What is alien hand syndrome?
where the left hand of split brain patients seem to have a mind of their own
What does epigenetics study?
environmental influences of gene expression and how it is passed on from generation to generation, or just how it effects the individual in their current generation.
Why do identical twins become different as they age?
epigenetic tags from environmental influences
What is chimerism?
when there are 2 or more sets of DNA within one person.
What is the usual cause of chimerism?
fetal absorbing of fraternal twin
All humans are chimeras because we absorb our ____ DNA.
Mother’s
