cognitive neuroscience

Question 1

what are the supporting cells of neurones?

Answer 1

glia cells and oligodendrites

Question 2

what is essential for a well-functioning cell?

Answer 2

COMMUNICATION

Question 3

what is the border between the cell and the outside world called?

Answer 3

membrane

Question 4

what is an eukaryote?

Answer 4

an organism whose cells have a nucleus enclosed within membranes

Question 5

what is a microtubule?

Answer 5

part of the cell that proteins can move along and transport a signal

Question 6

what is the Cambrian revolution/explosion?

Answer 6

point in time when most major groups of animals appear in the follis record
before this most organisms were simple, composed of individual cells

Question 7

what are the two ways in which neurones can communicate?

Answer 7

gap junctions

chemical synapses

Question 8

are gap junctions or chemical synapses more energy intensive?

Answer 8

chemical synapses

Question 9

how have neurones evolved to communicate?

Answer 9

chemical synapses

more energy intensive but allow for more complex communication

Question 10

order of evolution from nervous system to humans

Answer 10

nervous system
land animals
mammals
humans

Question 11

what is myelin?

Answer 11

isolation around the axons to stop action potentials from decaying due to electrical current leaking out through axonal membrane

Question 12

why are mammals so successful?

Answer 12

they are endothermic

take longer to mature - allowing the development of more complex behaviour

Question 13

what are the three types in the three brain theory?

Answer 13

reptilian
limbic
neocortex

Question 14

what is the reptilian brain?

Answer 14

oldest evolutionarily
brainstem and cerebellum
controls the vital functions
e.g. body temp and heart rate

Question 15

what is the limbic system?

Answer 15

made up of hippocampus, amygdala and hypothalamus
responsible for human emotions
can remember behaviours that received good and bad responses

Question 16

what is the neocortex

Answer 16

newest evolutionarily
made up of cerebral hemispheres
responsible for human language, consciousness, abstract thought and imagination
what has allowed human culture

Question 17

what are the three steps in evolution?

Answer 17

specialisation of the cell
specialisation of the organism
specialisation of the group

Question 18

what element is inside the cell and what is outside?

Answer 18

sodium is outside

potassium is inside

Question 19

what is ontogeny?

Answer 19

the development of one cell

Question 20

what is phylogeny?

Answer 20

evolutionary development and diversification of a species

Question 21

what are stem cells?

Answer 21

they are cells which are not specialised yet so can specialise into anything

Question 22

what are neurotransmitters?

Answer 22

chemical messengers that transmit signals across chemical synapses and produce activation in the cell they’re sent to

Question 23

what are some examples of neurotransmitters?

Answer 23

GABA
glutamate
adrenaline 
serotonin 
dopamine
endorphins

Question 24

what is the main excitatory neurotransmitter?

Answer 24

glutamate

Question 25

what is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter?

Answer 25

GABA

Question 26

what disease is associated with an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory transmitters?

Answer 26

parkinson's

Question 27

what is acetylcholine important for?

Answer 27

activating movement | attention and memory

Question 28

function of dopamine?

Answer 28

feelings of pleasure associated with addiction people repeat actions that produce dopamine

Question 29

function of serotonin?

Answer 29

contributes towards well-being and happiness | helps sleep cycle and digestive system regulation

Question 30

what affects serotonin levels?

Answer 30

light exposure | exercise

Question 31

what part of the brain receives perceptual information first?

Answer 31

thalamus

Question 32

what does the basal ganglia do?

Answer 32

facilitates movement and inhibits competing movements

Question 33

what does the cerebellum do?

Answer 33

regulates motor movements | controls voluntary movements (e.g. posture and balance)

Question 34

what functions cross in the brain? | i.e. are controlled in the left of brain but performed in right of body?

Answer 34

``` motor auditory perceptual visual (language is in left hemisphere for right handed people but not automatically the other way round in left handed people) ```

Question 35

what are mirror neurones

Answer 35

neurones that fire both when you are performing the action and see the action being performed

Question 36

what organelle has its own genetic material, independent from that of the nucleus?

Answer 36

mitochondria

Question 37

What was Haeckel's idea about development?

Answer 37

ontogeny repeats phylogeny organisms develop like we evolved with the islets and evolutionarily old features developing first and newest/more complex features developing later

Question 38

timeline of methods of cognitive neuroscience (6)

Answer 38

``` observation of brain lesion and resulting behavioural deficits linking deficits to pathology single cell recordings producing deficits in animals stimulation of the cortex neuroimaging ```

Question 39

what was Franz Josef Gall's idea about the brain called?

Answer 39

phrenology

Question 40

what are the assumptions of phrenology?

Answer 40

human mental capacity is made of different separable functions the functions can be localised in specific parts of the brain the use of a function increases the size of the brain region growth of a brain region leads to development of detectable lumps in the skull

Question 41

What is Broca's area?

Answer 41

brain region in frontal lobe associated with language production

Question 42

what is cytoarchitecture?

Answer 42

looking at the cellular composition of central nervous system tissues under a microscope

Question 43

what do classical neuroimaging methods actually measure and why?

Answer 43

blood flow | assuming that neurones activity = synapse activity = higher energy consumption = more blood flow

Question 44

advantages of functional neuroimaging

Answer 44

study of brain function in living organisms easy to visualise popular with the media can use experimental design to control

Question 45

disadvantages of functional neuroimaging

Answer 45

indirect measure of activity | non-ecological conditions

Question 46

what is white matter?

Answer 46

connections/myelin

Question 47

what is grey matter?

Answer 47

nerve cells

Question 48

what does anterior mean?

Answer 48

front

Question 49

what does posterior mean?

Answer 49

back

Question 50

what is associated with the anterior part of the spinal cord?

Answer 50

movement

Question 51

what is associated with the posterior part of the spinal cord?

Answer 51

sensory

Question 52

what does dysarthria mean?

Answer 52

slow/slurred speech | poorly articulated speech

Question 53

what is melodic intonation therapy?

Answer 53

when patients lose speech, they can sometimes still sing | so they are told to sing sentences and learn to speak over time with less melody

Question 54

distal vs proximal

Answer 54

distal = towards edge vs proximal = towards centre

Question 55

dorsal vs ventral

Answer 55

dorsal = back or upper side vs ventral = front or lower side

Question 56

rostral vs caudal

Answer 56

rostral = towards the head or face vs caudal = away from the head or towards the tail

Question 57

cortical vs subcortical

Answer 57

cortical = surface of the brain vs subcortical = centre of brain

Question 58

ipsilateral vs contralateral

Answer 58

ipsilateral = same side as something, vs contralateral = opposite side to something (need reference point for these to make sense)

Question 59

what is cognitive neuropsychology?

Answer 59

the study of the structures and functions of the brain and how they relate to psychological processes

Question 60

what is anosognosia?

Answer 60

when a patient doesn't realise they have a problem

Question 61

what is anosodiaphoria?

Answer 61

when a patient realises they have a problem but is indifferent to the severity of it

Question 62

what is semantic dementia?

Answer 62

when patients can speak fluently but don't know very common words they take things very literally they try to compensate for semantic memory loss with better episodic memory