Exam 2 Flashcards
What is the central nervous system?
The nervous system comprised of the brain and spinal chord.
What is the peripheral nervous system?
The set of nerves that connects the central nervous system to the sensory organs, muscles, and glands.
What are the two subsets of the peripheral nervous system?
Sympathetic (arousing) and parasympathetic (calming)
KNOW
The sympathetic division is important for the response to stressful situations.
KNOW
the parasympathetic division stimulates digestive processes and other activities that help to regenerate and vitalize the body.
Through evolution, how have species developed more complex brain systems?
By “adding on” to older, more primitive structures.
Name parts of the central nervous system
Spinal chord, brainstem, thalamus, basal ganglia, limbic system, hypothalamus, cortex
What are the ascending and descending tracts of the spinal chord?
Ascending tract: carries sensory info from spinal nerves to brain.
Descending tract: carries motor-control info from the brain to transmitted by the spinal nerves to the muscles.
What is the brainstem responsible for?
Automatic survival functions, such as breathing and heartbeat.
What is the cerebellum responsible for?
Motor control, posture, balance, and rapid, well-timed movements
Where is the cerebellum located?
In the lower back of the brain
What is the thalamus responsible for?
It serves as a relay station that receives sensory inputs such as vision, sound, etc.
What is the basal ganglia for?
Motor control (specifically intentional movements)
What area of the brain does parkinson’s disease affect?
The nerves running into the basal ganglia.
What is the hypothalamus responsible for?
Regulating basic body functions such as hunger, thirst, sleep, and body temperature.
What is the amygdala responsible for?
Processing and regulating emotional states.
What is the hippocampus responsible for?
Building long-term memories. People with damage to the hippocampus cannot acquire new memories, but can retain old ones.
What is the cerebral cortex?
The outermost layer and largest part of the brain (80% of total volume). It is divided into left and right hemispheres.
What part of a human’s brain is proportionally larger than other animals?
the cortex
What lobe is responsible for speaking, imagining, and thinking?
The frontal lobe
What lobe is responsible for bodily sensations?
Parietal lobe
What lobe is responsible for vision?
Occipital lobe
What lobe is responsible for hearing, language, and comprehension?
Temporal lobe
KNOW
Motor cortex: located at rear of frontal lobes and controls voluntary movements.
Sensory cortex: located at front of parietal lobes and registers sensations.
**The more cortex is devoted to a body part, the finer control we have over that body part.
What is motor/visual crossover?
The right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body/visual field and vice versa.
What is the corpus callosum?
A large bundle of neural fibers (axons) connecting the two brain hemispheres. It is also the main pathway that links and sends communication between the two halves of the brain and permits data to cross hemispheres.
Give an example of the corpus collosum functioning
You cannot simultaneously draw a square and a circle because both sides of your brain are connected.
What is the left hemisphere responsible for?
Language, right side of body, and right visual field
What is the right hemisphere responsible for?
Face recognition, left side of body, left visual field.
What is aphasia?
Impairment of language, usually caused by damge to Broca’s area (impaired speaking) or Wenicke’s area (impaired comprehension).
What are two issues in brain imaging?
Spatial Resolution: how close in physical proximity you can get to the target brain area
Temporal Resolution: How close in time you can get to when the neurons fire
What does an EEG measure?
Electrical signals associated with neural firing in brain areas. Excellent temporal resolution, poor spatial resolution.
What does a CT scan do?
Provides information about brain structure. Fair spatial resolution and no temporal resolution.
MRI
Excellent spatial resolution, no temporal resolution. Measure based on oxygen consumption and blood flow.
What is the structure of a neuron?
The dendrite (bushy, branching extensions) receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body. The axon is a tube-like structure that outputs messages to other neurons or to muscles or glands.
What is a myelin sheath?
It is a white fatty casing that acts as an electrical insulator for the axon, and increases the speed of neural signals through the axon.
What are the three kinds of neurons?
Sensory, motor, and interneurons
What do sensory, motor, and interneurons do?
Sensory send input from sensory areas to the brain and spinal chord. Motor send output from the brain and spinal chord to muscles and glands. Interneurons send information to other neurons.
When does neural development take place?
Some takes place in the womb, but continues until around age 18. Occipital lobes develop first and frontal lobes last.
What is plasticity?
The ability for neural tissue to reorganize and “heal” in response to damage if the brain is still developing.
What is action potential?
A brief electrical charge that travels down an axon and influences the activity of the receiving neuron (goes down the axon).
What is synapse?
The junction between the axon tip of the sending neuron and the dendrite or cell body of the receiving neuron. Neurotransmitters are what traverse the synaptic gap.
What is the difference between an agonist and an antagonist?
Agonists increase the effect of a neurotransmitter, antagonists interfere with the effect of a neurotransmitter.
What do psychoactive drugs do?
Alter synaptic communication
What does Alzheimer’s disease do?
Destroys the brain tissue beginning with the hippocampus.
What is sensation?
The process by which sense organs gather information about the physical environment and transmit it to the brain.
What are the stages of sensation?
Stimulation, transduction (transforming physical stimuli into neural signals), transmission, and representation in the brain
What are the 6 major senses?
Taste, smell, hearing, touch, pain, and vision
True or False: receptors for different tastes are in different areas of the tongue
False, receptors are distributed evenly throughout the tongue. Most people have 2,000-10,000
True or False: it’s harder to taste if you cannot smell
True
True or False: Frequency of a sound wave is related to the pitch
True
What does amplitude of a sound relate to?
Loudness
What is the purpose of the structure of the ear?
To measure the frequency (pitch) and amplitude (loudness) of the sound waves.
KNOW
Outer ear directs sound, middle ear amplifies sound, inner ear transduces sound into neural response
What are the 3 main touch sensations?
Pressure, warmth, and cold
What are the two different ways to signal pain?
A-delta fibers (myelinated) and C-fibers (unmyelinated). A-delta fibers are thick and fast conducting, C-fibers are thin and slow conducting.
What is the Gate-Control theory?
The idea that the spinal chord contains a neurological “gate” that either blocks pain signals or allows them to pass through to the brain.
True or False: the experience of pain does not always originate from pain receptors
False; phantom limb pain is experienced in about 80% of amputees
What is the purpose of the visual system?
To transform light energy into a neural impulse and represent characteristics of objects (size, shape, color, etc)
What are the two different kinds of eyes?
Compound eyes, which have multiple lenses (inefficient for resolution), and simple eyes, which have a single lens.
What do rods and cones do?
Rods: permit vision in dim light and are everywhere except the fovea
Cones: permit color vision and are mostly in the fovea
What is the blind spot?
The region where the eye cannot see because there are no rods or cones
Why don’t we notice the blind spot?
Our visual system fills in the missing information from the blind spot
How do our eyes interpret color?
The visual system interprets differences in the wavelengths of light as color, while amplitude is interpreted as intensity.
True or False: more women than men are colorblind
False
