Gen Psych Chapter 3 Flashcards
What are sensory neurons?
Receive sensory info form the environment and sends it to the brain.
What are motor neurons?
Transmits motor commands from brain to the muscles.
What are Inter-neurons?
Connects to sensory, motor, and other neurons.
What are the names of the three parts of a neuron?
Dendrite, axon, and cell body.
What does a dendrite do?
Receivers detect info from other neurons and “decides” to pass the info along.
What is a cell body?
Central processor, and contains nucleus, and collects and integrates info.
What does the axon do?
They are transmitters and sends info into other neurons, muscles, and glands.
What is the myelin sheath?
It is the fatty material that insulates the axon.
What is synapse?
The space between neurons that chemicals must cross to reach neighboring cells.
What is resting potential?
The difference in the electric charge between the inside and the outside of a neuron’s cell membrane.
What is action potential?
An electric signal that is conducted along the length of a neuron’s axon to a synapse.
What are terminal buttons?
They are knoblike structures that branch out from an axon. They are filled with neurotransmitters that are chemicals that transmit info across the synapse to a receiving neuron’s dendrites.
What is a pre-synaptic neuron?
This is the sending neuron.
What are post-synaptic neuron?
They are the receiving neuron.
What is an excitatory neurotransmitter?
This makes the post-synaptic most likely to fire.
What is an inhalaitory neurotransmitter?
This makes the post-synaptic neuron less likely to fire.
What is reuptake?
This is when neurotransmitters are reabsorbed by pre-synaptic terminal buttons.
What is Enzyme Deactivation?
This is the process where enzyme’s function is to destroy excess NT’s in synapse.
What is electrical and chemical neurons?
Communication within a neuron is electrical, but comm between neurons is chemical.
What is the rule of neural firing?
All or none.
The peripheral system has two main systems, what are they called?
Automatic and Somatic
What does the automatic system do?
This regulates the organs and glands.
What does the sympathetic system do?
Fight or flight
What does the parasympathetic system do?
Rest and digest
What are spinal reflexes?
Simple pathways in the nervous system that rapidly generate muscle contractions.
What is the reflex arc?
A neural pathway that controls reflex actions.
What does the higher brain do?
Evolutionary recent, and completes complex functions.
What does the lower brain do?
This part of the brain is ancient and performs simpler functions.
What are the principals of the structure of the brain?
(1) Hierarchical organization, (2) Localization of function.
What is the hindbrain?
Keeps an organism alive even without other parts of the brain.
What is the Cerebellum?
This controls motor skills, balance, and coordination.
What are pons (bridges)?
This relays info from the cerebellum to the forebrain and also contributes to sleeping and dreaming.
What is the midbrain?
Involves pleasure and reward.
What is a tectum?
Orients an organism to its environment.
What is a Tegmentum?
It controls movement, arousal and reward.
What is the forebrain?
Controls complex functions and emotional functions, and perception.
What is the Thalamus?
This is the sensory switchboard.
What is the pituitary gland?
This is the master gland of “hormone” system.
What is the limbic system?
Groups of structures in the forebrain involved in motivation, emotion, memory.
What does the Hypothalamus do?
Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding, and Fucking
What does the Hippocampus do?
This converts short-term hormones into long-term hormones.
What does the amygdala do?
Controls emotion, and emotional significance.
What does the thalamus do?
This relays and and filters information from the senses and transmits the info to the cerebral cortex.
What does the basal ganglia do?
This is a set of subcortical structures that directs intentional movements and plays a role in reward processing.
What is central lateral control?
Each hemisphere of the brain controls the opposite side of the body.
What is the corpus callosum?
This is the bridge of nerve fibers that connects the hemispheres.
What is the occipital lobe?
Processes visual info.
What is the parietal lobe?
Processes touch.
What is the frontal lobe?
Abstract thinking, planning, and judgement.
What is the temporal lobe?
Processing sounds, object and facial recognition.
What is Broca’s Area?
This is language production.
What is Wernickers Area?
This is language comprehension.
What is neural plasticity?
This means that younger brains are more flexible than older brains. You’re more likely to recover from a brain injury if you are young.
What are association areas?
They are composed of neurons that help provide sense and meaning to information registered in the cortex.
What are chromosones?
Strands of DNA wound around each other in the double helix model.
What are epigenetic marks?
Chemical modifications to DNA can turn genes on and off.
What is DNA methylation?
This involves adding methyl group to DNA.
What is histone modification?
This involves adding chemical modifications to proteins called histones that are involved in packagaing DNA.
What is Heritability?
This is a measure of the variability of behavioral traits among individuals that can be accounted for by genetic factors.
