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PSY290: Neurochemical Basis for Behaviour > Lecture 3: Research Methods in Biopsychology > Flashcards

Lecture 3: Research Methods in Biopsychology Flashcards

1
Q

Under what assumption do we operate when we do functional neuroimaging?

A

The brain area involved in the behavior will be more active during that behavior.

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2
Q

What does the EEG measure (specifically)?

A

Electrical activity in specific brain regions.

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3
Q

What type of studies are EEGs typically used for? (3)

A
  1. Arousal
  2. Consciousness
  3. Epilepsy
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4
Q

What structure is the EEG measuring?

A

A small amount of neurons at the surface of the cortex.

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5
Q

What specific neuro mechanism is the EEG measuring?

A

Neurotransmission, because when a neuron stimulates another neuron, ion channels open that allow charged ions into the dendrite. This creates a potential difference that is detectable by the EEG.

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6
Q

What does the EEG signal look like when we are aroused?

A

Low amplitude, high frequency waves.

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7
Q

What does the EEG signal look like when we are in deep sleep?

A

High amplitude, low frequency.

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8
Q

Name all the waves and their EEG frequencies.

A

Alpha: 8-13 Hz
Beta: more than 13 Hz
Theta: 4-8 Hz
Delta: 0-4 Hz

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9
Q

What is an Event-Related Potential (ERP)

A

Neural activity related to brief mental process.

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10
Q

How is an ERP signal determined? (2 steps)

A
  1. Sample the same behavior multiple trials

2. Averaging the waveform, gives you the ERP for that activity

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11
Q

What does the ERP show us about language processing?

A

The sentence that makes sense and doesn’t is associated with different waveforms. The sentence that is grammatically correct/incorrect has different waveforms.

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12
Q

EEG and ERP are used in what subdiscipline of psychology?

A

Psychophysiology

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13
Q

Temporal resolution is the best in which neuroimaging technique?

A

EEG (ERP)

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14
Q

What’s the biggest disadvantage of EEG?

A

Poor spatial resolution. Deeper brain regions cannot be measured.

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15
Q

How does PET work? Positron Emission Tomography.

A

An unstable radiotracer is ingested and will distribute in the brain based on the molecule it is modelling. The signal it generates is used to make a picture of the brain.

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16
Q

What neuroimaging technique is commonly used in Cognitive neuroscience? (2)

A

PET. fMRI

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17
Q

What do signal differences between brain regions in a PET study where synthetic radiotracers are modelled after opiates mean?

A

They reflect differences in opiate transmitter receptor occupancy.

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18
Q

B-amyloid is upregulated in which disease?

A

Alzheimer’s Disease (hard to tell when the person is alive), but we could use its presence to do early detection.

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19
Q

How good is the spatio-temporal resolution of PET?

A

Decent spatial resolution (better than EEG but worse than MRI), poor temporal resolution (difficult to resolve rapid changes in neural activity).

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20
Q

What is PET mainly used for?

A

characterizing substances, receptors and proteins

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21
Q

What geophysical phenomena does the MRI use (2)?

A

Magnetic fields and radiofrequency pulses.

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22
Q

How does an MRI work?

A

Brain tissues are first magnetized, then hit with radiofrequency pulses. When they are hit they emit a signal that is indicative of the type of tissue it is depending on the material (grey vs white).

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23
Q

What does a DTI detect? Diffusion Tensor Imaging.

A

It detects the white matter fibers that connect different parts of the brain.

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24
Q

White tissue is best measured by_______, while grey tissue is best measured by_______.

A

DTI, MRI

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25
Q

Reduced growth of white matter tracts and poorer verbal performance scores are associated with:

A

Cannabis use during adolescence. (only correlative data)

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26
Q

Brain structure is measured by these techniques.

A

DTI, MRI

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27
Q

Describe how an fMRI works.

A

Active neurons use glucose and oxygen, after blood delivers oxygen it becomes deoxygenated. Since ox/deox blood have different magnetic properties, you can measure these properties to discover the ratio of ox/deox blood, which is a correlate of neuronal activity.

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28
Q

Why is the fMRI’s time resolution not ideal?

A

There’s several seconds of lag time between the period of neuronal activity and the peak response that is picked up by the fMRI.

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29
Q

Why is fMRI preferred over other methods? (2)

A

It has the best spatial resolution and can be paired with other techniques (like PET).

30
Q

Describe Patient HM.

A

Removal of hippocampus lead to inability to make new declarative memories.

31
Q

Describe the case of Phineas Gage.

A

Lesion of frontal lobe increased impulsivity and impaired social behavior.

32
Q

Describe the case of patient SM.

A

Lesion of amygdala lead to reduction of fear.

33
Q

Contrast single and double dissociation.

A

Dissociation is the process by which lesion affects one faculty but not the other. A single dissociation means that one person/faculty tested (i.e., person with lesion A can’t write vowels). A double dissociation means that two people with different lesions are tested (i.e., one person with lesion A can’t write vowels, the other person with lesion B can’t write consonants).

34
Q

What is single-cell recording?

A

It’s the action of recording the activity of individual cells during behavior.

35
Q

What is the likely explanation for a single neuron lighting up when we see Jennifer Aniston?

A

There is a neuron that represents the “concept” of Jen.

36
Q

What is angiography?

A

X-rays to study vascular networks, opaque dye absorbs X-rays, more useful as a diagnostic tool than a research tool

37
Q

What is immunohistochemistry?

A

A post-mortem technique that is used to characterize proteins and other substances in the brain.

38
Q

How does immunohistochemistry work?

A

Antibodies can tag and neutralize antigens. So we can engineer specific antibodies that tag proteins in the brain instead of pathogens.

39
Q

Which technique allows us to measure DNA and RNA expression levels in tissues?

A

immunohistochemistry

40
Q

What is the only neuroimaging technique that we can draw causal inferences from?

A

Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

41
Q

How does TMS work?

A

We apply TMS to a particular brain area during a behaviour. If that behaviour changes, we can infer that the brain area targeted is involved in that behaviour.

42
Q

TMS applied to which brain region may help treat depression?

A

Frontal Lobe

43
Q

TMS applied to the frontal lobe can be useful for what?

A

Treatment for depression, and rescue of cognition and memory in Alzheimer’s.

44
Q

What are the disadvantages of using TMS? (3)

A
  1. Unclear what stimulation parameters to use
  2. Difficulty precisely targeting certain deep brain areas.
  3. Relatively new/underused.
45
Q

What is EBS? Electrical brain stimulation?

A

Activation of certain brain areas (e.g., entorhinal cortex) using electrodes can facilitate spatial memory. Can we use this to retrieve brain function?

46
Q

Cortical maps (specifically the sensory and motor homunculi) were discovered with this technique.

A

Electrical Brain Stimulation

47
Q

When is EBS used? Why is this a problem?

A

When there is another pathology present? (i.e., epilepsy). The disorder may be a potential confound.

48
Q

What is electrophysiology?

A

The study of the electrical properties of biological cells and tissues in the nervous system

49
Q

What is an intracellular unit recording in electrophysiology?

A

An intracellular microelectrode records the membrane from one neuron as it fires.

50
Q

What is an extracellular unit recording in electrophysiology?

A

An extracellular microelectrode records the electrical disturbance that is created each time an adjacent neuron fires.

51
Q

What is a multiple-unit recording?

A

A small electrode records the AP of many nearby neurons. These are added up and plotted.

52
Q

What guide do we use when we operate on rodents?

A

Stereotaxic

53
Q

Why is lesion not the preferred method of performing experiments on rodents?

A

It’s permanent, the better option would be to pharmacologically lesion the brain for some period of time/or electrically manipulate it.

54
Q

Electrodes deliver_____ while drugs are delivered through ______.

A

Stimulation/cannulae

55
Q

Describe a case study where drugs were delivered to the hippocampus.

A

Cannula implanted into hippocampus with muscimol (GABA agonist) to inhibit hippocampus. When this happened DURING SLEEP, memories of objects were not stored. Inference that hippocampus activation during sleep increases objective recollection.

56
Q

What are transgenic animals?

A

Animals with a genome that has been modified (added from another source).

57
Q

Why are mice used in genetic studies (3)?

A
  1. Mouse genome is well understood.
  2. Most human genes have counterparts in the mouse.
  3. Easy to maintain.
58
Q

What is a knock-out mouse?

A

A mouse with a removed gene.

59
Q

What is a knock-in mouse?

A

A mouse with a gene added. Useful for studying human genes that are not in mice.

60
Q

Name the type of manipulations you can do with knock-in mice? (3)

A
  1. You can add reporter proteins (fluorescent)
  2. Drug-responsive receptors (chemogenetics)
  3. Light-response receptors (optogenetics)
61
Q

What is a conditional transgenic knock-out?

A

Genes are knocked out of only certain cell-types.

62
Q

What does a selective knock-in allow us to study?

A

Specific cell types.

63
Q

What are the characteristics of transgenic models? (3)

A
  1. Modifications are irreversible
  2. The gene may trigger a compensatory response
  3. Deleting certain genes can be fatal
64
Q

What are inducible knockouts?

A

A knockout that is activated by a particular agent when present, and removes it when the agent is not present

65
Q

What are optogenetics?

A

Its the technique where light is used to control specific neurons that are genetically sensitized to light.

66
Q

What are the advantages of optogenetics? (2)

A
  1. Great temporal and spatial resolution

2. You can target specific neurons

67
Q

What is it called when only certain cells are given light sensitivity?

A

Conditional transgenic knock-in.

68
Q

What is the limitation of using genes from algae for optogenetics?

A

Only changes hippocampal neurons.

69
Q

What are the disadvantages of optogenetics?

A
  1. What stimulation frequencies do we use?
  2. When do we apply stimulation?
  3. Potential long-term effects
  4. Very complicated technically.
70
Q

What are chemogenetics? (DREADD)

A

Creating genetic sensitivity to drugs by adding a synthetic receptor to the genome (i.e. hMD family)

71
Q

What is the hMD family of receptors?

A

Lacks an endogenous ligand and only responds to a synthetic ligand (CNO)

72
Q

What is an example of an excitatory DREADD receptor and an inhibitory one that can be expressed in the same cell?

A

excitatory: hM3Dq
inhibitory: KORD

PSY290: Neurochemical Basis for Behaviour (9 decks)

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