Lecture 8 Flashcards
What are Ethical standards designed to protect?
The welfare of both human and animal participants in psychological research
What are the parts of ethics?
- Protect and promote welfare of participants
- Avoid doing harm
- Benefit must be proportionately greater than the risk
- Informed consent must be provided
- Ensure privacy and confidentiality
Where must research be approved?
Ethics review board (REB)
When is Deception allowed?
Under certain circumstances (e.g. has to be absolutely necessary for the experiment, has to be relatively mild)
What must be done after a Deception experiment?
All participants must be debriefed and told the true purpose of the experiment
What does Bioethics refer to?
An emerging field of ethics with a great deal of relevance to psychological research. It deals with the ethics inherent to scientific progress in the field of biology and medicine
What are Neurons?
Nerve cells which form the basic building blocks of the nervous system
How many neurons at birth?
100 billion neurons at birth
What does the cell body of the neuron contain?
Contains the biochemical structures that maintain the neuron and the nucleus which carries the genetic programming information (DNA)
What do Axons do?
Send signals to other neurons
What do dendrites do?
Receive signals from other neurons
What are axons covered with?
The Myelin sheath
What is the Myelin sheath composed of?
Fatty, whitish insulation layer
What is the Myelin sheath interrupted by?
Nodes of Ranvier (gaps where the myelin is thin/very absent)
What does Myelination do?
Increases the transmission speed of nerve impulses. Signal ‘jumps’ from node to node in myelinated axons
What is Multiple Sclerosis?
A neurological disorder in which. the immune system attacks the myelin causing demyelination
What is the ratio of glial cells to neurons?
10-1 of glial cells to neurons
What do Glial cell do?
They support/nourish/protect neurons •Manufacture nutrient chemicals •Form the myelin sheath around some neurons •Absorb toxins/waste material •Guide newly divided neurons into place
What is the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB)?
A lining of specialized tightly packed glial cells in the brain’s blood vessels that screen out foreign substances such as toxins
What is the Resting Potential of a neuron?
-70mV which is called polarization
What is the resting potential of a neuron due to?
Negatively charged ions in the cell and positively charged ions outside of the cell
What happens during an action potential?
Sodium channels open and Na+ flows into the neuron changine the resting potential of -70mV to +40mV. This is called depolarization
What happens after Depolarization?
Sodium channels close and K+ channels open causing K+ to flow out of the cell and restore the negative resting potential
What is the All-or-none law?
When an action potential occurs its always at the same intensity
What is Graded Potentials?
Small changes in the resting potential that do not reach the threshold required to trigger an action potential
What is Absolute refractory period?
Following an action potential another AP cannot be generated while the resting balance is being restored
