nature vs nurture Flashcards
What is psychology?
is the sceintific study of behaviour and mental processes
what is the differnce between behaviour and mental processes
behaviour - an observable action made by a living thing
mental processes - an experience that occurs within an indivual
what is the difference between a psychologist and a psycharitrist?
a psychatrist can prescribe medicine and a psychologist cant.
what is biology?
the study of life and living organsisms
what is the nervous system?
the nervous system is a system of nerves and cells that carries messages around the body
what is the nervous system made up of?
- CNS ( central nervous system )
- PNS ( peripheral nervous system ) - nerves outside the brain
CNS?
the brain is the control centre of the body, the spinal cord allows the brain to communicate with the rest of the body
definition of autonomic nervous sysrem and its divisions
the autonomic nervous system contracts non skeletal muscles (non voluntary = heart, glands, organs)
- sympathetic = prepares for action, inducing or fight, flight and freeze response
- parasympathetic = calms our body down to our regular state, rest and digest
divisions on PNS?
-somatic
-autonomic
defintion and divions of somatic nervous system
the somatic nervous system
- carries messages from brain to skeletal muscles (voluntary movemnt) - MOTOR
- processes sensors - SENSORY
cerebellum location and role
- located at the base of brain
- responsible for muscle coordination and balance
pons location and role
- located on brain stem
- responsible for regualting breathing and sleep cycles
cerebrum location and role
- main part of brain
- outer layer = cerebral cortex
- divided into left and right hemispheres, each hemishphere has 4 lobes
what is the role of cerbral cortex
where all conscious thought and thinkiung occours
list the 4 lobes in the cerebrum
- frontal lobe
- partiel lobe
- occipital lobe
- temporal lobe
what is the occipital lobe?
- dedicated to vision
- contains primary visual cortex in which left lobe receives information from right visual feild and vice versa
What is the frontal lobe?
- largest lobe
- problem solving, decision making and planning
- contains primary motor cortex which initiates volunarty movement
what is the partiel lobe?
- procssing sesnory information, spacial awareness
- contains primary somatosensory cortex which receives and processes information about touch, temp and muscle coordintation
what is the temporal lobe?
- responbible for hearing and langauge comprehension
- contains primary auditory cortex to recognize faces, places, songs
What is hemishperic speciliation?
it means that one hemishpere is involved in a function than the other.
What does the left hemispere specilise?
Logic
What does the right hemispere specilise?
Creativity
what is the brocas area?
brocas area =
- left frontal lobe
- responsible for production of speech
what is the wernickes area?
wernickes area =
- left temporal lobe
- responsible for comprehension of speech
what is werinckles aphasia?
problems with understanding speech
what is brocas aphasia?
problems with producing speech
What is a nueron?
an indivual nerve cell that is the building block of the nervous system
What are the 3 types of nerurons and the defintion
- sensory nuerons - pick up info from your senses to send to your brain
- internerouns ( relay nuerons)
- motor neurons - move your muscles/organs
Soma defintion
cell body which contains nucleus and maintains the nueron
Dendrites defintion
recives information from other neurons and transmits it to the soma
Axon definition
thin tube-like extension that transmits info from the soma to the axon terminal
What are the properties of a neuron
-Dendrites
-Soma
-Axon
-Axon terminal
-Myelin sheath
-Synpatic gap
Axon terminal definition
found at the end of axons, that stores and secretes neurotransmitters
myelin sheath defintion
fatty subtsance coating the axon to make messages travel faster
synpatic gap defintion
the space between 2 neurons in which a message can be passed through
What are neurotransmitters
are chemicals that neurons use to communicate with eachtoher
What is synpatic transmission?
is when neurotransmitters are released from one axon terminal of a neuron to enter the synpatcic gap to connect with the dendrite of another nueron
Electrochemical messsage?
When a neruon passes a message to another neuron
- electric message = message inside neuron
- chemical message = message when outside of a neuron
What is an excitatory neurotranmitter?
Makes post-synpatic neuron more likely to fire (GO)
What is an inhibitory neurotransmitter?
Makes post-synpatic neuron less likely to fire (STOP)
What is DNA and what is it made of?
DNA is the genetic information for an organism and is made of deoxyribonucleic acid.
What is the strucute of DNA
It is a double helix, made up of nucleotides
Define chromosomes
Chromosomes are found in the nucleus of a cell, that is made up off tightly wound DNA molecules.
How many chromosomes do humans have?
46
Define Gene
A gene is a segement of DNA that codes for a specifc protein.
What are the bases for DNA and the base pairs
Adenine + Thymine
Gaunine + Cytosine
What is the backbone of nucleotides and what is it held together by?
Sugar phosphate backbone - held by hydrogen bonds
What are nucleotides made up of?
- Phosphate group
- Deoxyribose sugar
- Base
What is RNA
Ribocunelic acid
What are the features of RNA
- single stranded
- ribose sugar
- made of nucleotides
What are the base pairs?
Adenine + Uracil
Guanine + Cytosine
What are the types of RNA
- mRNA = messenger RNA
- tRNA = transfer RNA
- rRNA = ribosomal RNA
What is protein synthesis
Is when a gene (segment of DNA) makes proteins
What are the steps of protein synthesis
- Transcription (DNA - mRNA)
- Translation (mRNA - protein)
What is mRNA
- carries instructions for 1 gene
- is synthesised in the nucleus
- its function is to make a copy of a gene, and to take it to the ribosome
Define transcription
Step 1: Initiation
- enzyme RNA polymerase binds to a region of gene called the promoter, signaling the DNA strand to unwind.
Step 2: Elongation
- RNA polymerase reads unwound DNA and builds mRNA molecule with complimentary base pairs.
Step 3: Termination
- when RNA polymerase crosses a termination sequence in a gene, and detaches from DNA strand
What is start codon?
AUG
What can mutations be?
harmful: maligant
benificial: benign
no effect
Define translation
- mRNA strand moves from nucleus through nuclear pore to the cytoplasm
- mRNA attaches to ribosome, and the ribosome begins moving along mRNA reading codon at a time. Translation begins at start codon.
- tRNA molecules transport the amino acids to the mRNA strand at the ribosome
- tRNA links with the ribosome and matches its anticodon with the codon of mRNA
- A peptide bond forms between the adjoining amino acids, forming a polypeptide
- Protein production stops when STOP codon is reached. mRNA breaks away from ribosome.
What is a mutation
Mutations are changes in genetic material
How can mutations be caused?
By errors in DNA replication OR induced by mutagens
Define insertion
One base is added to a DNA strand
What is a mutagen?
It is an environmental factor such as X RAY, chemichals or UV light
Define substitution
One base is replaced in a DNA strand
DNA can be affected by..?
a) substitution
b) insertion
c) deletion
d) inversion
Define deletion
One base is deleted from a DNA strand
Define inversion
A segment of DNA is flipped
What is a frameshift?
Insertion and deletion undergo a frameshift in which the codons change
Describe a genetic disorder
Huntingtons disease is a proggressive brain disorder that is caused by insertion. The HTT mutation occours when DNA segment CAG is repeated more than 36 times in a row.
What does William James describe conciousness as?
A river or stream that is continuous (never empty) and ever changing along with selective.
What are the states of concsiousness?
- Normal waking consciousness
- Altered state of consciousness
Define normal waking conciousness
Is when we are awake and aware of your thoughts, feelings and perceptions both internally and from the external world.
define altered state of conciosuness
level of awareness is differed or lessened
when are you in your altered state of consciouness?
- sleep
- coma
- day dreaming
why is sleep an exmaple of altered state of consiousness?
as it invlolves a loss of awareness and disengagment with internal and external stimuli
what are charateriscs of sleep?
- reduced abilty to control behaviour
- less accurate understanding of time
- lack of control over thoughts
what is circadian rythumn
24 hour body clock that controls sleep wake cycle that induces melatonin when dark
what are the 2 types of sleep
- REM
-NREM
define REM sleep
(rapid eye movemnt)
- high amounts of brain acitivyt
- low levels of physical activity (paralysed)
what brain wavs are iin rem sleep
alpha, theta, delta
how much time do we spend in REM in a sleep episode
20-25%
define NREM
- less active brain
- muscle movemnt in possible
what brainwaves are in NREM
delta
how much time do we spend in NREM in a sleep episode
70-75%
define NREM stage 1
- sleeper goes from being awake to light sleep
- loses awareness of sourroundings
define NREM stage 2
- light sleep
- indivuals spend most of there time sleeping in this stage
what is a sleep cycle
approxiemtly 90 minute periods that repeats during a sleep episode, that progresses through stages of REM and NREM
define NREM stage 3
- deep sleep
- difficuluty waking sleeper
what happens to rem sleep in a sleep cycle
REM sleep time increases and lenghtnes
What is a sleep episode?
full duration of time asleep, made up of multiple sleep cycles
how many sleep cycles per night
4-5
what happens to NREM in a sleepp cycle
NREM decreases
what is an ELECTROENCPHALOGRAPH (EEG)
small electrodes being attached to the scalp to observe, measure and record brain acitivty in sleep.
what is an ELECTROCULARGRAPH (EOG)
small electrodes being placed around the eyes to detect, meausre and record eye movemt in sleep from the contractions in the eye muscles.
what happens to REM sleep as we age?
decreases
what is an ELECTROMYOGRAPH (EMG)
small electrodes being placed on the lower jaw to detect record and meausre muscle movement during sleep due to contractions
How many hours of sleep do babies need?
14-17 hours
How many hours of sleep do adults need?
7-8 hours
How many hours of sleep do adolcents need?
9.5 hours
what is delayed sleep onset in adolcnets?
a delayed release of melatonin in adoclents causes the circadiun rythm to be pushed forward 1-2 hours resulting in teens staying up later
what is sleep deprivation?
is inadequate hours of sleep per night, or poor quality of sleep
what is partial sleep deprivation?
too little sleep per night
what is total sleep deprivation
no sleep in 24 hours
what are psychological impacts of sleep deprivation?
- emotional and mental disturbances
- cognotive impairment
what are physiological impacts of sleep deprivation?
- weakend immune system
- increased risk of obesity
