Neural Mechanisms and the Control of Behavior

Question 1

Briefly, how do neurons work?

Answer 1

• Neurons communicate in action potentials. (Action potentials are rapid, sudden changes in electrical charge).
• Neurons communicate with each other at synapses using neurotransmitters.
• Neurons are organized into neural circuits

Question 2

What are the parts of a neutral network?

Answer 2

Neural Network:
1) Sensor - takes stimulus and turns it into action potentials.
2) Sends to sensory neurons
3) Sends to integration (brain)
4) Sends to motor neuron
5) Sends signals to our muscles for action.

Question 3

How do animals avoid being overwhelmed by the amount of stimuli out there? What are some means they use to filter out just the relevant information?

Answer 3

• Filtering!
• Filtering can happen at multiple stages, such as pre-sensory filtering, sensory filtering, and neural filtering.

Question 4

How do neural networks encode information about a particular stimulus? (type, direction, intensity, etc.). Describe important neural components of the bat-moth system in detail.

Question 5

Distinguish between presensory, sensory, and neural filtering, and give some types or examples of each.

Answer 5

• Pre-sensory Filtering = affects information before it gets to the sensory surface. It’s also called “active sensing,” and it focuses on the most important information before it reaches a sensory receptor cell or gets turned into an actual potential action.
• Sensory Filtering = depends on the sensitivity of sensory neurons. A type of sensory filtering is known as sensory adaptation, which is a continuous stimulus for a period of time that will cause our sense receptors to stop responding.
• Neural Filtering = interneurons can filter information from the sensory neurons.

Question 6

Describe the important neural components of a central pattern generator. How do CPGs work to create rhythmic behaviors?

Question 7

What is code-breaking?