neurobiology Flashcards

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1
Q

Describe the advatnage of fMRI over CT and MRI scans Explain what has happened in the brain in order to recover from the stroke (3)

A
  • fMRI provides information on brain function wherea MRI and CT scan provide images which show structure
  • neuroplasticity
  • undamaged axons frow new nerve endings to connect damaged neurones
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1
Q

With reference to the homonculi shown above, identify what they show amd describe and explain the major differences between two images representing the homoculi (4)

A
  • sensroy homonculus shows relatice senseitivity of different parts of the body and motor homonculus shows the motor control of different parts of the body
  • area for hand is greater in motor cortex- fine motor control
  • area for face is greater in motor cortex - because of the fine motor control needed for facia lexpressions/chewing/swallowing/vocalisation
  • areas devoted to tongue/lips/genitals greater in motor cortex - due to large number of sensroy receptors
  • no area in motor cortex for teeth, gums, genitals- no motor control of teeth, gums and genitals
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2
Q

A stroke affecting Wernike’s area has a different affect to a stroke affecting Broca’s area. Using your knowledge of these areas of the cerebral cortex describe the effect of each type of stroke (2)

A
  • Stroke in Broca’s area - patient cannot produce speech
  • Stroke in Wernike’s area - patient does not understand speech
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3
Q

What are the advantages to the meerkat colony of this dominance hierarchy (2)

A
  • reduces aggression
  • dominant males and females have fitter offspring , improving the survival/advantageous alleles passed
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4
Q

Explain the reasons for large size male lions (1)

A
  • males fight for sexual access to females
  • sexual selection has favoured evolution of larger males
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5
Q

What is the advantage to the study of uing meerkats ‘habituateed’ to close observation and handling (1)

A
  • they are used to being handled and show natural behaviour
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6
Q

How can the investigation between weight gain and rate of play between meerkats be improved

A
  • repeat investigation with more individuals
  • use data from individuals of same age/same gender
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7
Q

The brain can be studies in several ways. Outlime the differences in the information provided by an EEG and CT (2)

A
  • EEG -measures electrical activity of the brain
  • CT- gives brain images
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8
Q

Suggest why children who are not exposed to languge druing the critical period are likely to never develop speech (4)

A
  • druing critical period synapses are formed and strengthened
  • if speech/language areas of the brain are not stimulated
  • there is more pruning of unused synapses
  • after critical period - brain is hard wired and more difficult to form new synapses for language
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9
Q

Suggest how the fMRI images and graph would differ for a feral child (1)

A
  • less grey matter activity/darker scan and fewer synapses
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10
Q

State one factor which could be involved in causing this effect in feral children or those exposed to psychological trauma at an early age (1)

A
  • high cotrisol levels
  • epigenetic changes to the brain in critical period/increases methlyation
  • maternal influence during pregnancy
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11
Q

Which area of the brain is involved in learning (1)

A
  • hippocampus / temporal lobe
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12
Q

State two factors that shoudl be controlled when thirty female rats were placed in three groups and number of errors made when going through the maze was recorded (2)

A
  • age/gender of rat
  • length of time left in the mze
  • mass of rat
  • same maze
  • same reward
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13
Q

Use the information provided to conclude the learning patterns exhibited by each group of rats
Group 1 -rewarded every time they completed the maze
Group 2 -places in the maze every day and only rewarded from day 10 onwards
Group 3 - never rewarded (4)

A
  • group 1 - rewardede every time -operant conditioning as there is a steady decrease in errors
  • group 2 - latenet learning until day 10
  • then operant conditioning becasue reward is given
  • group 3 latenet learniing only as no reward is given
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14
Q

Explain why a PET scans would be suitable for investigating activity levels within the brain whereas an MRI scan would not (2)

A
  • MRI scans show structural anatomy of the brain and PET scans show areas of the brain which are functioning at a particular time
  • MRI wouldn’t show active areas of the brain as language is an active process
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15
Q

Suggest and explain how the PET scans of a deaf person activley using british sign language would compare of that od a hearing person (5)

A
  • brocas areas is the same as both as both produce language
  • increased use of motor cortex in BSL and more activity in that area in scan
  • BSL involves more movement than speech alone
  • increaed use of occipital love for vision in BSL
  • decreased use of the auditory cortex in BSL/ less activity in that area
  • no link to sound and ear / no sound detected
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16
Q

Suggest two medical details that would be needed when interpreting PET scans from patients with hearing problems (2)

A
  • ages when became deaf
  • reason for deafness
  • level of deafness
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17
Q

Explain why PET cans of adults with total hearing loss have revealed activation of regions of the cortex related to hearing (3)

A
  • deaf people may exhibity neuroplasticity /brain adapted to form new connections as there is no auditory stimuli bieng recieved
  • auditory cortex involved in interprtation of BSL
  • new connections / different connections to hearing between auditory cortex and brocas/ wernickes area
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18
Q

State one advantage of male sticklebacks of defending their territory (1)

A
  • building a nest
  • attract a mate
  • increase reproductive sucess
  • protect offspring/eggs
  • redue competition with other males for mating
19
Q

What is meant by a sign stimulu and based on this information idnetify what it would be for the stickleback. Explain your answer (3)

A
  • sign stimulus - a stimulus which causes a fixed action pattern produced by one individual and causes a response in a second individual
  • red belly triggers the aggressive behviour/attack/bite
  • many more bite seens when red bellied model used / more aggression
20
Q

The standard deviation for both models was high. Explain how this could affect your confidence in the conclusion (1)

A

reduce confidence in conclusion as SDS overlap

21
Q

Complete the table for sympathetic and parasympathetic
neutortransmitter
general effect
effect on heart rate (3)

A

sympathetic
* noradrenaline
* excitatory
* increase
parasympathetic
* acetylcholine
* inhibitory
* decrease

22
Q

Explain what the motor homonculus represents (1)

A
  • larger the area on the motor cortex and increased fine movements
23
Q

Suggest why the sensory homonculus would differ from the moto homonculus (1)

A
  • increased sensory cortex to areas more receptive to stimuli / or incread senroy cortex for genitals/ hand /tongue
24
Q

High levels of cortisol can cause mental illnes. Cushing’s disease can be caused by a tumour on the pituaitary gland causes an abnormally high level of ACTH to be released
suggest why mental illness has been linked with Cushing’s disease (3)

A
  • cotrisol levels are raised
  • cortisol levels raised all the time
  • negative feedback loop is not working/overidden
25
Q

The gene for cortisol is expressed in the cells of the adrenal glang. Suggest how the expression of this gene could be affected in children who have experienced trauma (2)

A
  • epigenetic factors
  • increased gene expression leading to increased cortisol levels
26
Q

State the advantages of ants living in a colony (2)

A
  • division of labour/ seperate working groups /different groups for different jobs
  • increased efficiency
27
Q

Suggest how ants may communicate with each oterh (1)

A
  • pheomones
  • visual cues
  • touch
  • movement
28
Q

State the type of sexual selection displayed by male elephant seals explain the consequence of this type of selection (2)

A
  • intra sexual selection
  • males more aggressive/ increases sexual dimorphism / weaker male dies off / strong males / passing on of advantageous allelels
29
Q

Describe what lope of the cerebral cortex was damages
personality affected so he was rude to friends , lost all inhibitions exhibiting very aggressive behaviour (1)

A

frontal lobe

30
Q

Describe what lope of the cerebral cortex was damages
inability to distinguish colours and reported hallucinations (1)

A

occipital

31
Q

Describe what lope of the cerebral cortex was damaged
the patient could not remeber his childrens name and forgot to read a map (1)

A

temporal

32
Q

What neurotransmitter are involved in parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system (1)

A

parasympathetic - acetylcholine
sympathetic - noradrenaline

33
Q

How does the sympathetic nervous system helps an individual during fight or flight response (2)

A
  • increases heart rate / ventilation/blood pressure
  • this ensures that muscles are supplied with blood to enable the response / more oxygen delivered to muscles
34
Q

Explain the role of the brain in preventing the individual becoming overstresed (2)

A
  • cortisol bind to the glucocorticoid receptors in the hippocampis
  • hippocampus sends nerve impulses to the hypothamalmus inhibiting it
35
Q

The blood cortisol levels of an individual who had suffereed a traumatic childhood would be expected to be higher than normal. Explain why such individuals may be pre disposed to mental illnesses throughout their lives (1)

A
  • negative feedback doesn’t work
36
Q

Bees show a variety of behaviour patterns which are innate and instinctive. On returning to their colonie , worker honeybees perform a dance to communicate to otehr bees the direction and distance of a food source
explain why this social behaviour benefits the colony (1)

A

they will be more efficient at finding food

37
Q

idnetify the main reisk associated with the study of honeybee communitcation and how the risk can be minismised (1)

A
  • bee stings - wear protective clothing
38
Q

There were two factors important in term of making a valid conclusion
thousans of bees were tudied and collected data from more than one hive
his study also been repeated by other sceinctists many times
explain why these two factors were important in terms of making a valid conclusion (2)

A
  • many bees from different hives increases reliability/ repeatability of data
  • other studies getting similar data/peer review / reproducability
39
Q

Explain the advantages of social learning to different groups of chimpanzees (1)

A
  • allows them to adapt to / access available food in different environments they are in
40
Q

Suggest why the scientist studied the hippoampus region of the brain when workign with taxi drivers (2)

A
  • involved in learning/consolidating memories/ patial memory/spatial awarness
  • permanent memory storage
  • short term to long term memory
41
Q

The independent variable in this reearch was being a male taxi driver . The depednent varial was the volume of the hippocampus as seen using a MRI. male non taxi drivers were used as controls in this study. Suggest two other factors regarding these individuals that should be controlled (1)

A
  • age
  • health
  • driving experience
42
Q

A further investiagtion is to be carried out to look at cahnges in brain actiivity during a map reading excercise whilst driving the taxi. Suggest a brain imaging technique that could be used and explain why it would be more suitable than MRI (2)

A
  • EEG
  • portable
43
Q

In order to better understand learning in animals, researched presented potted hyena with a problem solving task, hyenas were places in a puzzle box and were encourages to escape to reach food places outside. researched times how long it took the hyenas to excape and repeated several times
state and explain the type of behaviour exhibited by these hyenas (2)

A
  • operant conditioning
  • hyenas rewarded with food / learning associated with a reward
44
Q

In order to better understand learning in animals, researched presented potted hyena with a problem solving task, hyenas were places in a puzzle box and were encourages to escape to reach food places outside. researched times how long it took the hyenas to excape and repeated several times
explain the time taken to escpae from the box decreases (1)

A
  • learn that escpaing would have favourable consequences / learn the route / learn how to escape / positive reinforcement
45
Q

In order to better understand learning in animals, researched presented potted hyena with a problem solving task, hyenas were places in a puzzle box and were encourages to escape to reach food places outside. researched times how long it took the hyenas to excape and repeated several times
suggest how expermine could be modified to improve the reliability of the conclusion (1)

A
  • increase sample size
  • use more or different hyenas
  • do more tirals
  • conpare against a control
  • group description of control