Paper 2 Bio Psychology

Question 1

What is the nervous system?

Answer 1

The nervous system consist of the central nervous system and peripheral nervous system.

Question 2

What is the central nervous system?

Answer 2

The central nervous system consist of the brain and the spinal cord and is origin of all complex command and decisions.

Question 3

What is the peripheral nervous system?

Answer 3

the peripheral nervous system sends information to the central nervous system from the outside world and transmits messages from the central nervous system to muscles and glands in the body.

Question 4

What is the somatic nervous system?

Answer 4

the somatic nervous system transmit information from receptor cells in the sense organs to the central nervous system, it also receives information from the central nervous system that directs muscles to act.

Question 5

What is the automatic nervous system?

Answer 5

the automatic nervous system transmits information to and from internal bodily organs it is automatic and the system operates in voluntarily, it has two main divisions the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Question 6

What are the two main functions of the nervous system?

Answer 6

to collect process and respond to information in the environment and to coordinate the working of different organs and cells in the body.

Question 7

Outline the brains role in the central nervous system.

Answer 7

the brain is the centre of all conscious awareness, the outer layer or cerebral cortex is highly developed in humans and is what distinguishes are higher mental functions from those of animals. Brain is divided into two hemispheres.

Question 8

Outline what the spinal cord is and its role in the nervous system.

Answer 8

spinal cord is an extension of the brain and is responsible for reflex actions such as pulling your hand away and movements and motor function.

Question 9

What is the peripheral nervous system made up of and how does it transmit messages.

Answer 9

The peripheral nervous system send messages via millions of neurons to and from the central nervous system, it is made up of the autonomic nervous system ( which governs vital functions in the body such as breathing) and the somatic nervous system ( which controls muscle movement and receives information from a sensory receptors)

Question 10

Define the endocrine system.

Answer 10

one of the body’s major information systems that instruct glands to release hormones directly into the bloodstream these hormones are carried toward target organs in the body.

Question 11

What are hormones?

Answer 11

Hormones are chemical substances that circulate in the bloodstream and only affect target organs, they are produced in large quantities and disappeared quickly as their effect is very powerful.

Question 12

How does the endocrine system compared with the central nervous system?

Answer 12

The endocrine system works for slower than the central nervous system but has a very widespread and powerful effects.

Question 13

Outline the glands and hormones.

Answer 13

various glands in the body such as the thyroid gland produce hormones, hormones are secreted into the bloodstream and affect any some the body that has a receptor for that particular hormone.
most hormones affect cells in several organs or throughout the entire body leading to many diverse and powerful responses.

Question 14

What effect does the hormone produced by the thyroid gland have and what is it called?

Answer 14

It is called thyroxine and it affect cells in the heart and increases heart rate also affects elsewhere at the body increasing metabolic rates and intern affecting growth rate.

Question 15

What are the 8 main glands in the human body?

Answer 15

The hypothalamus gland,
The pituitary gland,
The thyroid,
The parathyroid,
The adrenals,
The pancreas 
And theovaries and testes.

Question 16

What is the major endocrine gland and what does it do?

Answer 16

the pituitary gland is the major endocrine glands as it is located in the brain and is often called the master gland because it controls the release of hormones from all other endocrine glands in the body.

Question 17

What is fight or flight response?

Answer 17

the way in animal responds when stress the body becomes psychologically aroused in Readyness to fight an aggressor or in some cases flee.

Question 18

How does the endocrine system and the automatic nervous system work together in fight and flight.

Answer 18

Firstly the hippopotamus triggers activity in the sympathetic branch of the automatic nervous system,
The automatic nervous system changes from its normal resting state of parasympathetic to the psychologically aroused synthetic state.
The stress hormone adrenaline is released from the adrenal medulla part of the adrenal gland into the bloodstream.
Adrenaline triggers psychological changes in the body such as increased heart rate which creates the psychological arousal necessary for the fight or flight response.
Finally once the threat has passed the parasympathetic branch of the automated nearest system works in opposition to the sympathetic nervous system and this is sometimes referred to as rest and digest response.

Question 19

What are the biological changes associated with sympathetic state.

Answer 19

Increased heart rate
Increased breathing rate
Dilate pupils
Inhibit digestion
Inhibits saliva production
Contract rectum.

Question 20

Define a neuron.

Answer 20

The basic building block of the nervous system neurons are nerve cells that process and transmit messages through electrical and chemical signals.

Question 21

Define sensory neurones.

Answer 21

These carry messages from the peripheral nervous system to the central nervous system may have long dendrites and short axons.

Question 22

Define relay neurones.

Answer 22

These connect the sensory neurone to the motor or other relay neurones they have short dendrites and short axons.

Question 23

Define motor neurones.

Answer 23

Disconnect the central nervous system to effectors such as muscles and glands they have short dendrites and long axons.

Question 24

What is the structure of neurones.

Answer 24

The cell body includes a nucleus which contain the genetic material of the cell,
Branch like structures called dendrites that protrude from the cell body that carry nerve impulses from neighbouring neurons.
The axon carries the impulses away from the cell body down the length of a neurone the accident is covered by A fatty layer of myelin sheath that protects it and speed up electrical transmission.
If the myelin sheath was continuous it would have reverse effect and slow down transmission so they have gaps called loads of Iran via that speed up transmission as they Force the impulse to jump across the gaps.
At the end of the axon of terminal buttons that communicate with the next neuron.

Question 25

Define synaptic transmission.

Answer 25

The process by which near bring you on communicate with each other by sending chemical messages across the gap that separates them (synaptic cleft).

Question 26

Define neurotransmitter

Answer 26

Brain chemicals released from the synoptic vesicles that relay signals across the synapse from one neurone to another. neurotransmitters can be broadly divided into those that perform an excitatory function and dozer performing inhibitory function.

Question 27

Define excitation.

Answer 27

when a neurotransmitter such as adrenaline increases the positive charge of the postsynaptic neurone this increases the likelihood that the new and with fire and pass on the electrical impulse.

Question 28

Define inhibition

Answer 28

when a neurotransmitter such as serotonin makes the charge of the postsynaptic neuron more negative this decreases the likelihood that the new on the fire and pass on the electrical impulse.

Question 29

What does the synapse include?

Answer 29

There are three main part of the synapse the space between them called the synoptic left as well as a presynaptic terminal and the postsynaptic receptor site.
The presynaptic terminal includes the synoptic vessels and comes from the axon.
The postsynaptic receptor sites on the dendrites of the next neuron.

Question 30

What happens when the newer transmit that crosses synaptic cleft?

Answer 30

When the neurotransmitter crosses the gap it is taken up by the postsynaptic receptor sites hear the chemical message is converted into an electrical impulse and the process of transmission begins again in this other neurone. neurons have many different molecular structures and specialist functions.

Question 31

Define localisation of function.

Answer 31

The theory thag the different areas of the brain are responsible for different behaviours processes or activities.

Question 32

What is the motor area and where is it located?

Answer 32

The motor area is a region of the frontal lobe involved in regulating movement what is at the top right-hand corner of the frontal lobe.

Question 33

What is the somatosensory area and where is it located?

Answer 33

The somatosensory area is the area that processes sensory information such as touch, it is located in the top left corner of the parietal lobe next to the motor area.

Question 34

What is the visual area and where is it located?

Answer 34

The visible area is part of the occipital love that receives and processes visual information it is at the very back.

Question 35

What is the auditory area and where is it located?

Answer 35

The auditory area located in the temporal lobe and concerned with the analysis of speech based information.

Question 36

What is the broca’s area and where is it located?

Answer 36

The broca’s area is in the frontal lobe in the left hemisphere and it is responsible for speech production.

Question 37

What is the wernickes area and where is it located?

Answer 37

The wernicks area is located in the temporal lobe and circling the auditory cortex in the left hemisphere and is responsible for language comprehension.

Question 38

What was the belief about the brain before broca and wernicke did the investigations. What did broca and wernick suggest after this?

Answer 38

Before broker and vernick did their investigations into the brain the holistic theory of the brain that all parts were involved in the processing and thought action was the main theory.
However broca and wernicke argued for localisation of function where different parts of the brain perform different tasks and involved with different points of the body.

Question 39

How does hemispheres in our brain effect functioning?

And what is the cerebral cortex?

Answer 39

A general rule is that the right side of our body is controlled by the left hemisphere and the left side by the right hemisphere.
The cerebral cortex that covers the brain is about 3 mm thick and is what separates us from other animals as our cortex is much more developed it appears grey due to the cell bodies.

Question 40

In the brain where is language restricted to and whos study support this?

Answer 40

Language is restricted the left hemisphere, broca found that damage to the small area in the left frontal lobe leaving patients with slow speech black and fluency and normally one word they could say he called it the brocas area
Call wernick found that patients had a problem with understanding language when a small area in the left temporal lobe was damaged he named it the wernicks area

Question 41

How is the wealth of evidence from brain scanning support for localisation of function? Give an example of evidence.

Answer 41

the wealth of evidence providing support for the idea of neurolgical functions are localised particularly relating to language and memory.
Peterson et al 1988 used brain scan to demonstrate how wernicks area was active during a listening task and the brocas area was active during a reading task.
In addition long-term memory study by Tulving et al 1994 revealed that semantic and episodic memories reside in different parts of the prefrontal cortex.

Question 42

How is neurosurgical evidence a disadvantage for localisation of function? But also an advantage?

Answer 42

The brutal and imprecise lobotomy of figures such as Walter Freeman in an attempt to control aggressive behaviour through severing connections in a frontal lobe of very controversial.
However research that is used today in cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression provide insight and success that strongly suggest that symptoms and behaviours associated with serious mental disorders are localised.

Question 43

Whose yielded the research into neurosurgical evidence of severe mental disorders being localised and outline his study.

Answer 43

Dougherty et all 2002, reported on 44 OCD patients who had undergone a cingultomy which involved lesioning the cingulate gyrus. Apu surgical follow-up is third had met the criteria for a successful response to the surgery and 14% for a partial response. Supporting localisation.

Question 44

Whose research supports the holistic view of the brain? Outline their study?

Answer 44

Karl lashley 1950 whose research suggested that cognitive functions such as processes involved in learning on not localise but distributed in the holistic way in the brain. lastly remove areas of the cortex between 10 and 50% in rats that were learning amaze new area was proven to be more important than any other in terms of rat ability to learn the maze.

Question 45

Why is Karl lashley research unable to be applied to humans?

Answer 45

Because humans have a much more developed brain than rats for example or cerebral cortex is much more developed and therefore the rats study cannot be applied to humans.

Question 46

How is plasticity a compelling argument against the localisation of function?

Answer 46

When the brain has become damaged through illness or accident and a particular function has been compromised I lost the rest of the brain appears to be able to reorganize itself in an attempt to recover the loss function lastly discovered this when surviving brain circuit chip in the same neurological action can be achieved although it does not happen every time.

Question 47

Define plasticity.

Answer 47

Describes the brains tendency to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning.

Question 48

Define functional recovery.

Answer 48

A form of plasticity following damage through trauma the brain’s ability to redistribute or transfer functions usually performed by damaged areas to other undamaged areas.

Question 49

How does the brain appear to be plastic?

Answer 49

The brain has the ability to change throughout life, during infancy it experienced a rapid growth in the number of synoptic connections that has. Equating to about twice as many as they are in the adult brain as we age really use connections are deleted and frequently used connections are strengthened a process known as synoptic pruning.

Question 50

How has more recent research gone against the theory that the changes in the brain do not happen in adulthood?

Answer 50

recent research suggest that anytime in life existing neural connections can change or new neural connections can be formed as a result of learning and experience.

Question 51

Who conducted research into plasticity and outline their research and findings.

Answer 51

Eleanor Maguire Excel 2003 the brains of London taxi drivers and found significantly more volume of grey matter (cerebral cortex) in the posterior hippocampus than the match control group. it was concluded that this was due to them having to do a complex test called the knowledge which assesses they recalled the city streets and appears that it has changed their brains.

Question 52

What is a similar finding to that of Maguire et Al 2000 and her study of London taxi drivers. (2)

Answer 52

Observe bank draganski et Al 2006 who image the brains of medical students 3 months before and after their final exams learning induced changes were seen to have occurred in the posterior hippocampus and the parental cortex presumably as a result of the exam.
Furthermore mechelini et Al 2004 also found a larger parental cortex in the brains of people who will bilingual compared to matched monolingual controls.

Question 53

What happens in the brain during recovery?

Answer 53

The brain is able to rewire an organised self by forming new synoptic connections close to the area of direct damage. secondary newer pathways that would not typically be used to carry out certain functions are activated or en masse to enable functioning to continue.

Question 54

What are the three structural changes in the brain in functional recovery?

Answer 54

Axonal sprouting, the growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells to form new neuronal pathways.
Reformation of blood vessels
Recruitment of homologous, which are similar areas on the opposite side of the brain to perform specific tasks.

Question 55

How does plasticity of the brain have good practical application?

Answer 55

plasticity has contributed to the field of neuro rehabilitation following illnesses or injury to the brain, spontaneous recovery tends to slow down after a number of weeks so forms of physical therapy may be required to maintain improvements in functioning. techniques may include movement therapy and electrical stimulation of the brain to counter the deficit in the motor and cognitive functioning. The showing the brain has the capacity to fix itself to a point.

Question 56

How can there be negative plasticity and how is this an advantage?

Answer 56

The brain’s ability to rewire itself can sometimes have maladaptive behaviour consequences, prolonged drug use has been shown to result in poorer cognitive functioning as well as increased risk of dementia in later life Medina et al 2007.
Furthermore amputees have been loaded about phantom limb syndrome where they continue experience of sensations in the missing limb as if it were there they’re due to the partial reorganization in the somatosensory cortex.

Question 57

How does newer plasticity have good temporal validity within lifetimes. Who’s research supporters?

Answer 57

Functional plasticity tends to reduce with age and the Brain has greater propensity for reorganization in childhood as it is constantly adapting to new experiences and learning.
However ladina bezzola et al 2012, demonstrated how 40 hours of golf training produce changes in the neural representation of movement in participants age 40 to 60 using fmri the researchers observed reduced motor cortex activity suggesting more efficient neural representation of the training, showing that new opacity does continue throughout lifespan.

Question 58

How does plasticity have support from animal studies.

Answer 58

early evidence of neural plasticity and functional recovery was derived from animal studies such as the pining City by David hubel and torten wiesel (1963), who are involved sewing one-eyed the kittens shirt and analysing the brains Corsair responses they found that the area of the visual cortex as suited with the suit I was not idle but continue to process information from the open eye.

Question 59

How does the concept of cognitive reserve add support the plasticity?

Answer 59

evidence suggesting a person’s educational attainment may influence how well the brain functioning adapt after injury, Eric Schneider at al 2014, discovered that the more time brain injury patients had spent in education (cognitive reserve) the greater their chances of a disability free recovery.

Question 60

Define hemispheric lateralisation.

Answer 60

the idea of the two halves of the brain are functionally different and it’s certain mental processes and behaviours are mainly controlled by one hemisphere rather than the other as in the example of a language.

Question 61

Define split brain research.

Answer 61

series of studies which began in 1960s and the still ongoing involving epileptic patients who had experience of surgical separation of the hemispheres of the brain disallowed researchers to investigate the extent to which the brain function is lateralized.

Question 62

Outline one study into split brain research.

Answer 62

Sperry 1968 did studies involving the unique group of individuals all of whom had undergone the same surgical procedure and operation called, commissurotomy in of which the corpus callosum and other tissues which connect the two hemispheres were cut down the middle in order to separate the two hemispheres and control frequent epileptic seizures.
Allowing sperry and his colleagues to see the extent to which the two hemispheres with specialised forcing functions.

Question 63

What was the procedure of sperry’s research?

Answer 63

He devised a general procedure in which an image or word could be projected in the patient’s right visual field and the same or different image could be projected to the left visual field. in the normal brain the corpus callosum with a Miele share information between both hemispheres giving a complete picture of the visual world, however presenting damage to one hemisphere of a split-brain patient meant that the other information could not be conveyed from one hemisphere to the other.

Question 64

Outline the findings of sperry’s research in terms of vision.

Answer 64

When a picture of an object was shown to a patient’s right visual field (left hemisphere) the patient could easy describe what was seen, if however the same object was shown to the left visual field the patient could not describe what was seen and typically reported that there was nothing there. Showing that language is processed in the left hemisphere.

Question 65

Outline sperry’s findings in terms of touch.

Answer 65

Aalthough patients could not attach available labels to objects project in the left visual field they were able to select a matching object from a grab bag of different objects using their left hands, (right hemisphere).
The objective place behind the screens that they could be not seen the left-hand was also able to select an object that was most closely associated with the object presented to the left visual field in each case the patient was not able to evade identify what they’d seen but they can never less understand what your blood was using the right hemisphere and select the corresponding object accordingly.

Question 66

Outlines Sperry’s findings in composite words?

Answer 66

If two words were presented simultaneously one on either side of the visual field, the patient would write with their left hand the word visible to the left eye and write with their right hand the word visible to their right eye.

Question 67

Outline sperry’s findings into matching faces.

Answer 67

the right hemisphere also appeared dominant in terms of recognising faces when asked to match a face from a series of other faces the picture process by the right hemisphere was consistently selected whilst the picture presented on the left hemisphere was constantly ignored.
When a composite picture was presented with two halves of face 2 one-half of each hemisphere the left hemisphere dominated in terms of verbal description where is the right hemisphere dominated in terms of selecting a matching picture.

Question 68

How is there a good amount of research demonstrating lateralisation of function and how is this an advantage?

Answer 68

Sperrys and later Gazzanigas pioneering work into the split-brain phenomenon has produced an impressive and size of a body of research findings, the main conclusion of which appears to be the left hemisphere is more geared towards analytic and verbal tasks whilst the right is more adept at performing spatial tasks and music.
it has been a key contribution to understanding a brain processes and has very good research reliability.

Question 69

How are the methods used in split brain research an advantage?

Answer 69

The experiments involving split brain patients made use of highly specialised and standardized procedures. Sperrys method of presenting visual information to one Hammer strength v the time was quite ingenious. disallowed spirit of very aspect of basic procedure and ensure the only one hemisphere was receiving information at the time that he developed a very useful and well control procedure. Having strength in methodology and good reliability.

Question 70

How does the theoretical basis prompted by sperry’s work act as an advantage and disadvantage?

Answer 70

Theoretical work from theory of such as Roland pucceti 1977 have suggested that the two hemispheres are so funds any different that they represented form of duality in the brain that in effect we are all two minds supporting sperrys work.
on the other hand researchers have argued that far from working isolation the two hemispheres form a highly integrated system under both involved in most of everyday tasks is a disadvantage.

Question 71

How are there issues with generalization and split brain research? (3)

Answer 71

Many researchers have urged caution in their widespread acceptance has split brain patients constitute such an unusual sample of people as there were only 11 a very small population size who took part all of whom had epileptic seizures.
It has been argued that this may have caused you need changes in the brain that may have influenced findings.it is also the case that some participants experience more disconnection with two hemispheres from surgery than others.
Finally it has been argued that the control group made of 11 people with no history of epilepsy may have been inappropriate.

Question 72

How is disadvantage of split brain research and sperry’s research the differences in function being overstated?

Answer 72

1 unfortunate legacy of sperrys work is a growing body of Pop psychological literature that overemphasize is an oversimplified the functional distinction between the left and right hemisphere. although the verbal and non-verbal labels can on association be usefully applied to summarise the differences between the two hemispheres modern you were scientists would contend that the actual distinction is less clear-cut and much more messy than this. The normal brain both sides of the brain can typically be used for a task as they communicate with each other.

Question 73

Define an fmri.

Answer 73

A method used to measure brain activity while the person is performing a task that uses MRI technology. This enables researchers to detect which regions of the brain are rich in oxygen and thus are active.

Question 74

Define eeg.

Answer 74

A record of the tiny electrical impulses produced by brains activity by measuring characteristic wave patterns the eeg can help diagnose certain conditions of the brain.

Question 75

Define ERP.

Answer 75

The brains electro psychological response to a specific sensory cognitive or motor event can be isolated through statistical analysis of eeg data.

Question 76

Define a post mortem examinations.

Answer 76

The brain is analysed after death to determine whether certain observed behaviours during the patient’s lifetime can be linked to abnormalities in the brain.

Question 77

What is a strength (2) and weakness of fmri scans? (2)

Answer 77

1 strengths of fmri unlike any other scanning techniques such as pet it does not rely on the use of radiation and is risk-free,
another strength is that it produces images that have very high spatial resolution and also 3D riding a clear picture for brain activity and localisation.

it weakness of fmri is it is very expensive compared to other new imaging techniques and can only capture a clear image of the person stays still.
Another weakness is that it has poor temporal resolution because there is a round of 5 second Time lag behind the image on the screen and the initial firing of neuronal activity.

Question 78

What are the strengths (3) and weaknesses (1) of eeg

Answer 78

One strength of eeg is that he has proven invaluable in the diagnosis of conditions such as epilepsy.
Furthermore it has contributed much to understanding the stages involved in sleep such as ultradian rhythms.
And finally it has extremely high temporal resolution as it can accurately detect brain activity at the resolution of a single millisecond.

the main drawback of eeg lies in the generalised nature of the information received the eeg signal is not useful for pinpointing exact source of new activity and does not allow the researcher to distinguish between activities originating in different but adjecent locations.

Question 79

What are the strengths (3) and weaknesses (2) of erps.

Answer 79

The fear strength of an ERP is that addresses the limitations of eeg, as they bring much more specifically to the measurement of newer processes than can ever be achieved using RAW eeg data.
Secondly as they are derived from eeg measurements they have excellent temporal resolution especially when compared to New imaging techniques such as fmri.
Finally researchers have been able to identify many different types of ERP and describe the precise role of these in cognitive functioning a P300 and it’s involvement with allocation of resources in working memory.

Critics have pointed out to a lack of standardisation in your pee method AG between different research studies which made it difficult to confirm findings.
In addition in order to establish pure data and ERP studies background noiseand extraneous material must be completely eliminated this is not always easy to achieve.

Question 80

What are the strengths and weaknesses of post mortem examinations.

Answer 80

The first strength is a post mortem evidence was vital in providing a foundation for early understanding of key procedures in the brain, Paul broca and karl wernicke Booth and post-mortem examinations.
furthermore post-mortem studies improve medical knowledge and help generate hypothesis for further study.

Causation is an issue with the investigations of post-mortem as observed amateur the brain may not be linked to the deficits and review but some of them and related trauma or decay.
A further disadvantage is a post-mortem studies with ethical issues of consent from the patient before death as patients may not be able to provide informed consent in the case of hm he lost the ability to form memories nevertheless postman and research was conducted on his brain.

Question 81

Define biological rhythms.

Answer 81

Distinct patterns of changes in body activity that conform to cyclical time periods. biological rhythms are influenced by internal body clocks (endogenous pacemakers) as well as external changes to the environment (exogenous zeitgebers).

Question 82

What is a circadian rhythm?

Answer 82

a type of biological rhythm subject to a 24-hour cycle which regulates and number of body processes such as sleep-wake cycle and changes in core body temperature.

Question 83

Outline the study and findings of siffre’s cave study.

Answer 83

Michael siffre is a self-styled caveman who spent several extended periods underground to study the effects of his own biological rhythms. the pride of exposure to natural light and sound but with access to adequate food and drink city resurface in mid September 1962 after 2 months in the caves of the southern Alps believing it to be mid August.
His freerunning biological rhythms settled down to one that was just beyond the usual 24hrs around 25 hours so he did continue to fall asleep and wake up on a regular schedule.

Question 84

Outline similar research to Michael siffre in reference to circadian rhythms.

Answer 84

Jurgen airsoff and Rutger Weaver 1976 convinced a group of participants to spend 4 weeks in a world war II bunker the proud of natural light. all but one participant who sleep wake cycle event 29th hours display the circadian rhythm between 24 and 25 hours both Siffres experience and the bunker study suggest that the natural sleep-wake cycle may be longer than 24 hours but that is entrained by exogenus zeitgebers associated with a 24-hour day.

Question 85

Whose research showed the lack of importance of environmental cues on our internal biological clock?

Answer 85

Simon folkard et Al 1985 stayed a group of 12 people who agreed to live in a dark cave with three weeks retiring to bed when the clocks at 11:45 and raising when it says 7:45 over the course of the study the researchers gradually speeded up the clock unknown to the participants so apparent 24-hour day eventually only lasted 22 hours. it was revealed that only one of the participants was able to comfortably adjust to the new regime suggesting that the existence of a strong freerunning sickening with them that cannot easily be overridden by changes in an external environment.

Question 86

How does the theory of circadian rhythms have good practical application? (2)

Answer 86

knowledge of circadian rhythms has given researchers a better understanding of the adverse consequences that occur as a result of disruption of the rhythm. this has been applied to shift workers engaged in shift work at night experience of period of reduced concentration around 6 in the morning meaning that mistakes and accidents are likely to happen.

Furthermore research has also suggested a relationship between shift work and bad health. Shift workers are 3 times more likely to develop heart disease which may be due to stress of adjusting to different patterns of sleep.

With both these in mind research into the circadian rhythms may have economic implications.

Question 87

How does circadian rhythms have practical application to drug treatments?

Answer 87

Circadian rhythms coordinate number of the bodies basic processes such as heart rate digestion and hormone levels. This has affected pharmo kinetics or the action of drugs on the body and how well they are absorbed and distributed. The research of circadian rhythms has revealed that there are certain times during the day or night when drugs are likely to be most effective and has led to development of guidelines to do with timing of drug use.

Question 88

How is circadian rhythms ungeneralizable?

Answer 88

Research into circadian rhythms used small sample sizes in cave studies and also case studies therefore the people involved may not be representative of wider populations and single individuals such as cifra especially.

Also the age such as siffre was 60 so his internal body clock may have slowed down.

Question 89

How was there power a lack of control in circadian rhythm studies and how is this a weakness?

Answer 89

although participants in the studies where the proud of natural light they still had access to artificial light fittings dance a lamp, and it was assumed that artificial like will have no effect however in tests it has been shown that they were able to adjust participants circadian rhythms from 20 to 28 hours using dim lighting. Therefore the tests were not very controlled.

Question 90

How are there individual differences in circadian tests?

Answer 90

another issue with generalisation of findings is that individual cycles can vary in some cases from 13 to 65 hours.

In addition a study from Jeanne Duffy 2001 revealed that some people display in natural preference for going to bed early and rising early where is some people prefer to do the opposite.

Question 91

Define an infradian rhythm.

Answer 91

a type of biological rhythm with a frequency of less than one cycle in 24hrs such as menstruation and seasonal affective disorder.

Question 92

Define an ultradian rhythm.

Answer 92

A type of biological rhythm with the frequency of more than one cycle in 24hrs such as the stages of sleep.

Question 93

Outline what kind of rhythm the menstrual cycle is and how.

Answer 93

The menstrual cycle is an example of an infrared in with them governed by monthly changes in hormone levels.
The cycle refers the time between the first day of a woman’s period to the day before her next. Typical cycle takes approximately 28 days to complete and during each cycle rising levels of the hormone oestrogen cause the ovary to development egg and release it.
After ovulation thehormone progesterone helps the womb lining to grow thicker reading the body for pregnancy if pregnancy does not occur is absorbed and the womb lining comes away.

Question 94

What research did he can be used in relation to the menstrual cycle.

Answer 94

The menstrual cycle is an endogenous system however evidence suggest that they may be influenced by exogenous factors, a study by Kathleen stain and martha McClintock 1998 demonstrated how menstrual cycles may synchronise as a result of influence the female pheromones.
the involved 29 women with a history of irregular periods samples of pheromones were gathered from 9 of the women at different stages of the menstrual cycles. The pads treated with alcohol and frozen to be rubbed on upper lip of the other participants on day one had some the start of the mental cycle reply to 20 women on day-to-day arguing a pad on the second day of cycle and so on McClintock found that 68% of women experience changes to this cycle which brought them closer to the cycle of their oder donor.

Question 95

What is seasonal affective disorder and what kind of rhythm is it? And how is it caused?

Answer 95

seasonal affective disorder is depressive disorder which other seasonal pattern on onset and is diagnosed as a mental disorder. as other forms of depression the main symptoms of persistent low mood along with general lack of activity and interest. seasonal affective disorder is classed as an infrared in with them but a special one called circannual rhythm as it is subject to a yearly cycle.
However it can be classed as a circadian rhythm as the experience may be due to disruption of the sleep wake cycle, due to prolonged darkness in winter.

Psychologists have hypothesized that hormone melatonin is implicit in the cause of seasonal affective disorder as during the night pineal gland secretes melatonin until dawn during winter the lack of light in the morning means the process continues for longer and it still have a knock-on effect with the production of serotonin in the brain has been linked to depressive symptoms.

Question 96

Outline the stages of sleep and what kind of rhythm it is.

Answer 96

the stage of the sleep on ultra radian rhythm and psychologists identified five distinct stages of sleep that altogether span approximately 90 minutes a cycle continues throughout the course of a night and has been characterized by different levels of brainwave activity by eeg, there are stages 1 and 2 sea just 3 and 4 and stage 5 or REM sleep.

Question 97

What happens in stages 1 and 2 in the sleep cycle.

Answer 97

The sleep escalator as it is sometimes known are light sleep where people may be easily woken. At the beginning of sleep brain wave patterns start to become slower and more rhythmic becoming even slower asleep get deeper.

Question 98

What happens in stages 3 and 4 of the sleep cycle.

Answer 98

this stage involves delta waves which are slower still and have a greater amplitude than earlier wave patterns this is a deep sleep or slow wave sleep and is difficult to rouse someone at this point.

Question 99

What happens in stage 5 or REM sleep in the sleep cycle.

Answer 99

The body is paralyzed yet brain activity speed up significantly in a manner that resembles the awake brain. REM stands for rapid eye movement to denote the fast jerky activity of the eyes under the eyelids at this point research has suggested that REM activity during sleep is highly correlated with experience of dreaming.

Question 100

How is the menstrual synchrony observed by McClintock an advantage?

Answer 100

Menstrual synchrony as observed by mclintock is thought be an evolutionary value. for ancestors it may have been advantageous for females two men Swift together and therefore for pregnant on the same time this would mean that newborns could be cared for collectively within a social group increasing the chances of survival.

Question 101

How is the validity of evolutionary perspective on the menstrual cycle questionable and who questioned it?

Answer 101

Jeffrey shank 2004 argued that if there were too many female cycling together this would produce competition for the highest quality meals from this point of view the avoidance of sink and he would appear to be more adaptive evolutionary strategy and therefore naturally selected.

Question 102

How are there methodological limitations in synchronisation studies.(menstrual cycle McClintock) (2)

Answer 102

criticisms have been made of early synchronisation studies and the methods employed as commentators argue that there are many factors that may affect change in women’s menstrual cycle. Including stress changes and diet exercise that might act as confounding variables.
meaning that any supposed pattern of synchronisation in cities such as McClintock is no more than would be expected to occur by chance.

in addition research typically involves small samples of women and relies on participants self-reporting perhaps lower invalidity and more critically other studies failed to find any evidence of mental synchrony in or females samples.

Question 103

How does evidence support the idea of distinct stages of sleep and how is this an advantage? Who’s study? (2)

Answer 103

A landmark study by William demant and Nathaniel kleitman 1957 monitor sleep patterns of 9 adult participants in a lab. brainwave activity was recorded eeg and researchers control the effects of caffeine and alcohol. REM sleep was highly correlated with the experience of dreaming and brain activity varied according to have vivid dreams where and participants book during dreams had a very accurate recall of them.

Replications of this investigation of also noted similar findings although the small size of the original sample has been criticised nevertheless the study suggest that a REM sleep is an important component of the ultraradian sleep cycle

Question 104

How have animal studies how to be a limitation of infradian and ultradian rhythms.

Answer 104

Much of the knowledge of the effects of pheromones and behaviour is derived from animal studies. The role of pheromones in animals sexual selection is well-documented however in contrast evidence for the effect in human behaviour remains speculative and inconclusive therefore lower validity of using animal studies in reference.

Question 105

How does seasonal affective disorder or sad have good practical application? However what can be used against this?

Answer 105

One of the most effective treatments for sad is phototherapy. in which a light box stimulate very strong light in the morning in the evening it is thought to reset melatonin levels in people with sad and relieve symptoms in up to 60% of sufferers.

However on the other hand the same study recorded placebo effect on 30% using a sham negative ion generator which participants were told was never treatment and it cast doubt on the chemical influence of phototherapy.

Question 106

Define endogenous pacemakers.

Answer 106

Internal body clocks that regulate many of our biological rhythms such as the influence of the suprachiasmatic nucleus, on the sleep wake cycle.

Question 107

Define exogenous zeitgebers

Answer 107

External cues that may affect or entry in hob biological rhythms such as the influence of light on the sleep wake cycle.

Question 108

What is the suprachiasmatic nucleus.

Answer 108

it is a tiny bundle of nerve cells located in the hypothalamus in each hemisphere of the brain and is one of the primary endogenous pacemakers in mammals. It is influential in maintaining circadian rhythms and nerve fibres connected I cross in an area called the optic chiasm it receives information about light directly from this structure. And remain cycling when eyes are closed enabling and maintaining rhythm

Question 109

Name an animal study in the influence of the suprachiasmatic nucleus. (2)

Answer 109

Decoursey et Al 2000 destroyed the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the brains of 30 Chipmunks who were then returned to the natural habitat and observed. the sleep wake cycle of the Chipmunks disappeared and by the end of the study A significant proportion of them had been killed by predators presumably because he will wake up unable to attack.

Another study by Martin Ralph et al 1990 bread mutant hamster with 20 hour wake cycles when the suprachiasmatic nucleus from the photo tissue of the mutant hamster was transplanted into the brains of normal hamsters the cycles of a second group default to 20 hours both studies emphasizing the role of the suprachiasmatic nucleus in maintaining circadian rhythms.