Physiological Psych Flashcards
Franz Gall
Earliest theories that behavior, intellect, personality may be linked to brain anatomy; doctrine of phrenology, thought that areas of the brain responsible for traits would expand and you could feel them along the skull
Pierre Flourens
Studied phrenology, first person to study functions of major sections of the brain by extirpation/ ablation (aka removing chunks of brain)
William James
studied how the mind functioned/ adapted tot he environment. Formed functionalism - studying how mental processes help individuals to adapt to their environments
John Dewey
Studied functionalism, wanted to study the organism as a whole as it functioned to adapt to the environment
Paul Broca
Examined behavioral deficits of people with brain damage; found specific functional impairments associated with specific brain lesions.
Broca’s area
on the left side of the brain; lesions cause the inability to produce speech, even though one can still understand it.
Johannes Muller
law of specific nerve energies- each sensory nerve is excited by only one kind of energy (e.g. light, air vibrations, etc.), the brain interprets the stimulation of that nerve as that kind of energy
Hermann von Helmoholtz
Measured the speed of nerve impulses
Sir Charles Sherrington
Inferred existence of the synapse
Sensory neurons
Also known as afferent neurons, transmit sensory information from receptors to the spinal cord and brain. Along afferent fibers into the brain.
Motor Neurons
Efferent neurons, transmit motor information from brain and spinal cord to the muscles. Along efferent fibers from the brain
Interneurons
Found in between other neurons and are the most numerous of the three types. Located predominately in the brain and spinal cord. Linked to reflexive behavior
Reflex arcs
Control reflexive behaviors, which are crucial to survival
Overview of the Nervous system
Central nervous system which is made up of the brain and spinal cord. Peripheral nervous system which is made up of somatic and autonomic. autonomic has sympathetic and parasympathetic.
Walter Cannon
studied the autonomic nervous system
Autonomic nervous system (ANS)
regulates heart beat, respiration, digestion, and glandular secretions (e.g. involuntary functions of internal organs and glands)
Acetylcholine wrt ANS
Responsible for parasympathetic responses (e.g. rest and digest)
Adrenaline wrt ANS
Responsible for sympathetic responses (e.g. flight or flight)
Hindbrain
Cerebellum, medulla oblongata, reticular formation: Where brain meets spinal cord, responsible for balance, motor coordination, breathing, digesting, and general arousal.
Midbrain (mesencephalon)
Inferior and superior colliculi: manages sensorimotor reflexes to promote survival, receives sensory info
Forebrain
Cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, limbic system, thalamus, hypothalamus: associated with complex perceptual, cognitive, and behavioral processes including emotion and memory. Has greatest influence on human behavior
The brain stem
made up of the hindbrain and the midbrain
Limbic system
Septal nuclei, amygdala, hippocampus: Group of neural structures primarily associated with emotion and memory (e.g. aggression, fear, pleasure, and pain).
Cerebral cortex
outer covering of hemispheres, associated with language processing, problem solving, impulse control, long-term planning, etc.
Phylogeny v ontogeny
phylogeny- evolutionary development; ontogeny- development over the lifetime
Medulla oblongata
Lover brain structure responsible for regulating vital functions like breathing, heart beat, blood pressure, digestion.
Pons
Above the medulla, contains sensory and motor tracts between the cortex and the medulla
Cerebellum
Helps maintain posture, balance, and coordinates body movements. Damage causes slurred speech, clumsiness, and loss of balance (e.g. alcohol impairs this)
Reticular Formation
Interconnected nuclei: regulates arousal and alertness (sleeping and waking) and attention
Superior colliculus
Receives sensory input
inferior colliculus
Receives auditory input, controls reflexes in response to noises
thalamus
Important relay station for incoming sensory impulses. Thalamus sorts impulses and transmits them to appropriate areas of cortex
Hypothalamus
Divided into the lateral, ventromedial, and anterior: serves homeostatic functions, key player in emotional experience during high arousal states, aggressive behavior, and sexual behavior. Helps control endocrine functions. Self-regulates to maintain stable equilibrium within the body. Metabolism, temperature, water balance
Osmoregulation
Maintenance of water balance in the body, performed by osmoreceptors in the hypothalamus
Lateral Hypothalamus (LH)
Hunger center; if damaged, one will not eat/ starve (aphagia). “Less hungry”
Ventromedial Hypothalamus (VMH)
Satiety center, damage leads to over eating and often obesity (hyperphagia). “Very hungry”
Anterior Hypothalamus
Controls sexuality. Stimulation increases sexual behavior and damage leads to inhibition of sexual activity
Basal Ganglia
Coordinates muscle movements, receiving information from cortex and relaying it through the extrapyrimidal motor system (which transports to the brain and spinal cord). Damage creates jerky, unorganized movements (e.g. Parkinson’s disease is related to damage here).
Ventricles
Fluid filled cavities in the middle of the brain that link up with the spinal canal, filled with cerebrospinal fluid (irregularities associated with schizophrenia)
Septal nuclei
Part of the limbic system. One of the primary pleasure centers of the brain. James Olds and Peter Milder discovered this (studying mice who would prefer this stimulated than even eating when hungry). Also inhibits aggressive behavior. if damaged, one experiences “septal rage”
Amygdala
Defensive and aggressive behaviors. Lesions cause docility, hypersexuality (Kluver and Bucy did studies to link amygdala with defensive and aggressive behavior)
Hippocampus
Learning and memory. Damage causes anterograde amnesia
Cerebral cortex
also called neocortex,has convolutions (gyri and sucli), has 2 hemispheres and 4 lobes (frontal, parietal, temporal, occipital)
Frontal lobe
Comprised of prefrontal lobes and the motor cortex. Prefrontal serves as executive function, perception, memory, emotion, impulse control, and long-term planning.
Roger Sperry + Michael Gazzaniga
Studied the effects of severing the corpus collosum. Discovered that CC allowed for communication across hemispheres
Left v Right brain hemispheres
Left: letters, words, language, speech, reading, writing, arithmetic, movement. Right: faces, music, emotions, creativity, sense of direction
Neurons
Dendrites, cell body (soma), axon + myelin sheath, terminal buttons
Neurotransmitters
chemical substances released from vesicles when neurons fire
Glial cells
Care taking/ supporting functions (e.g. they form the myelin sheath, which insulates the axon. Serves to insulate nerve fibers from each other and speed up electrical impulses through neurons)
Dendrites
Typically receptors of information
Resting potential
Slight electrical charge (negative) store din cell membrane. Energy waiting to be released
Ions
Small ions can pass through the semipermeable membrane, larger ions need receptors or channels in order to pass through (e.g. sodium-potassium pump)
Polarized
resting state of the neuron is polarized, where the inside of the cell is negative and the outside is positive
Steps to fire neurons
Resting potential, depolarization, action potential spike, repolarization, hyperpolarization, stable
Absolute refractory period
Period corresponding to depolarization, during this time the neuron is unresponsive to any stimulation. Length of time between firing neurons controlled by this.
Relative refractory period
begins after neuron achieves action potential spike; corresponds to repolarization period
Hyperpolarization
more negative than usual on the inside of the cell (usually directly after repolarization). stronger stimulus is required to reach threshold potential at this point
“all-or-nothing” law for action potentials
when depolarization reaches critical threshold, neuron will fire no matter what
axon hillock
where the axon meets the cell body, action potentials originate here
Terminal buttons
at the end of the axon, triggers release of neurotransmitters into the synapse
synaptic cleft
space between the terminal buttons of presynaptic neuron and the dendrites of the postsynaptic one
Vesicles
tiny sacks that store and release neurotransmitters
Reuptake
Processes by which neurotransmitters are drawn back into the vesicles of terminal buttons
binding
when neurotransmitters attach self to receptor sites
