Psy 201 Test 2 Flashcards
dopamine (DA)
a monoamine found the in the pleasure center of the brain; controls voluntary movement and pleasurable emotions
dopamine’s agonists
cocaine and amphetamines
dopamine’s removal from the synapse is due to ?
reuptake (not enzymatic like ACh)
Not enough dopamine is associated with ? Why?
Parkinson’s disease; causes difficulty with movement
Too much dopamine is associated with ?
schizophrenia
What is Parkinson’s Disease?
a disorder in the midbrain: substantia nigra begins to break down, send impulses to basal ganglia (which initiate movement); resting tremor, “Frankenstein walk”
Norepinephrine (NE)
generally affected by things that affect dopamine; associated with mood and arousal; used by sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight)
Serotonin (5-HT)
complex effects on sleep, mood, eating
agonists for serotonin
drugs like Prozac (SSRI - selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor)
deficits in serotonin are associated with increased ? , so there are drugs that try to increase serotonin to decrease ? (such as Prozac)
depression; depression
glycine
basic inhibitory neurotransmitter that is found in the brain and the spinal chord; slows things down
agonist for glycine
tetanus toxin (which causes tetany of muscles - freeze up/contract)
glutamate
basic excitatory neurotransmiter found in the brain; may be involved in major depressive disorder; MSG (monosodium glutamate - used to put in food, flavor enhancer, overexcited some people’s nervous system)
GABA
generally inhibitory in brain; preset throughout the brain to inhibit; involved in anxiety disorders, maybe alcohol abuse
deterioration of GABA neurons result in ? (uncontrollable movements - eventually leads to death)
Huntington’s chorea
endorphins
opiate-like compounds that are endogeneous (like pain killers, idea of runner’s high [not proven])
the nervous system is composed of the central nervous system (? and ?) and the peripheral nervous system (? and ?)
brain, spinal chord
somatic nervous system, autonomic nervous system
brain
hindbrain, midbrain, forebrain
hindbrain
reticular formation, cerebellum, pons, medulla
midbrain
reticular formation
forebrain
thalamus, hypothalamus, limbic system, cerebrum
somatic nervous system (voluntary)
mainly controls muscles; two types of nerves: afferent (incoming/sensory - Affect you) and efferent (outgoing/motor - you are Effecting something)
autonomic nervous system (involuntary)
mainly controls organs; sympathetic division (mobilizes resources; exercise, nervous) and parasympathetic division (conserves resources; slows heart down, etc.); hormones
spinal chord
31 pairs of spinal nerves; conduit to get info to and from the brain and the rest of the body
Where are the consequences of a break along the spinal chord greater?
higher (more info processed here - legs, organs, shoulders; lower you only have info from feet, legs, etc.)
“white” vs “gray” matter in spinal chord
central area that is gray - collection of cell bodies; white matter - axons (bc of their myelin sheaths)
medulla
home to basic physiological functions (breathing, circulatory system); collection of nuclei w/ function
pons
swollen bc receives a lot of input from cerebellum; “bridge”; involved in sleep and arousal
cerebellum
“little cerebrum” b/c looks similar; primarily comparitor circuits (i.e. where is my arm now vs where do I want it to be); motor memory (ex: riding a bike); rhythm, anticipation of rhythm
reticular formation
group of fibers that carry stimulation related to sleep and arousal
substantia nigra
located in the midbrain
superior colliculi
top 2 bumps, involved with vision, not conscious, orient toward stimuli
inferior colliculi
bottom two bumps, hearing, orient to stimuli; blind sight (eyes still seeing but cut off before processed in occipital lobe - makes it to superior colliculus below level of consciousness)
thalamus
bilateral (one on each side), looks like an egg; weigh station for sensory info from all over the body; the one sense that does not synapse in thalamus is smell
hypothalamus
below thalamus, controls a lot for small size; eating, sleep, growth, sexual behavior; controls pituitary (master) gland
pituitary gland
controls many other glands
corpus callosum
made up of axons to connect regions; inter-connection between two big hemispheres (split brain studies - no communication between hemispheres)
basal ganglia
located in the forebrain
cortex
“bark” of a tree, outer layer, divided into lobes
occipital lobe
vision/primary visual cortex
temporal lobe
near temples, primary auditory cortex
parietal lobe
primary somatosensory cortex (analyzing senses, sensation)
frontal lobe
primary motor cortex
prefrontal lobe
very front of frontal lobe (prefrontal lobotomy - remove fibers in portion of the brain, more docile but clueless)
CT scan
computerized tomography; x-rays that take different slices and put together for a picture
PET scan
positron emission (give person radioactive glucose, let sit, more active parts of brain give out more radiation for picture)
MRI scan
strong magnet causes cells to orient, different orientation depending on the tissue
fMRI scan
combo of PET (activity) and MRI (detail); structure/activity; functional MRI
Darwin & natural selection
“survival of the fittest” (reproductive success)
natural selection
characteristics with reproductive advantages more likely to be passed on to subsequent generations and become a dominant characteristic
adaptations
inherited characteristics that increase a population because they helped solve a problem of survival or reproduction; preference for fatty substances in prehistoric individuals (slow metabolism was good); many survival behaviors such as camouflage, etc.
sensation
the stimulation of sensory organs
perception
the selection, organization and interpretation of sensory input
physical energy (stimulus) > ? > ?
> sensory transduction (convert to neural impulses) > elaboration and editing of impulses (perceive)
early experimental psychology was the study of
psychophysics (the study of the relationship of physical stimuli with psychological response)
examples of psychophysics studies
Weber’s Law (k = ΔI / I), Fechner’s Law (s = k * logI)
we cannot perceive things for which we have no ?, but humans have developed instruments such as Geiger counters, microscopes, etc.
sensory apparatus
perception is based upon the interpretation of ?, nothing more (no homunculus)
neural impulses
naive realism
the world is exactly as we perceive it, no more or no less
subjective idealism
opposite of naive realism; the physical world is actually a product of the mind
law of specific nerve energies
attributed originally to Johannes Muller, a famous German physiologist; What would we experience if the auditory nerve and optic nerve could be switched? What is important for how a neural impulse will be interpreted? (not the nerve itself, but where it goes in the brain); visual to auditory would be interpreted as auditory as best as possible and so on
the physical stimulus for vision is
visible light, which occupies a small part of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum (360 to 740nm)
light is both a ? and a ?, but we think of it as a ? because it has a frequency
wave and particle; wave
violet > red (wavelengths)
400 (faster) > 700 (slower)
emitted vs reflected light
emitted - from a source (sun, light bulb); reflected - bounces off; surfaces “sculpt” the patterns of reflected light
cornea
hard membrane, continuous with structure all around to back of eye; transparent at front, becomes opaque further back (sclera - white of eye); important for light refraction
anterior chamber
chamber filled with fluid called aqueous humor, constantly produced by cells lining chamber, fluid drains thru pores; pressure in this chamber is the #1 cause of blindness (increased pressure if pores clog > Glaucoma)
iris
muscles that contract/relax to change size of pupil; color of eye (more melanin, more dark color eyes)
pupil
hole that lets light in; diameter depends on amount of ambient light (increased light, decreased pupil size); can change size by a factor of about 16; controlled by sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system (stress - dilate, excited - dilate)
lens
“crystalline lens”; does a lot of work with refraction (finishes cornea’s job) to focus light on back eye; can change length to change focal length (“accomodation”) to look at things that are far away or close up; with age, lens gets thick and hard to change shape - turn yellow, opaque areas (cataract); cataract surgery - remove lens an dreplace with plastic one (at least can see far off)
posterior chamber
roughly 5/6 of eye; filled with vitreous humor - not constantly replenished, consistency of uncooked egg white, fill up space to keep eye round (floaters = cells knocked off)
retina
light sensitive portion of eye, has photo receptors (rods and cones); retinal ganglion cells receive input from photoreceptors, give off axon that migrates to optic disk
rods
sensitive, used in low-light conditions, mainly in periphery of vision; only one type - can distinguish shades of gray by itself because in lowlight, light is not strong enough to activate cones
cones
located in fovea (center focal point); less sensitive, more accurate vision; 3 different types of cones if not colorblind, allowing us to respond differently to different wavelengths
optic disk
where all axons go to and exit eye; no photoreceptors there - blindspot
optic nerve
formed from axons of retinal ganglion nerves; goes to brain, mainly to occipital lobe (primary visual cortex); small parts sent other places (e.g. superior colliculus, areas of brain that have to do with biologic rhythms)
refraction errors cause
nearsightedness and farsightedness
nearsightedness
eyeball too long, focal point in front of retina, most common, AKA “Myopia,” nearsighted people CAN see NEAR, not far off
farsightedness
eyeball too short, focal point beyond retina, AKA “Hyperopia,” people can see things far off but not close up
optical illusions
due to assumptions made by visual system and are not accurate, often due to past learning, so the system can be fooled (rare); shortcuts - assuming something will be a certain way because of how it was in the past (expectation driving perception)
consciousness
the awareness of internal and external stimuli; levels of consciousness vary from moment to moment
William James
stream of consciousness (actually goes back 1000s of years)
notions of unconscious often attributed to ?, but it goes back at least to ?
Freud; Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz
“petites perceptions” which are below conscious perception but can accumulate enough to cause awareness of what Leibniz called “apperception”; maybe first to postulate an unconscious mind and the concept of a “limen,” or threshold for perception; Freud and others expanded on these concepts
variations in consciousness are influences by
biological rhythms
Circadian rhythm
based on dark/light cycles, 24hr cycles; suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus receives communication from the optic nerve, which in turn communicates with the pineal gland that secretes a hormone called melatonin, maximal at night; Mammoth Cave Study
Mammoth Cave Study
giant cave in Kentucky; volunteers essentially lived in the cave for two weeks with no contact to the outside world - how long is your day without Circadian clues? about 25hrs
Ultradian rhythm
~90min cycle; basic rest/activity cycle (BRAC); many examples (e.g. cycle through sleep phases every 90 mmins); a lot of physiological processes based off of this
advances in our understanding of sleep have really progressed since the advnet of the ? around 1924; started to be used with sleep studies in the ?
EEG (electroencephalograph); 1940s and 1950s
so-called “sleep stages” are based upon ? that can be measured on the scalp
brain rhythms
EEG pattern: Beta
13-24 Hz; normal waking thought, alert problem solving
EEG pattern: Alpha
8-12 Hz; deep relaxation, blank mind, meditiation
EEG pattern: Theta
4-7 Hz; light sleep
EEG pattern: Delta
<4 Hz; deep sleep
REM sleep
patterns look like awake, patient’s eye moving a lot during this time > “rapid eye movement” sleep, most dreaming occurs during this time
sleep stages: awake and active
beta waves
sleep stages: awake and relaxed
alpha waves
sleep stages: stage 1 sleep (N1)
emergence of theta waves
sleep stages: stage 2 sleep (N2)
sleep spindles, K-complexes, and generally slower activity
sleep stages: stage 3 sleep
emergence of delta waves (<50%)
sleep stages: stage 4 sleep
> 50% delta waves
many researchers group stage 3 and stage 4 together and call it
N3 or slow wave sleep
we need ? and ? sleep. Why?
N3 and REM; may help consolidate memories/housekeeping
REM sleep
discoved in Kleitman’s lab at U of Chicago in 1952; stage where most dreaming occurs; muscle paralysis in much of the body keeps people from acting out dreams; may promote creative solutions to problems
sleep deprivation can affect
performance on tasks, decision making, neuroendocrine and immune response
mortality rates are related to amount of sleep averaged per night - optimum is ? hours; ? hours associated with high mortality
7; 10+
insomnia
chronic problems in getting adequate sleep that result in daytime fatigue and impaired functioning
Pseudoinsomnia
some people sleep more than they think they do - dream that they’re awake lying in bed all night
insomnia treatments
sleeping pills not the best; relaxation training, sleep hygiene edu, and cognitive behavioral therapy
narcolepsy
disorder marked by sudden and irresistible onsets of sleep during normal waking periods; rapid transition from awake to REM sleep; stimulant treatment sometimes effective
sleep apnea
involves frequent, reflexive gasping for air that awakens a person and disrupts sleep; associated with snoring, excessive daytime sleepiness; a variety of treatments, including CPAP
REM sleep behavior disorder
potentially troublesome dream enactments during REM; lack of effective muscle paralysis; can be very dangerous; if developed later, could be a precursor to Parkinson’s disease; NOT SLEEPWALKING
somnambulism
sleep walking; seems to occur during slow wave sleep; often is benign, but people can hurt themselves
Freud’s theory of dreaming
wish fulfillment; the day residue shapes dreams that satisfy unconscious needs
Cartwright’s theory of dreaming
the problem-solving view; we think through major problems in our lives
Hobson and McCarley’s theory of dreaming
activation-synthesis model; a story is created to make sense of internal signals (but doesn’t actually have any meaning)
hypnosis
systematic procedure that typically produces a heightened state of suggestability; developed initially by Anton Mesmer - “animal magnetism”
meditation
family of practices that train attention to heighten awareness and bring mental processes under greater voluntary control; grew out of Eastern religions like Hinduism, Zen, Buddhism, Taoism; focus on breathing, use a mantra
tolerance
progressive decrease in responsiveness to a drug based upon continued use
physical dependence
person must continue to take a drug to avoid withdrawal issues (ex: heroin)
psychological dependence
person must continue to take a drug to satisfy intense mental and emotional craving (ex: cocaine)
