Sensory Physiology Flashcards
What is spontaneous activity?
Action potentials that occur in the absence of stimuli
What is specificity coding?
Specialized neurons that respond to only one concept or stimuli
What is sparse coding?
Occurs when a particular stimulus is represented by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons
What is population coding?
Proposes that our experiences are represented by a pattern of firing across a large number of neurons
What is phrenology?
Mental facilities that can be mapped onto different brain areas based on the areas of a person’s skulls
What is modularity?
The idea that specific brain are specialized to respond to specific types of stimuli or functions
What is Broca’s area?
The speech production area
What is Wernicke’s area?
The area for understanding speech
What is distributed representation?
The brain represents information in patterns distributed across the cortex rather than one single area
What is structural connectivity?
Road map of fibers connecting different areas of the brain
What is functional connectivity?
The neural activity associated with a particular function that is flowing through this structural network
What is the mind-body problem?
How doe physical processes like nerve impulses become transformed into perceptual experience?
How does fMRI work?
Blood flow increases in areas of the brain that are activated. These areas need more oxygen so hemoglobin loses oxygen which makes them more magnetic and increases their response to the magnetic field
