Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

Brain > Summary > Flashcards

Summary Flashcards

You may prefer our related Brainscape-certified flashcards:
The Brain flashcards
1
Q

EEG

A

Measures the activity of large groups of neurons through a series of large electrodes placed on the scalp

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

MEG

A

A brain imaging method that detects activity via the magnetic fields generated by brain activity

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

MRI

A

Creates images based on how atoms in living tissue respond to a magnetic pulse delivered by the device

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

DTI

A

Measures how water molecules diffuse in tissue

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

fMRI

A

Can produce images of blood flow in the brain taken less than a second apart

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

PET scans

A

Measure brain activity, including metabolism, blood flow, and neurotransmitter activity

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Sympathetic division (PNS)

A
  • Fight-or-flight response
  • Act to prepare the body for action in stressful situations, engaging all the organism’s resources to respond to a threat
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Parasympathetic division (PNS)

A
  • Maintaining normal functions
  • Acts to calm the body after an emergency or stressfull situation has ended
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Hindbrain

A

The lowest en most primitive level of the brain

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Brainstem

A

Spans the hindbrain and midbrain, hindbrain structures in the brainstem include the medulla, and the pons; the brainstem supports a number of vital psychiological function

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Medulla

A

Plays an important role in vital body functions such as heart rate and respiration

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Pons

A

lies just above the medulla and relays sensory information between the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Cerebellum

A

Concerned primarily with muscular movement coordination, but also plays a role in learning and memory

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Reticular formation

A

Acts as a kind of sentry, bot alerting higher centres of the brain that messages are coming, and then either blocking those messages or allowing them to go forward

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Midbrain

A

contains clusters of sensory and motor neurons

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Forebrain

A

The brain’s most recently evolved portion

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Cerebrum

A

The most superior part of the forebrain, compromising the cerebral cortex and several more central structures

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

Thalamus

A

Sometimes likened to a switchboard that organises inputs from sensory organs and routes them to the appropriate areas of the brain

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Hypothalamus

A

Plays a major role in many aspects of motivation and emotion, including sexual behaviour, temperature regulation, sleeping, eating, drinking, and agression

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
20
Q

Limbic system

A

Helps coordinate the behaviours needed to satisfy the motivational and emotional urges that arise in the hypothalamus; it is also involved in memory

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
21
Q

Hippocampus

A

Involved in forming and retrieving memories

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
22
Q

Amygdala

A

Underlies emotional behaviours, particularly those linked to aggression and fear

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
23
Q

Somato-sensory cortex

A

Receives sensory input that gives rise to our sensations of heat, cold, and touch, and to our senses of balance and body movement

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
24
Q

Association cortex

A

Involved in many important mental functions including perception, language and thought

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
25
Q

Prefrontal cortex

A

Located just behind the forehead, the seat of the so-called executive functions

26
Q

Corpus callosum

A

A neural bridge consisting of white matter tracts that acts as a major communication link between the two hemispheres and allowes them to function together

27
Q

Sensory transduction

A

The process whereby the characteristics of a stimulus are converted into nerve impluses

28
Q

Sensort adaptation

A

The diminishing sensitivity to an unchanging stimulus

29
Q

Feature detectors

A

Fire selectivity in response to visual stimuli that have specific characteristics

30
Q

Decision criteria

A

A standard of how certain someone must be that a stimulus is present before they will say they can detect it

31
Q

Signal detection theory

A

Concerns itself with surrounding factors that nonetheless influence sensory judgements

32
Q

Weber’s law

A

States that the JND is directly proportional to the magnitude of the stimulus with which the comparison is being made. The law breaks down at the extremes, but holds up consitently within the most frequently encountered range of stimulus

33
Q

Retina

A

On which the lends projects the image of the object, but turned upside down.

34
Q

Rods

A

Black and white

35
Q

Cones

A

Color

36
Q

blindspot

A

An area where there’s an absence of photoreceptors

37
Q

Darkness adaptation

A

Progressive improvement of light sensitivity over time. Your eyeballs get better in the dark with time

38
Q

Color vision

A

The result of cones and rods translating light waves into neural impulsed with the help of photopigments

39
Q

Young-Helmholtz Trichromatic Theory

A

says cones like red, blue and reen a lot and our experience of a particular color is constituded by the ratio of activity in the three types of cones. Otherwise recognised as the kindergarten watercolor theory

40
Q

Opponent-Process Theory

A

Says that each of the three cones responds to two opposing colors (Y/B, R/G, B/W)

41
Q

Dual-process theory

A

Combines both Trichromatic theory and opponent-process theory: the cones are sensitive to RGB most, opponent process begins in the ganglion cells

42
Q

Visual system in the brain

A

Optic nerve, optic chiasm, optic track, thalamus, visual cortex in occipital lobe

43
Q

Bottom-up processing

A

The system takes in individual elements of the stimulus and then combines them into a unified perception

44
Q

Top-down processing

A

Sensory information is interpreted in light of exisiting knowlegde, concepts, ideas and expectations

45
Q

Figure-ground relations

A

Our natural tendency to parse visual information into focus figure, background blurry using blurriness, size, contrast, separation to decide on this particular image decoding

46
Q

Gestalt principles

A

Group and interpret stimuli according to the gestalt laws of perceptional organization

46
Q

Evidence for unconsious information processing

A

1) Visual agnosia: an inability to visually recognize objects
2) Blindsight: a condition where people are blind in part of their visual field yet in special test respond to stimuli in that field despite reporting that they cannot see those stimuli
3) Priming: exposure to a stimulus influences how subsequently respond to that same or another stimulus
4) Mere exposure effect: can recognize objects but not faces, the awareness of recognition is lost

47
Q

Attention

A

The process of concentrating on the same feature of the environment to the possible exclusion of others

48
Q

Selective attention

A

Maintaining a focus of attention on a specific item even when faced with alternatives and distractions

49
Q

4 stages of sleep

A

1) Light sleep
2) Sleep spindles
3) First delta waves
4) Delta waves

50
Q

Beta waves

A

The activity shown in the brain when you are awake and alert

51
Q

Alpha waves

A

The slower activity shown in the brain when we are feeling relaxed and drowsy

52
Q

Delta waves

A

Very regulary, slowm and large brain waves that appear as the sleeper moves into 3 stages of sleep

53
Q

Slow-wave sleep

A

Stage 3 and 4 together

54
Q

Encoding

A

The process of getting information into the system by translating it into neural code

55
Q

Storage/Consolidation

A

Process of retaining information over time

56
Q

Retrieval

A

Process of accessing stored information

57
Q

Mood-congruent recall

A

Tendency to recall memories that are congruent with our current mood

58
Q

Eliciting stimuli

A

Emotions are responses to situations, people, objects, or events

59
Q

Cognitive appraisal component

A

Cognitions are involved in virtually every aspect of emotion. Mental processes can evoke emotional responses

60
Q

James-Lange somatic theory

A

According to James-Lange theory, our bodily reactions determine the subjective emotion we experience. We know we are afraid or in love because our body’s reaction tells us so

61
Q

Cannon-Bard Theory

A

Proposed that the subjective experience of emotion and physiological arousal do not cause one another but instead are independent responses to an emotion-arousing situation

Brain (9 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions