Test 2 Flashcards
What is the human brain?
the first organ system to develop; neurogenesis proceeds at an amazing rate in utero (about 250,000 cells a minute at its peak)
What is microglia?
Dead cells eliminate
What are astrocycles?
Support cells
Peripheral Nervous system?
includes the somatic nervous system (somatomotor and somatosensory), and the autonomic nervous system
Somatic?
involved in touch, pain, temperature, movement of limbs
Autonomic?
involved in control of smooth muscles and glands; includes sympathetic (4 F’s) and parasympathetic (Rest’n’Digest) systems
What are the four F’s?
Freeze, flee, fight, fornication
Two general areas of nervous system?
Peripheral, and central (brain and spinal cord)
What is the Spinal cord and what does it do?
- extends from the medulla
- contains ascending sensory and descending motor neuron pathways, as well as interneurons that represent the circuitry of the spinal cord that produces “reflexive” behaviors
What is the brainstem?
it contains the sensory and motor pathways from/to the spinal cord
also,
-lower levels include medulla (cardio-respiratory centers) and pons (eye movements; arousal)
-reticular formation runs length of brainstem; involved in arousal and control of autonomic nervous system
What is the midbrain?
is responsible for auditory/visual orientation, reward, pain control, and movement/arousal
Cerebellum?
not part of brainstem any more, as functions are too complex
- integrates sensory input and motor info to coordinate fine movements, maintain posture; also has a role in learning and integrating emotion and language
- 50% of neurons in brain located in the cerebellum
Thalamus?
is the relay station of the brain; almost all sensory and motor info to and from cerebral hemispheres passes thru it; also role in attention and sleep
Hypothalamus?
structure that regulates body temp, hunger, thirst and sexual behavior
Cerebral hemispheres? Sulci? gyri?
- the dominant feature of the human brain
- characterized by extensive sulci (folds) and gyri (bulges) of cortex
Cortex?
can be divided into four regions
Frontal Lobe?
“human” lobe; key area for language, learning/memory, complex movement, “consciousness”, attention, affect
Parietal Lobe?
functions include processing info about touch
Temporal Lobe?
includes areas such as the hippocampus (key area for memory) and amygdala (key area in emotions) also involved in audition and visual processing
Occipital Lobe?
key role in vision
Corpus Callosum?
the two sides of cerebral hemispheres are connected by this
- it allows the right hemisphere to talk to left hemisphere, and vice versa
- study of split brain patients suggest that 2 sides of brain can function independently (one may not be conscious of what the other is doing), and have somewhat different specialties
Right hemisphere?
sensations form, and movement on, left side of bod; also involved in object/shape recognition; prosody
Left Hemisphere?
sensations from, and movement on, right side of body; also involved in language; reasoning
What is a receptor potential?
a kind of electrical signal produced by sensory neurons, caused by the presence of a particular kind of physical stimulus
what is perception?
it occurs when you have organized your sensations enough to form a representation of a particular object
Gustav Fechner?
- founded psychophysics; first person too look at how we sense and perceive
- discovered absolute thresholds and difference thresholds
What happens when you see an object?
- light passes thru the cornea and enters the eye through the pupil
- the pupil size is controlled by your iris
- once light has passed thru the pupil, it is focused onto the back of the eye by the lens
Draw and label all parts of eye
- muscles to move eye
- lens
- pupil
- iris
- cornea
- optic nerve to brain
- muscles to adjust lens
- retina
- fovea
- blind spot