Unit 2 book notes

Question 1

The case of Genie emphasizes the role of

Answer 1

experience in human neural and psychological development

Question 2

The very first cells to develop in the embryo are

Answer 2

totipotent.

Question 3

An hypothesis that explains how growth cones find their way to their targets is the

Answer 3

radial glial hypothesis and cell-adhesion hypothesis

Question 4

Frogs, unlike mammals, have retinal ganglion cells that are capable of

Answer 4

regeneration

Question 5

In a classic study, Sperry cut the optic nerves of frogs, rotated their eyes 180°, and waited for regeneration. Once the frogs regained their vision, there was evidence that

Answer 5

despite the eye rotation, each axon grew out from the retina to the same area of the optic tectum to which it had originally been connected

Question 6

In vitro, neurons will form synapses

Answer 6

with almost any neuron

Question 7

Evidence suggests that many neurons die during development because of

Answer 7

their inability to compete successfully for their target’s neurotrophins

Question 8

Most of the cell death associated with early development of the brain is

Answer 8

apoptotic

Question 9

Apoptosis is safer than necrosis because apoptosis does not involve

Answer 9

inflammation

Question 10

The development of the human brain is unique in that

Answer 10

it develops so slowly

Question 11

The course of human cognitive development is thought to reflect the development in

Answer 11

prefrontal cortex

Question 12

Neurons and synapses that are not activated by experience usually

Answer 12

do not survive

Question 13

It is now generally acknowledged that adult brains are

Answer 13

capable of major adaptation

Question 14

The first evidence that new neurons can be created in the brains of adult animals came in the early1980s from the study of

Answer 14

songbirds

Question 15

mammals, adult neurogenesis occurs in the

Answer 15

hippocampus

olfactory bulb

Question 16

Considering their mental retardation, people with Williams syndrome tend to have remarkably good

Answer 16

language ability

Question 17

If a person developed a brain tumor as a result of chronic cigarette smoking, the tumor would likely be

Answer 17

metastatic

malignant

Question 18

Following cerebral ischemia

Answer 18

glutamate is released in excessive quantities

Question 19

In a car accident, a woman banged the front of her head on the steering wheel. A subsequent CT scan revealed a subdural hematoma over the left occipital lobe. The woman clearly had suffered a

Answer 19

contrecoup injury

contusion

Question 20

The punch-drunk syndrome suggests that each individual concussion is associated with

Answer 20

dementia

Question 21

Neurological disorders are rarely caused by dominant genes

Answer 21

because all individuals carrying them would be at a major disadvantage in terms of
survival and reproduction.

Question 22

Necrotic cell death

Answer 22

usually involves inflammation

Question 23

An epileptic focus is a site in the brain of an epileptic patient

Answer 23

at which discharges originating at other sites tend to be synchronized.

Question 24

Which of the following is likely to lead to the label of daydreamer?

Answer 24

petite mal epilepsy

Question 25

Parkinson’s disease typically strikes in

Answer 25

middle or late adulthood

Question 26

Although L-DOPA does have some beneficial effects, it is not a solution to the problem of Parkinson’s disease because it

Answer 26

typically becomes less and less therapeutically effective with use

Question 27

Which general class of drugs is useful in treating Parkinson’s disease

Answer 27

dopamine agonist

Question 28

Huntington’s disease is caused by

Answer 28

single dominant gene

Question 29

If one of your parents develops Huntington’s disease, the probability that you will also develop it is

Answer 29

50%

Question 30

Currently, people with Huntington’s disease live for an average of ____ after the first appearance of symptoms.

Answer 30

15 yrs

Question 31

the last few decades, the number of cases of Huntington’s disease has declined as the result

Answer 31

tests for the gene that discourage carriers from having children

Question 32

Multiple sclerosis appears to result from

Answer 32

faulty auto-immune rxn

Question 33

The most common cause of dementia is

Answer 33

Alzheimer’s disease

Question 34

The first treatments for Alzheimer’s disease were

Answer 34

cholinergic agonists

Question 35

Kindling is considered to be a model of

Answer 35

human epileptogenesis.

Question 36

In primates, MPTP produces damage in

Answer 36

substantia nigra

Question 37

In one study, Kapur (1997) studied the effects of brain damage on doctors and scientists. He concluded that

Answer 37

their cognitive reserve allowed them to compensate for their cognitive deficits by
accomplishing cognitive tasks in alternative ways, even though they did not recover lost
functions.

Question 38

Bilateral transplantation of fetal substantia nigra tissue in monkeys has proven successful in alleviating the symptoms o

Answer 38

MPTP poisoning.

Question 39

Why was autotransplantation tried as a treatment for Parkinson’s disease

Answer 39

the adrenal cortex releases dopamine

Question 40

Efforts to cure phantom limb pain have focused on destroying various components of the pathway from the stump to the cortex. About ____ of patients have received permanent benefit from this treatment.

Answer 40

0%

Question 41

The brain operation performed on H.M. is called a

Answer 41

bilateral medial temporal lobectomy

Question 42

If you were going to illustrate the extent of H.M.’s lesion, you could accomplish this best if you drew H.M.’s brain from ____ perspective

Answer 42

inferior

Question 43

H.M.’s surgery was a success in that

Answer 43

his IQ was increased

Question 44

H.M.’s greatest postsurgical problem is his

Answer 44

anterograde amnesia

Question 45

On which of the following tests did H.M. display substantial long-term memory as indicated by improved performance?

Answer 45

block-tapping

Pavlovian

Question 46

nutshell, H.M.’s main problem seems to be that he

Answer 46

can form no new explicit long-term memories

Question 47

Why do we have two memory systems - explicit and implicit - which are both capable of learning the same material? What advantage is there in having a second, conscious system? Recent evidence suggests that the answer is

Answer 47

greater flexibility

Question 48

One major difference between the amnesia associated with advanced Korsakoff’s syndrome and that associated with bilateral medial temporal lobe damage is that patients with advanced Korsakoff’s syndrome have

Answer 48

a retrograde amnesia that can extend back into childhood

Question 49

It is difficult to differentiate between anterograde and retrograde amnesia in Korsakoff patients because

Answer 49

Korsakoff’s syndrome has a gradual onset.

Question 50

Alzheimer’s amnesia is usually studied in

Answer 50

predementia Alzheimer’s patients

Question 51

Alzheimer’s disease, the brain damage is

Answer 51

diffuse

Question 52

The retrograde amnesia associated with closed-head injury has been frequently studied in laboratory animals by

Answer 52

1. ) administering ECS

2. ) using multiple-trial learning tests so that the time of learning was less precisely specified

Question 53

In retrospect, the major reason for the initial difficulty in developing an animal model of human medial temporal lobe amnesia was that efforts focused on

Answer 53

implicit memory tests

hippocampus

Question 54

Hippocampal lesions in rats reliably disrupt performance of tasks that involve memory for

Answer 54

spatial location

Question 55

Some hippocampal neurons become active only when the subject is

Answer 55

in particular places

Question 56

When rats are NOT sure where they are, their place cells fire in accordance with where they

Answer 56

came from

Question 57

Food-caching species of birds tend to have ____ hippocampi than non-food-caching species

Answer 57

larger

Question 58

The current consensus is that memories of experiences are likely stored

Answer 58

diffusely throughout the structures of the brain that participated in the original
experience.

Question 59

The amygdala appears to be involved in the ____ component of memory, whereas the cerebellum appears to be involved in the ____ component.

Answer 59

emotional

sensorimotor

Question 60

One famous patient with prefrontal damage could not cook because she could not

Answer 60

carry out the various steps in proper sequence

Question 61

Approximately what proportion of healthy people experience infantile amnesia

Answer 61

100%

Question 62

Recent studies have demonstrated that infantile amnesia can occur for ____ memories without affecting ____ memories for the same information

Answer 62

explicit; implicit