Psychology 454: Behavioral Neuroscience Summary

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts from the Behavioral Neuroscience lecture focusing on auditory and vestibular systems.

Auditory Cortex

Region of the brain involved in processing auditory information, divided into core, belt, and parabelt regions.

Tonotopic Organization

The spatial arrangement of where sounds of different frequency are processed in the auditory cortex.

Dorsal Pathway

The 'where' or 'how' auditory pathway that processes sound localization.

Ventral Pathway

The 'what' auditory pathway that processes auditory objects and sound characteristics.

Vestibular System

System responsible for balance, equilibrium, and spatial orientation, including structures such as semicircular canals and otolith organs.

Core Region

Part of the auditory cortex (Brodmann area 41) responsible for primary auditory processing.

Harmonics

Frequencies that are integer multiples of a fundamental frequency, crucial for identifying complex sounds.

Band-Passed Noise

Sounds of intermediate complexity, processed primarily by the belt region of the auditory cortex.

Macula

Sensory apparatus in otolith organs that detects linear acceleration and changes in head angle.

Push-Pull Mechanism

The operational principle of semicircular canals where one canal's stimulation depolarizes hair cells while the opposite canal’s stimulation hyperpolarizes them.

Phoneme

A perceptually distinct unit of speech, processed in the superior temporal gyrus.

Semicircular Canals

Structure in the vestibular system that detects angular acceleration and head movements.

Otolith Organs

Structures in the vestibular system sensitive to linear acceleration and gravitational forces.

PIVC (Parieto-Insular Vestibular Cortex)

Area in the brain involved in processing vestibular information and contributing to self-motion perception.