Life Science Fall Midterm

What is Ontology?

How you view the world (as a scientist).

What is Epistemology?

The assumptions that you make about the best way of investigating the world and about reality.

What is the Positivist view in Epistemology?

The belief that the best way to conduct research is through objective methods.

What is the Social Constructionist view in Epistemology?

The belief that reality does not exist by itself, but is constructed and developed by people.

What is Methodology?

The way that you group together your research techniques to develop a clear story.

What stance do Realists take in Methodology, and what type of data do they use?

Realists take a positivist approach and use quantitative sources of data.

What stance do Relativists take in Methodology, and what type of data do they use?

Relativists take a social constructionist approach and use qualitative sources of data.

What are Methods and Techniques in research?

What you do in order to collect your data and carry out your investigations.

What is Closed data access, and what are its two sub-categories with examples?

Closed data access restricts use. Sub-categories are Internal access (e.g., employment contract, sales report) and Named access (explicitly assigned by contract, e.g., driving licenses).

What is Shared data access, and what is an example?

Shared data access involves group-based access requiring authentication (e.g., medical research).

What is Open data access, and what are its two main types with examples?

Open data access allows public or universal use. Types include Public access with a license limiting use (e.g., a Twitter feed) and Anyone access with an open license (e.g., a bus timetable).

What is Classical Conditioning?

Learning to associate events or stimuli that repeatedly happen together (Pavlovian conditioning).

What is Higher-order (or second-order) conditioning?

A procedure in which an established conditioned stimulus is paired with a new, neutral stimulus, leading to the new stimulus also eliciting a conditioned response.

What is Positive Reinforcement?

Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior.

What is Positive Punishment?

Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.

What is Negative Reinforcement?

Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior.

What is Negative Punishment?

Something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.

What are Unlearned Behaviors?

Instincts and reflexes that organisms are born with, which help them adapt to their environment.

What are Reflexes?

Motor or neural reactions to a specific stimulus in the environment that involve specific body parts and primitive centers of the central nervous system (e.g., spinal cord, pupils dilating).

What are Instincts?

Innate behaviors triggered by a range of events that involve more complex patterns of behavior and movement of the organism as a whole (e.g., sexual activity, migration) involving higher brain cells.

What is Learning?

A relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge resulting from experience, involving a complex interaction of conscious and unconscious processes.

What is Associative Learning?

When organisms make connections between stimuli or events that occur together in the environment (e.g., Pavlov's experiment linking a bell to a treat).

What are the three central forms of Associative Learning?

Classical conditioning (unconscious process), operant conditioning (conscious process), and observational learning (social and cognitive layers).

What is Operant Conditioning?

Organisms learn to associate a behavior with a consequence (reinforcement or punishment), where pleasant consequences encourage future behavior and punishment deters it.

What is Observational Learning?

Learning that extends the effective range of classical and operant conditioning by watching others and imitating what they do.

What are the primary steps of Information Processing?

Detect (sensory input), Interpret, Decide, and Respond (leading to behavior, mental processes, and cognition).

Can behavior and cognition be studied without knowing anything about the nervous system?

Yes, behavior and cognition can be studied without knowing anything about the nervous system, but interactions with the world depend on the activity of the nervous system.

What are the three primary Anatomical Views of the nervous system?

Frontal plane (front view), Horizontal/transverse plane, and Sagittal plane.

What are the two main divisions of the Nervous System Map?

The Central Nervous System (CNS) and the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS).

What comprises the Central Nervous System (CNS)?

The brain and spinal cord.

What comprises the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)?

Sensory pathways and motor pathways, which split into the Somatic (voluntary) and Autonomic (involuntary) systems, the latter of which splits into the Sympathetic and Parasympathetic divisions.

How are Sensory (afferent) nerves categorized?

They carry information to the central nervous system from sensory neurons whose cell bodies are located in the periphery of the body.

How are Motor (efferent) nerves categorized?

They extend out from the CNS to organs, regulating muscular movement or glandular secretion.

What are the stages of the Action Potential cycle in order?

1. Resting potential (-70mV) 2. Depolarization 3. Action potential peak 4. Repolarization 5. Back to resting potential

What is Threshold Potential?

The voltage at which depolarization of a cell leads to the generation of an action potential.

What is an Action Potential?

The all-or-nothing output of a neuron.

What is the Refractory Period?

A brief period following the generation of an action potential during which pumps work to return the cell to its original -70mV resting potential.

Why are neurons described as "integrators"?

Because they receive many inputs but produce a single, integrated output.

What is an Agonist?

A substance or chemical that makes biological processes or actions easier.

What is an Antagonist?

A substance or chemical that makes processes harder or blocks action.

What happens when Myelin is Disrupted?

1. Signal conduction along some axons becomes disrupted or less efficient. 2. Information does not travel through particular neural pathways normally. 3. Sensory or motor function can be affected.

What is the Neuron Hypothesis?

It explains how neural communication might be disrupted, showing how different symptoms arise (such as variations in vision, coordination, sensation, and movement).

What is a Ganglion?

A collection or cluster of neuronal cell bodies located in the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS).

What is a Nucleus (in neural terms)?

A collection of neuronal cell bodies located in the Central Nervous System (CNS).

What are the core functions of the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)?

It detects internal and external environmental information, relays it to the CNS, and executes the CNS's decisions in muscles, glands, and organs via spinal and cranial nerves.

What does the Somatic Nervous System do?

It interacts with the physical environment via afferent sensory neurons, efferent motor neurons to skeletal muscles, spinal nerves sending messages to the brain, and cranial nerves linking head receptors and muscles directly to the brain.

What does the Autonomic Nervous System do?

It regulates the internal environment and controls glands and internal organs using primary efferent neurons, consisting of sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions.

What are the core functions of the Central Nervous System (CNS)?

It recognizes and analyzes information received from the PNS and makes and transmits decisions to glands, organs, and muscles for exertion.

What are the functions of the Spinal Cord?

It serves as a conduit to and from the brain, transmits info, and controls spinal reflexes for limited analysis and decision-making.

What are the main functional areas of the Brain?

The hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain.

How is the Spinal Cord protected?

By the vertebral column, an outer bony coverage encasing the spinal cord.

How is the Brain protected?

By the skull (an outer bony covering) and the ventricular system.

What are the Meninges, and what are their three layers?

Protective membranes covering both the brain and spinal cord, consisting of the dura mater, arachnoid mater, and pia mater.

What is Paracrine signaling?

Non-classical effects of neurotransmitters that may not be released at the synapse or whose receptors are not located directly at the synapse.

What is Neurocrine (classical) signaling?

The classical neurochemical action of transmitters released at the axon terminal to affect specialized receptor sites across the synaptic cleft.

What are Neuromodulators?

Neurochemicals that indirectly affect neuronal activity, usually by modifying the response to other chemical neurotransmitters (the exact same molecule can operate as a neuromodulator in the brain and as a hormone in the gut).

What is Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)?

A long-lasting increase in a target neuron's response to a given level of activity of its input neurons.

What is Long-Term Depression (LTD)?

A long-lasting reduction in a target neuron's response to a given level of activity of its input neurons.

What is the formal glossary definition of the Peripheral Nervous System?

The autonomic nerves and somatic nerves that branch out beyond the spinal cord itself (as opposed to the central nervous system).

What is the formal glossary definition of the Somatic Nervous System?

The part of the peripheral nervous system that includes sensory and motor nerves, but excludes the autonomic nervous system.

What is the formal glossary definition of the Autonomic Nervous System?

Part of the peripheral nervous system, with sympathetic and parasympathetic components that control functions like heart rate and blood pressure.

What is the Sympathetic Nervous System?

Part of the autonomic nervous system that prepares the body for emergency action (fight or flight).

What is the Parasympathetic Nervous System?

One of the components of the autonomic nervous system that is essentially calming in its effects (rest and digest).

What is a Receptor (neurochemical)?

The specialized site of action at which neurotransmitters have their effects, such as by controlling a membrane ion channel.

Evolution is both…

theory and fact

Evolution

frequency of alleles in a population

Extant

opposite of extinct

Category

a set of entities that are equivalent in some way

• items similar to one another

Psychology essentialism

• Stereotyping:

• belief that members of a category have seen a property that causes them to be in a category and have properties the properties associated with 

Typicality

he differences in >goodness of a category members ranging from the most typical (the prototype) of borderline members 

Charles Darwin

• Galapagos islands- each had diffferent types of tortis

• Two major points: 

  • Evidence that theres are ecents are decendants of ones that are now extinct 

  • Natural selection: mechanisms for evolution 

Darwin’s postules:

• Individuals in a population vary 

• Some of the variation is heritable  

• Individuals overproduce (beyond replacement numbers) - the more there is the more likely that change is going to occur. 

• The variants differ in their likelihood to survive and reproduce

What are the modern postules

• Populations evolve

• Traits are heritable

• Evolution by natural selection is not progressive, animals do not do things for the good of the species and not all traits are adaptive.

evolution

a change in allele frequencies over time

When does natural selection occur

Natural selection occurs when individual with certain allele have increased fitness.

Adaptation

a genetically based trait that increases an individual's fitness in a particular environment 

All adaptation are constrained by…

tradeoffs as well as genetic and historical factors 

Contributions of Alfred Russel Wallace

• studies why are their grouping of similar species 

• Wrote letters to Darwin about his theories 

• Darwin used similar ideas from Wallace’s letter  

  • was it stolen?

Plato

realm of ideas, perfect example of everything, species unchanged 

Aristotle

( student of  Plato) categorizes, recognized species but not change 

Anaximander (300 years earlier):

physical forces rather than supernatural means to create order in universe 

Empedocles

combinations that worked  prevailed thing that weren"t eliminated, mechanism process not gradual 

Scientific revolution of 1500 ac

rationalism

rationalism

understnad the world in terms of cause and effects

Jean Baptiste Lamark

• Compared current species with fossils 

• Several lines of apparent decent 

• Coined the terms biology and invertebrate 

Jean Baptiste Lamark’s main ideas

• uses and disuse: body parts that are used extensively become larger and stronger and converse

• Idea of inheritance of aquired characteristics

Epigentics

changes in genetic due to environmental interactions 

Is epigenetics a genetic phenomenon?

no, Epigenetics is a non-genetic phenomena that takes place inside living cells that may alter organismal development 

Charles Lyell:

• Colleague of Darwin  

• Uniformitarianism: understand geological features by studying process that creates canyon that can be seen today 

Evidence of evolution by natural selection

• fossil

• Vestigial

• Homologus characters

• Developemental homology

Mary Anning discover

• paleontologist

• species go extinct =

• Transition form over time

Vestigial character

evidence that species characters have change through time

Homologous characters

• physical or genetic features in different species that look similar or share an underlying structure because they were inherited from a common ancestor

What are homologus character evidence for

• phylogenetic (common ancestry) related among species

Ontology perpetuates phylogeny - Haeckel 1866

• biogentic and phylotypic period

• the development history of an individual organism (ontogeny) continues, evolutionary history of its species (phylogeny).

Developmental homology

• similarites in developement

  • similar phylogenetic origin

  • therefore they once evolved from one another

Example of developemental

gill pouch

what is the ultimate result of evolution

generation of reproductively isolated species

theory of evolution

• natural selection is the mechanism and theory – cannot prove it 

explain how evolution is both theory and fact

• theort - we as humans did not witness evolution thus we can not be 100% certain that it happened

• Fact - can watch bateria evolve in a petrie dish