Biopsychology Exam 2 Review

These flashcards cover key concepts relating to biopsychology, specifically psychopharmacology, methods, and vision as addressed in the lecture notes.

Dopamine

A neurotransmitter that activates voluntary movements and reinforces behavior.

LSD

A hallucinogenic drug that activates serotonin receptors.

Benzodiazepines

Drugs that bind with GABA receptors and have an anxiety-reducing effect.

Antagonist

A substance that blocks or dampens the activity of a neurotransmitter.

Presynaptic autoreceptor

A receptor that controls the release of neurotransmitters; blocking it would act as an agonist.

GABA

An inhibitory neurotransmitter involved in most neural communications.

Glutamate

An excitatory neurotransmitter that is involved in most neural communications.

Lesion studies

Research method used to study brain function by observing behavioral changes following brain lesions.

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

A record of electrical activity in the brain.

MRI

A brain imaging technique that shows greater spatial resolution than CT scans.

Retinal disparity

The difference in images between the two eyes that helps to perceive depth.

Inferior temporal cortex

Brain region involved in the analysis of form and color.

Opponent-process coding

A color vision theory that describes how colors are perceived as pairs of opposing colors.

Extrastriate cortex

Area in the brain that receives information from the retina and processes visual information.

Dorsal stream

Visual association pathway responsible for directing visually-guided movements.

CO blobs

Parts of the primary visual cortex that contain color-sensitive neurons.

Receptive field

The area of sensory space that a neuron responds to.

Magnocellular layers

Layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus that are involved in motion detection and are termed layers 1 and 2.

Pupil

The aperture in the eye that controls the amount of light entering.

Vision pathway

The process by which visual information is transmitted from the retina to the brain.