PSYC 375: Brain and Sensory Processes Exam 1 Copy

Aristotle

Who believed the heart was the centre of intellect and that the brain was a radiator for the blood?

Hippocrates

Who was the first person to believe the brain was involved in sensation and believed it was the seat of intelligence?

Galen

Who was the surgeon who found the distinction between the cerebrum (sensation and perception) from the cerebellum (movement and motor control) AND who discovered the ventricles?

Descartes

Who believed in the fluid-mechanical theory of brain function, and who thought that mental capacities occur outside the brain in the "mind" (with communication via the pineal gland)?

White and grey matter; white matter has nerves and is responsible for transmitting info to and from the brain

What did physicians during the 17th and 18th centuries discover?

Peripheral and central nervous system; gyri, sulci, and fissures suggested localization of function

What was studied about the brain in the 18th century?

Galvani and du Bois-Reymond

Who discovered that the brain can generate electricity by stimulating different parts of the body to see electrical impulses in the brain?

Gall

Who believed that personality traits could be determined through phrenology?

Flourens

Who used the experimental ablation method (taking a piece of the brain out to determine the effect)?

Broca

Who was the physician who discovered the area in the frontal cortex of the brain that deals with speech?

Neuron

What is the basic functional unit of the brain?

Cognitive, Molecular, Behavioral, Cellular, and Systems

What are the five levels of analysis in neuroscience?

Studies the neural basis of animal function

What is neuroethology?

Process information

What do neurons do?

Sensory neurons: sense environmental changes

Interneurons: communicate changes to other neurons

Motor neurons: command body response

What are the main subdivisions of neurons and what do they do?

Insulates, supports and nourishes neurons

What do glia do?

True

True or False: Glia outnumbers neurons

An extension from the body of a nerve cell (neuron), whether that being dendrites or axons

What is a neurite?

Stains the nucleus and surrounding structures (known as Nissl bodies--including the RER); facilitates the study of cytoarchitecture

What is the Nissl Stain?

The study of the arrangement of neurons in the brain

What is cytoarchitecture?

Soma and neurites (specifically dendrites)

What does a Golgi-stain show?

To study the structure of individual neurons; it only stains about one percent of neurons, so overlapping does not occur

Why is the Golgi-stain important?

Shoot towards the top

Apical dendrites?

Deep in neuron

Basal dendrites?

Neuron is the primary element of the nervous system

What is the Neuron Doctrine?

Believed that there was a separation between neurons, and that they communicate by contact (not continuity); also believed neurons adhere to cell theory

What did Cajal believe about neural communication?

Believed our nerves were interconnected; continuous with no barrier

What did Golgi believe about neural communication?

Cajal

Who was correct about neural communication?

Cytosol, organelles, and cytoplasm

What is contained in the soma?

Salty, potassium-rich fluid inside the cell separated from the outside by the neuronal membrane

What is cytosol?

Contents within a cell membrane, excluding the nucleus

What is cytoplasm?

"Reading of DNA;" two step process of DNA to protein (transcription and translation)

What is gene expression?

Proteins (responsible for vast majority of cellular functions)

What is the final product of gene expression?

Chromosomes (which contains DNA)

What does the nucleus contain?

The assembly of mRNA from DNA

What happens in transcription?

Region where the RNA synthesizing enzyme (RNA polymerase) binds

What is the promoter?

Regulate RNA polymerase-promoter binding

What do transcription factors do?

EXONS ONLY

What codes for proteins: introns or exons?

The assembly of proteins from amino acid molecules under the direction of mRNA

What is translation?

Proteins responsible for translation

What are ribosomes?

RER

Where is the major site for protein synthesis?

Proteins destined for cytosol

What do free ribosomes make?

Several ribosomes attached to mRNA manufacturing multiple copies of protein

What are polyribosomes?

Membrane-associated proteins

What do ribosomes on the RER make?

Post-translational processes, such as…

(SER:) preparing/ (Golgi:) sorting proteins for delivery to different cell regions and regulating substances

What processes do the SER and Golgi Apparatus take part in?

Cells energy source

What is ATP?

Site for cellular energy source

What is the mitochondria?

Starts with pyruvic acid and ends with ATP in mitochondria

Krebs cycle?

Composition of discrete neuronal membrane regions

What influences neural function?

Protein concentration

What varies in neuronal membranes?

True

True or false: the cytoskeleton is dynamic (constantly changing)

Internal scaffolding of neuronal membrane

What is the cytoskeleton?

Microtubules, microfilaments, and neurofilaments

What are the three "bones" of the cytoskeleton?

Stringing together of molecules

What is polymerization?

Microtubules run down the whole length of the axon

Microfilaments and neurofilaments are more like support structures that do not run down the whole length of the axon

How are microtubules, microfilaments, and neurofilaments structured in an axon?

Involved in microtubule assembly; allows for synthesis of microtubules

What do MAPs (microtubule-associated proteins) do?

Tau is a MAP that plays a role in Alzheimer's

What is Tau?

Braid of two thin polymers made of actin molecules

What are microfilaments?

Made of long thin proteins that are very strong

What are neurofilaments?

Hillock (beginning), proper (middle), and terminal (end)

Parts of the axon?

1. ER does not extend into axon

2. Protein composition is unique

Differences between axon and soma?

Branches off of the axon

What are axon collaterals?

Neurotransmitters

What do synaptic vesicles hold?

1. No microtubules in terminal

2. Presence of synaptic vesicles in terminal

3. Abundance of membrane proteins in terminal

4. Large number of mitochondria in terminal

Differences between the cytoplasm of axon terminal and axon?

Site of information transfer from one neuron to another

What is a synapse?

Presynaptic (terminal bouton of axon) and postsynaptic (dendrite)

What are the two sides to the synapse?

Transfer of information from one neuron to another at the synapse (electrical to chemical to electrical process)

What is synaptic transmission?

Neurotransmitter

What is the chemical signaling molecule called in synaptic transmission?

Cellular process responsible for movement of proteins (packaged in vesicles) to and from a neuron's cell body, through the cytoplasm of its axon (the axoplasm), traveling along microtubules

What is axoplasmic transport?

From the soma to the terminal

What is the direction of anterograde transport?

From the terminal to the soma

What is the direction of retrograde transport?

Kinesin

What is facilitated by anterograde?

Dynein

What is facilitated by retrograde?

"Antennae" of neurons

Dendrites are the site of neuronal computation; they decide what happens in post-synaptic cell

What are dendrites and what do they do?

All of the dendrites of a single neuron

Branching pattern increases surface area (greater synaptic input without taking too much space)

Function: receiver

What is a dendritic tree and why is the branching important?

Some neurotransmitter receptors

What is at the site of dendritic spines?

1. Number of neurites (unipolar, bipolar, or multipolar)

2. Dendritic and somatic morphologies (stellate cells or pyramidal cells)

3. Connections within the CNS (sensory, motor, or interneurons)

4. Axonal length (Golgi Type I and Golgi Type II)

5. Neurotransmitter type (cholinergic, dopaminergic, etc.)

What is the classification of neurons based on?

Dendrites radiate out from soma

What do stellate cells look like?

Pyramid-shaped soma

What do pyramidal cells look like?

True--they can be spiny or aspinous

True or false: not all neurons have spines

Projection neuron

What is Golgi Type I axonal length?

Local neuron

What is Golgi Type II axonal length?

Acetylcholine

What does the cholinergic neurotransmitter transmit?

Dopamine

What does the dopaminergic neurotransmitter transmit?

True

True or false: neurons cannot survive without glia