Psych Test 3- The Brain, Sleep, Sensation

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Brain Stem & Medulla

Basic functioning, like breathing and heart rate

RAS (Reticular Activating System)

Brain’s reward center

Voluntary movement

Eye movement

Learning, cogition, emotion

Cerebellum

Coordination of muscle movement

Balance

Procedural Learning

Cerebral Cortex

2 Hemispheres

Limbic system, corpus callosum, lobes

Limbic System

PATHH

Pituitary gland, amygdala, thalamus, hippocampus, hypothalamus

Corpus Callosum

Divides 2 hemispheres and holds them together

Severe corpus callosum → seizure treatment

4 Lobes

Frontal, Parietal, Temporal, Occiptal

Occipital Lobe

Back of head, primary visual cortex,

Temporal Lobe

Auditory and Linguistic Processing

Parietal Lobe

Process and organize information

Primary somatosensory cortex

Frontal Lobe

Linguistic processing (Broca’s Area), higher-order thinking, executive functioning (prefrontal cortex),

Primary motor cortex

Language Areas

Left hemisphere!!

Broca’s Area: speech production

Wernicke’s Area: speech comprehension

Damage to either: aphasia

Split Brain Patients

Testing for cortex specialization

Corpus Callosum cut

Brain Plasticity

Ability of the brain to rewire/modify itself after damage is done

EEG

Electrodes on the scalp— measures brain waves

fMRI

Functional MRI

Changes in blood flow in the brain → neural activity

Shows physical structure and function

Consciousness

Awake and awareness variance

Sleeping is a different level of consciousness than being awake

Circadian Rhythm

Natural sleep-wake cycle, roughly 24 hrs

Sleep Stages

1-3: NREM (non REM), decreases throughout the night

Stage 1- hypogognic sensations (feeling that you are falling, hallucinations)

4- REM Sleep

REM Sleep

Rapid Eye Movement

Produces waves similar to wakefulness, body is at its most relaxed

Dreaming!

More REM as the night goes on

Deprived of REM sleep → REM rebound

Deeper sleep

Activation-Synthesis Theory

Dreams are a result of random brain activity

Brain turns it into something more meaningful

Consolidation Theory

Sleep conforms short-term memories into long-term, organizes

Restores depleted resources

Insomnia

Persistent problems falling or staying asleep

Narcolepsy

Victims suffer sudden, uncontrollable sleep attacks

Going directly into REM

Absence of neurotransmitter linked to alertness

Sleep Apnea

Stop breathing while asleep → wakes up to breathe → falls back asleep → cycle repeats

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder

Act out vivid, unpleasant dreams with violent arm and leg movements and sounds

Somnambulism

Walking or preforming other tasks while in NREM

sleepwalking, sleep talking

Sensation

Detecting information from the environment that meets a certain threshold (50%) and turning it into neurochemical messages

Weber’s Law

Degree to which stimuli need to be different for a change to be detected

Sensory Adaptation

Becoming “numb” to stimuli → common enough that your body is not as sensitive to it

Synesthesia

Sensory systems cross → experience one sense through another

Retina

Back of the eye

Contain rods and cones— photoreceptors

Blind spot— where ganglion cells form the optic nerve

Accommodation

Lens focuses visual stimuli onto retina

Nearsightedness- Focus in front of retina, distant objects harder to see

Farsightedness- Focus behind retina, closer objects harder to see

Astigmatism- Unusual shaped cornea → trouble focusing

Rods

Edges of the retina

Shapes, movement, black and white, used in lower light

Cones

Fovea (center of retina), color

RGB waves

• red: long wavelengths

• green: medium wavelengths

• blue: short wavelengths

Opponent Proces Theory

RG, BY, BW

one is activated while the other is repressed

Color Blindness

Damage to cones

Monochromatism- black and white only

Dichromatism- red/green colorblind

Trichromatism- normal eyesight

Prosopagnosia

Fact blindness

Cannot recognize faces— issues connecting memory and sight

Issue with occipital lobe

Blind Sight

Eye and optic nerve work, but occipital lobe does not

Can see, but not process the signals → still blind even though eyes work fine