AP Psych: Unit 1.4- The Brain

Based on AP Course Guide

Medulla

Functions: Heart Rate, Breathing, Blood Pressure

Reflexes: Swallowing, Sneezing, Vomiting

Pons

Functions: Connects brainstem and cerebellum, helps coordinate movements, plays a role in sleep functions

Reticular Activating System

A network of nerve fibers involved in attention, arousal, and alertness

Cerebellum

Functions: Balance and equilibrium, coordinated movement, implicit memory

Midbrain

Functions: Nerve system connecting higher and lower brain portions, relays info between the brain and the ears and the eyes

Limbic System

Includes structures involved in emotion, motivation, learning, and memory

Thalamus

Functions: Sensory switchboard, receives and sorts sensory information (except for smell)

Hypothalamus

Functions: Fight or Flight response, feeding, fornication

Amygdala

Functions: anger, aggression, fear responses, ingrains highly emotional memories

Hippocampus

Functions: Converts short term memory into long term memory, involved in processing and retrieving declarative memory, spatial relationship memories

Frontal Lobe

Thinking, planning, decision-making, impulse control, movement

Parietal Lobe

Sense of touch

Occipital Lobe

Visual perception

Temporal Lobe

Hearing and listening

Cerebral Cortex

Outer covering of the brain, containing 2 hemispheres and 4 lobes

Prefrontal Cortex

Part of the temporal lobe that is involved in the highest level cognitive functions: thinking, planning, decision-making, impulse control

Motor Cortex

Part of frontal lobe involved in initiating voluntary movement, contralateral (controls opposite side of the body)

Somatosensory Cortex

Part of parietal lobe that represents sense of touch

Primary Visual Cortex

Part of the occipital lobe involved in visual perception

Primary auditory cortex

Part of the temporal lobe involved in hearing

Auditory Association Cortex

Allows us to understand and associate certain sounds with certain objects

Language

Almost exclusively lateralized to the left hemisphere

Broca’s Area

Part of the frontal lobe involved in creating speech

Broca’s Aphasia

Inability to clearly express the words they’re trying to convey

Wernicke’s Area

Part of the temporal lobe involved in understanding and comprehending language

Wernicke’s Aphasia

An inability to comprehend or understand speech

Corpus Callosum

Bundle of nerve fibers that allows communication between the right and left hemispheres

Split Brain Procedure

Involves severing the corpus callosum to relieve life-threatening epilepsy

Split Brain Patients- Left Visual Field

Can’t really see very well, but can draw what they saw with their left hand, sees images as a whole, follows a command but couldn’t explain why they did that command

Split Brain Patients- Right Visual Field

Can see perfectly, saw details rather than images as a whole

Brain Lateralization

Some things are lateralized to the left and others are lateralized to the right

Left Hemisphere

Language, Interpretation

Right Hemisphere

Spatial abilities, facial recognition, stronger at controlling and recognizing emotional expressions, more active while appreciating/creating art and music

Neuroplasticity

Throughout life, the brain grows new connections and neurons

Neurogenesis

The created of new cells, increased by exercise and decreased by social isolation

Long term potentiation

When neurons continuously fire in a repeated pattern, that neural pathway becomes more efficient

Structural Plasticity

Includes long term potentiation

Functional Plasticity

The brain can shift functions from damaged to undamaged areas

fMRI (Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging)

Shows us both structure and function the brain, measures changes in oxygen levels as brain areas activate/deactivate

EEG (electroencephalograph)

Shows us function, measure electrical activity coming off the surface of the brain, can be used to identify epilepsy or various sleep disorders