Psychology Quiz 1.4: Brain Structures, Research Methods, and Sleep States

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering neuroanatomy, brain damage scenarios, research techniques, hemispheric specialization, and sleep theories from Psychology Quiz 1.4.

Medulla

The part of the brain that controls heartbeat, breathing, and other automatic survival functions.

Medulla Damage

Injury resulting in difficulty controlling essential survival functions such as breathing and heartbeat.

Reticular Activating System

The brain structure that helps regulate alertness and wakefulness.

Reticular Activating System Impairment

A condition in which a person has trouble maintaining alertness and staying awake even when they have had enough sleep.

Reward Center

The brain structure associated with pleasure, motivation, and reinforcement.

Reward Center Activation

The neural response that motivates an individual to repeat an activity because it feels rewarding.

Cerebellum

The brain structure that coordinates balance, posture, and movement.

Cerebellum Damage

Injury resulting in difficulty balancing, coordinating movements, or walking in a straight line despite functioning muscles.

Cerebral Cortex

The brain structure responsible for higher-level processes such as thinking, perception, memory, and decision-making, as well as processing information from the senses.

Cerebral Cortex Impairment

Damage that prevents a person from properly interpreting sensory information and performing complex thinking.

Limbic System

The brain system primarily associated with emotion, motivation, and memory.

Limbic System Dysfunction

An impairment leading to difficulty processing emotional responses and motivation.

Thalamus

The brain structure that acts as a relay station for incoming sensory information.

Thalamus Damage

Injury causing difficulty relaying sensory information to the appropriate parts of the brain.

Hypothalamus

The brain structure that regulates hunger, thirst, body temperature, and other basic drives.

Hypothalamus Damage

Injury leading to an inability to properly regulate hunger, thirst, or body temperature.

Pituitary Gland

The endocrine gland that controls the release of hormones through the endocrine system and influences other endocrine glands.

Master Gland

A common designation for the pituitary gland because it influences and controls other endocrine glands.

Pituitary Gland Dysfunction

Disrupted hormone production caused by malfunction of the gland controlling other endocrine glands.

Hippocampus

The brain structure responsible for forming new memories.

Hippocampus Damage

Injury (such as from falling and hitting one's head) that leaves a person unable to form new memories or recall information learned earlier that day.

Amygdala

The brain structure strongly associated with fear, threat detection, and emotional processing.

Amygdala Injury

Damage that leads to an exaggerated fear response or difficulty processing fear and emotional reactions.

Amygdala Threat Response

The rapid processing of emotional fear triggered immediately when seeing a threat, such as a snake.

Corpus Callosum

The brain structure that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres.

Severed Corpus Callosum

A condition in which the left and right cerebral hemispheres have difficulty communicating and transferring information between each other.

Split-Brain Surgery

A surgical procedure in which the corpus callosum is severed.

Occipital Lobes

The brain lobes that primarily process visual information.

Occipital Lobe Damage

Injury from trauma to the back of the head causing difficulty seeing or processing visual information.

Temporal Lobes

The brain lobes primarily responsible for hearing and language processing.

Temporal Lobe Damage

Injury causing difficulty recognizing sounds and processing or understanding spoken language.

Parietal Lobes

The brain lobes primarily responsible for processing touch and other body sensations such as pressure and temperature.

Parietal Lobe Damage

Injury resulting in an inability to properly interpret sensory information about touch, pressure, and temperature.

Association Areas

Parts of the brain responsible for integrating sensory information and combining it with previous knowledge.

Object Recognition via Association Areas

The cognitive process of identifying an object or familiar person by combining sensory input with stored memories and knowledge.

Somatosensory Cortex

The brain area that processes sensory information from the skin and body.

Somatosensory Cortex Damage

Injury leaving an individual unable to properly identify where they are being touched or interpret touch and pressure.

Frontal Lobes

The brain lobes associated with planning, decision-making, voluntary movement, and higher-order thinking.

Frontal Lobe Damage

Injury resulting in impulsive behavior and struggles with planning and organization.

Linguistic Processing

The brain's processing and understanding of language.

Key Regions for Linguistic Processing

Broca's area and Wernicke's area.

Higher-Order Thinking

Complex thinking involving reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making.

Executive Functioning

Mental processes that help with planning, organizing, controlling impulses, and completing goals.

Executive Functioning Impairment

A deficit causing struggles to organize assignments, plan ahead, control impulses, and achieve goals.

Prefrontal Cortex

The part of the frontal lobes especially important for executive functioning, planning, decision-making, and impulse control.

Prefrontal Cortex Damage

Injury causing major personality changes, impulsive decisions, and difficulty planning for the future or organizing tasks.

Motor Cortex

The part of the brain that controls voluntary skeletal muscle movements.

Motor Cortex Location

Located near the rear of the frontal lobes.

Motor Cortex Damage

Injury resulting in the inability to voluntarily move a part of the body, such as an arm.

Broca's Area

The brain area responsible for speech production.

Broca's Area Damage

An impairment where a person understands language and knows what to say but struggles to produce understandable speech or form verbal responses.

Wernicke's Area

The brain area responsible for language comprehension.

Wernicke's Area Damage

An impairment where a person speaks fluently or in complete sentences, but the speech does not make sense and they struggle to understand spoken language.

Aphasia

A language impairment that affects speaking, understanding, reading, or writing, often caused by damage to Broca's or Wernicke's area or a stroke.

Split-Brain Research

Research involving people whose corpus callosum has been severed to study how the hemispheres work independently.

Role of Corpus Callosum in Split-Brain Research

The neural bridge that normally allows the two cerebral hemispheres to communicate with each other.

Hemispheric Specialization

The idea that the left and right hemispheres specialize in different activities and functions.

Left Hemisphere Specialization

The cerebral hemisphere typically more involved in language processing.

Contralateral Hemispheric Organization

The principle that each brain hemisphere primarily controls and receives information from the opposite side of the body.

Left Motor Cortex Injury Effect

Damage resulting in motor impairment or loss of voluntary movement on the right side of the body.

Right Hemisphere Injury Effect

Damage resulting in difficulty controlling movement on the left side of the body, such as the left arm.

Left Visual Field Processing

Sensory information presented to the left visual field that is initially received by the right hemisphere in split-brain research.

Brain Plasticity

The brain's ability to reorganize itself by creating or modifying neural connections.

Functional Recovery via Plasticity

The process whereby undamaged brain areas assume the functions of damaged areas following brain injury.

Electroencephalogram (EEG)

A technique that records electrical activity in the brain using electrodes placed on the scalp.

EEG in Sleep Research

The research method used to record brain waves and electrical activity while a participant sleeps or moves through sleep stages.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

A brain imaging technique that measures changes in blood oxygenation associated with brain activity.

fMRI in Cognitive Tasks

The neuroimaging method used to identify active brain areas during specific tasks, such as memory recall or recognizing a familiar face.

Lesioning

A research technique involving damaging or removing specific brain tissue to study its function through behavioral changes.

Purpose of EEG and fMRI

To understand brain activity and determine how different brain structures function.

Consciousness

A person's awareness of internal thoughts, feelings, and external surroundings.

Sleep and Wakefulness

States of consciousness that differ in levels of awareness and brain activity.

Circadian Rhythm

The body's approximately 24-hour biological cycle that helps regulate the sleep-wake cycle throughout the day and night.

Jet Lag

A disruption of the body's circadian rhythm after traveling across time zones.

Shift Work

Working schedules outside typical daytime hours that can disrupt normal sleep patterns and circadian rhythms.

Circadian Rhythm Disruption from Shift Work

Desynchronization of the internal biological clock caused by working overnight and sleeping during the day.

Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM) Sleep

Sleep consisting of Stages 1, 2, and 3, which become progressively deeper.

Stages of NREM Sleep

Stages 1, 2, and 3.

NREM Stage 1

The initial light stage of sleep during which hypnagogic sensations occur.

Hypnagogic Sensations

Vivid sensations or experiences, such as the sudden feeling of falling, that occur as someone is falling asleep.

NREM Sleep Progression

The pattern in which Stages 1 through 3 become progressively deeper as the sleep cycle advances.

Rapid Eye Movement (REM) Sleep

A sleep stage characterized by rapid eye movements, vivid dreaming, and brain activity resembling wakefulness.

Paradoxical Sleep

Another name for REM sleep because the brain is active while the physical body is largely at rest or inactive.

REM Rebound

An increase in REM sleep after a period of REM sleep deprivation.

REM Sleep Deprivation

A deficit of REM sleep that subsequently triggers REM rebound.

Frequency of REM Across the Night

The progression where REM periods generally become longer or more frequent as the night progresses.

Dreaming in REM Sleep

Vivid dreams that typically occur during REM sleep while the physical body remains largely at rest.

Activation-Synthesis Theory

The theory that dreams result from the brain trying to make sense of random neural activity during sleep by synthesizing it into a story.

Brain Synthesis in Dreams

The process described by activation-synthesis theory where the brain creates a narrative by interpreting random neural signals.

Memory Consolidation Theory

The idea that sleep is essential because it helps organize and consolidate memories.

Memory Consolidation

The cognitive process of organizing and strengthening memories during sleep.

Restoration Theory

The idea that sleep restores physical and mental resources depleted during daily activities.

Memory Consolidation vs. Restoration Theory

Consolidation theory focuses on organizing and strengthening memories, while restoration theory focuses on replenishing depleted resources.

Balance and Posture Coordination

Motor functions primarily coordinated by the cerebellum.

Automatic Survival Functions

Essential physiological processes including heartbeat and breathing controlled by the medulla.

Alertness Regulation

The control of arousal and wakefulness managed by the reticular activating system.

Sensory Relay Station

The functional designation of the thalamus for routing incoming sensory signals to cortical destinations.

Basic Drives Regulation

The homeostatic control of hunger, thirst, and body temperature managed by the hypothalamus.

Endocrine System Regulation

The release of hormones throughout the body controlled by the pituitary gland.

New Memory Formation

The cognitive memory process specifically directed by the hippocampus.