Ap Psychology Unit 1

Central Nervous System (CNS)

Sends out orders to the body

Made up of brain and spinal cord

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

Consists of different nerves that branch off from the brain and spine. Connects CNS to all body systems.

Somatic Nervous System (SNS)

• Also known as the skeletal nervous system

• includes 5 senses and skeletal muscle movements

• Movements can happen consciously and voluntarily (ex. blinking)

Automatic Nervous System (ANS)

Controls involuntary activities and divided into the sympathetic division and parasympathetic division

Sympathetic system

Mobilizes your body and gets it ready for action (AKA flight or fight), done by faster heartbeat, eye dilation, and increase in breathing

Parasympathetic system

Relaxes the body, slows heart rate, increases digestion, and focus on saving + storing energy

Galil Cells

• Provide structure, insulation + communication, and waste transportation

• Form basis of the nervous system

• Most abundant in nervous system

• Don’t process info

Neurons

• Basic functional unit of the nervous system

• Communicate by electrical impulses + chemical signals

Reflex Arc

• A nerve pathway that allows the body to respond to a stimulus without thinking.

• Involves sensory + motor neurons and interneurons

• Helps respond to a threat before processing

Interneurons

• Neurons within the brain and spinal cord.

• Communicate internally + connect sensory neurons to motor neurons within CNS

Nucleus

Contains genetic information for cell development + other structures that allow neuron to function

Soma

Cell Body

Acetylcholine (neurotransmitter)

Enables muscle actions, learning, and helps with memory

Substance P (neurotransmitter)

Helps with transmitting pain signals from the sensory nerves to the CNS

Dopamine (neurotransmitter)

Helps with movement, learning, attention, and emotions

Serotonin (neurotransmitter)

Impacts an individual’s hunger, sleep, arousal, and mood

Endorphins (neurotransmitter)

Help with pain control and impacts on individual’s pain tolerance.

Epinephrine (neurotransmitter)

Helps with the body’s response to high emotional situations and helps form memories

Norepinephrine (neurotransmitter)

Increases your blood pressure, heart rate, alertness, and helps with the body’s fight or flight response.

Glutamate (neurotransmitter)

Helps with long term memory and learning

GABA (neurotransmitter)

Helps with sleep, movement, and slows down your nervous system.

Adrenaline (hormone)

• Also known as epinephrine

• Helps body’s response to high emotional situations

• Involved in fight or flight

Leptin (Hormone)

Helps regulate energy balance by inhibiting hunger. Signals to brain that body has enough stored fat, reducing appetite.

Ghrelin (hormone)

• Known as hunger hormone

• Signals brain of hunger

• Helps promote the release of growth hormone

Melatonin (Hormone)

• Helps regulate sleep- wake cycles (circadian rhythms)

• Produces in pineal gland

• Sleep little bebeh

Oxytocin (hormone)

• Love hormone

• Produced in hypothalamus, release by pituitary gland

• Promotes feelings of affection + emotion

Agonist drugs

Increase effectiveness of neurotransmitters

Antagonist Drugs

Decrease effectiveness of neurotransmitters

Stimulants (drug)

Excite + promote neural activity.

• Gives an individual energy, reduce a person’s appetite + cause them to be irritable

Depressants (drug)

Reduce neural activity in an individual

• Causes drowsiness, muscle relaxation, lowered breathing, + abused = death

Hallucinogens (drug)

Cause an individual to sense things that aren’t actually there.

• Include peyote, LSD, marihuana

• Reduces motivation + lead to panic

Opioids (Drug)

• Can function as a depressant

• Very addictive nature

• Give individual pain relief

• ex: morphine, heroin, oxycodone

Brainstem

Located at base of your brain

Medula

Helps with the regulation of a person’s cardiovascular and respiratory system

Reticular activating system

Network of nerve cell bodies and fibers within the brain stem

• Involved in regulation of arousal, alertness, + sleep wake cycles

Cerebellum

Located below occipital lobe

• coordinates voluntary movement, posture, balance, refining motor skills

Corpus Callosum

Thick band of nerve fibers that connect the 2 cerebral hemispheres.

Frontal Lobe

Located behind forehead

• Like Albert Einstein

Prefrontal Cortex

Deals with foresight, judgement, speech, + complex thought

Motor Cortex

Deals with voluntary movement

Broca’s Area

Found only in left hemisphere

• Crucial for language production

• Controls movements of muscles involved in speech

Parietal Lobe

Receives sensory information

Somatosensory Cortex

Responsible for

• Processing touch, pressure, temp, + body position

Temporal Lobe

Involved in processing auditory + linguistic information, recognizing faces, + assists in memory

Hippocampus (limbic system)

Structure that helps us learn and form memories

Amygdala (limbic system)

2 round clusters, and structure where you get emotional reactions from.

Auditory Cortex

Processes different sounds + allows u to recognize things like music

Wernicke’s area

Responsible for creating meaningful speech

Occipital Lobe

Responsible for processing visual information

Primary visual cortex

Structure that receives input from the eyes

Thalamus (limbic system)

Part of brain that receives sensory info from sensory organs, except for smell

Hypothalamus (limbic system)

Helps keep body balance, allows for homeostasis, and is also what controls your drives.

Pituitary Gland (limbic system)

Referenced as master gland bc it produces + releases hormones that regulates body functions and controls other endocrine glands.

Action Potential

When a neuron fires and sends an impulse down the axon.

To trigger an action potential…

a neuron must depolarize

Process of Repolarization

Brings the neuron back to resting potential

Excitatory Neurotransmitters

Increase the likelihood that a neuron will fire an action potential

Inhibitory Neurotransmitter

Decreases the likelihood that a neuron will fire an action potential

Heredity

The passing on of different physical and mental traits from one generation to another

Eugenics

Belief in improving the genetic quality of the human population by selectively breeding for desirable traits.

Epigenetics

Focuses on how the environment and a person’s behavior affect a person’s genes and how they work.

Plasticity

Refers to the brain’s activity to change and adapt as a result of experiences

EEG

Measures the brain’s electrical activity by recording waves of electrical impulses across the brain’s surface.

fMRI

Tracks blood flow in the brain to reveal which areas are active during specific mental tasks.

Biopsychology

Field of study that examines how our brains + biology affect our thoughts + behaviors

Fraternal vs identical

Fraternal: 2 separate eggs

Identical: One single egg

Dendrites

Receive incoming signals from other neurons

Axon

Sends signals to other neurons or muscles

Myelin Sheath

Speeds up electrical signal transmission

Synapse (small gap between neurons)

Transfers signals using neurotransmitters (chemicals) between neurons

Interneurons

Make up majority of neurons. Transmit info between sensory + motor neurons.

• Play a key role in learning, memory, and planning

Motor neurons

Communicate info from the brain to tissues + organs throughout the body, allowing for movement.

Sensory neurons

Neurons that take sensory info from the environment and sends the signal to the brain

Reuptake Inhibitors

Drugs that prevent the reabsorption of neurotransmitters, increasing their activity

Psychoactive Drugs

Substances that affect brain activity and lead to changes in perception, mood, or consciousness

Tolerance

The need to take more of a drug to achieve the same affect

Withdrawal

Physical and psychological symptoms when stopping the drug

All- or- Nothing Principle

When a neuron either fires or doesn’t— there’s no halfway

Depolarization

When a neuron’s charge becomes less negative, leading to firing

Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

Myelin Sheath is damage, slowing down or blocking signals

Myasthenia Gravis

An autoimmune disorder where acetylcholine receptors are attacked, leading to muscle weakness

Biopsychology

Field of study that examines how our brains + biology affect our thoughts + behaviors

EEG

Measures the brain’s electrical activity by recording waves of electrical impulses across the brain’s surface

fMRI

Tracks blood flow in the brain to reveal which areas are active during specific mental tasks

Hemispherectomies

Where 1 hemisphere is removed, the remaining hemisphere can often compensate

Left hemisphere

• Right side of the body

• Speech production

• Language compression + logic

• Like el albert einstein

Right hemisphere

• Left side of the body

• Recognizing faces

• Spatial reasoning (2D/3D)

• Emotions, art, music

Lesioning

Disruption of or damage due to injury, disease, surgery, drugs, etc.

Consciousness

The awareness of our environment and ourselves. Levels shifts throughout the day influencing performance.

Circadian Rhythm

24- hour biological clock that regulates sleep, wakefulness, + other bodily functions

NREM Sleep

• Non- Rapid Eye Movement

• Has multiple stages of progressively deeper sleep

Stage 1 of NREM sleep

• Lighter sleep, marked by alpha waves

• hallucinations/ falling sensation

stage 2 of NREM sleep

• Deeper relaxation

• characterized by sleep spindles

• EEG patterns show more synchronized brain activity

Stage 3 of NREM sleep

• Deep sleep, featuring slow delta waves

• Hardest stage to wake up from

• Crucial for physical restoration

Sleep spindles

Brief bursts of brain wave activity

REM sleep

• Rapid eye movement

• Paradoxical sleep where the brain is active but the body is paralyzed

• Associated with wild dreams

• Plays a key role in memory consolidation (memorizing skills)

REM rebound

When deprive of REM sleep, the body will catch up by increasing the amount of REM sleep in subsequent sleep (natural response to sleep deprivation)

Activation Synthesis

Theory that dreams are the brain’s way of making sense of random neural activity occurring in sleep

Consolidation

Theory that dreams help process + solidify memories + experiences from the day

Insomnia

Difficultly falling or staying asleep