Psychology Exam #2

Chapter 3,4 & 5

What is the human brain?

An intricate network of neurons

What are Neurons?

Cells that receive and transmit electrochemical signals, and hold about -70 milivolts of energy

What are dendrites?

These are the spine like structures that receive messages from the other neurons (chemical signals)

What is the Cell body? (soma)

This contains genetic information, that determines cell function (thinking-nucleous)

What is an Axon?

conducts the electrical impulses, which is for long distance communication

What is an Axon Terminal?

this releases chemical messengers to act on the next neuron

What are the inside and outside of a neuron like?

Inside- is positively charged by potassium ion (K+)

outside- high in concentration of sodium ions (Na+)

What is an excitatory neurotransmitter?

this is the depolarization of the neuron (less -ve) and increases the likelihood for an action potential

What is an inhibitory neurontransmitter?

This is the hyperpolization of the neuron (more -ve) and decreases the likelihood of an action potential

What is summation?

All of the depolarization and hyperpolarization adds up to reach the threshold

What is the threshold?

If the resulting summation reaches -55mV (threshold) and AP will fire

What is the all or none law?

If the threshold reached is the action potential will fire at max intensity, but if the threshold is not reached there will be no action potential

It is always the same streangth and speed

What is the refractory period?

This is after an AP, the neruon has to “recharge” and go back to -70mV during which the neuron cannot fire again

What is an Myelin sheath?

This is white fatty insulation layer that is derived from glial cells ( When an axon is myelinated, it makes the speed of the activity faster)

What are Node of Ranvier?

These are gaps in the myelin that allows the action potential to jump

What is MS?

this is a neurological disorder caused by demyelination of axon, the immune system attacks the myelin sheath. This weakens the communication in the body

What is Acetylcholine?

This is an hormone that is responsible for motor control, learning and memory, and when you do not have enough there can be memory loss, paralysis and alzheimers

What is dopamine?

This is a hormone responsible for reward and pleasure, voluntary/ initiation movement 
When it is low you can have Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and addiction 

What is Nor-Epinephrine?

This is a hormone responsible for stress response plays a role in the regulation of mood and when it is low you can have  depression, stress, panic disorders 

What is GABA? (inhibitory transmitter)

This is a hormone responsible for anxiety and motor control 

When it is low you will have anxiety, epilepsy and alcohol (drunk-slowed movement)

What is serotonin?

This is a hormone responsible mood sleep eating and arousal 

when it is low you can have depression and sleeping disorder, eating disorders

What is Endorphins?

This is a hormone responsible pain relief and euphoria 

When it is low you can have Pain insensitivity or pain hypersensitivity

How do nerurotransmitters turn off?

Re-uptake- suck up leftover neurotransmitters and reuse it 

Enzymatic degradation-  neurotransmitter is broken down by enzymes

What are lesion techniques?

Experimenters go into the brain (animal) and turn the brain-selected potion off by destroying the tissue with electricity, cold, heat or chemicals to watch for repercussions and study the consequences. Typically in animal we must wait for an accident or disease in a human

What is Electrical Stimulation?

Electrical current is added to a part of the brain and turns the part of the brain on, this is hoe we have been able to map out our motor and sensory areas (touch, and smell)

What is Electrical Recording (EEG)?

This is used to record electrical activity of neurons  and some EEG patterns are related to sleep and wakefulness

What is Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)?

this is method used for studying the body and brain tissue using a magnetic field that proves a clear 3D image 

What is Functional MRI?

This measures the brain activity (high activity) and measure changes in the blood flow during tasks

What is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)?

This involves turning off parts of the brain by using a large magnetic current though a wire coil on a person’s head.

This is used to Activate the motor response, temporarily Inactivate areas of the brain and Treat depression 

 

What does the central nervous system consist of?

brain and spinal cords

What does the peripheral nervous do?

it bringing muscles sense and internal organs messages to the CNS

What are the divisions of the peripheral nervous system?

Somatic nervous system and the Autonomic nervous system

What does the SNS do?

this voluntary movement and helps the body interact with the external world

What does the ANS do?

anything that is involuntary movement like the lungs and internal organs

What are the two branches of the ANS?

sympathetic(fight or flight, stress response)

parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest)

What is the Medulla responsible for? Damaged?

• Heat rate and respiration 

• Thoroughfare for sensory information

• damage(die, RIP) 

What is the Pons ( bridge) responsible for?

• sleeping and dreaming

What is the Cerebellum responsible for? Damaged?

‘’little brain’’

• Muscle coordination

• Learning 

• Memory 

• Alcohol disrupts the movement and control of function 

• Damage- (uncoordinated)

What is the Reticular Formation responsible for? Damaged?

‘’gatekeeper’’

• Consciousness 

• Alertness

• damage(coma) 

What is the Thalamus responsible for? Damaged?

• Senses

• sends sense info to the appropriate cortex

• Damage- senses get mixed up, hearing or seeing things

What is the Hypothalamus responsible for?

• Feeding

• Fleeing (stress)

• Fighting 

• Matting behavrior (fucking)

• Causes the release of hormones from the pituitary glands

What is the Basal Ganglia responsible for?

• Voluntary motor control 

• Parkinson's disease, dopamine neurons here degenerate and die resulting in tremor and the inability to initiate movement 

What is the Limbic System responsible for?

• Processing emotions and memories 

In the Limbic System what is the hippocampus responsible for?

forming and retrieving memories 

In the Limbic System what is the Amygdala responsible for?

organizes emotional response especially negative emotions like fear and aggression, this plays a major role in anxiety and depression

In the Limbic System what is the Nucleus Accumbens responsible for?

linked to effects of drugs addiction and reward 

What are the 4 lobes of the cerebral cortex?

1. frontal

2. Parietal

3. occipital

4. Temporal

What is the Frontal Lobe responsible for?

emotional, planning, creative thinking and motor cortex

• self awareness, planning initative, responsibility; emotional experience

What is the Parietal Lobe responsible for?

body sensations

What is the Occipital Lobe responsible for?

Vision

What is the Temporal Lobe responsible for?

auditory, certain types of memory (hippocampus location)

What is the Prefrontal Cortex responsible for? Damage?

• Seat of executive functioning

• Goal setting; judgment; planning and impulse control

•  damage(can't control himself, rude , prophane, phineas gage)

What is the Wernickie’s area responsible for? located? Damage?

this allows for understanding speech, temporal lobe 

If there is damage you will hear gibberish

What is the Broca’s area responsible for? located? Damage?

this allows for producing speech, frontal lobe 

If there is damage you will not be able to articulate words

What connects the hemishperes of the left and right brain?

Corpus Callosum

What are split brain experiments?

Visual information is processed in the opposite side of the brain

Vision see on the left visual field, processed in the right brain (hemisphere) vice versa 

What was the Roger Sperry’s Experiment?

What is Lateralization?

When functions are localized in one hemisphere

What is the Left Hemisphere responsible for?

Verbal, logical abilities and positive emotions

What is the Right Hemisphere responsible for?

spatial relations, melodies and negative emotions

What is the lateralization of language?

Right handed- 95% have language in left hem 

Left handed- 50% have it left hem or (25 in right or 25 in left)

What is Neural Plasticity?

this is the change in structure and function, this is also greater in the early life.

• 1-2 year olds have 50% more synapses than adults

What do neruons do in adults?

They can modify themselves structurally or biochemically

What is recovery of function?

Neural reorganiztaion

Who is Jody Miller?

• She displays plasticity and neural reorganization, as she had seizures in her right hem she doctors removed it. Other parts of the brain took over and complete the functions for the missing effectors

What are chromosomes?

• tightly coiled molecules of DNA 

• Contains many genes

What are genes?

• Contain genetic blueprint (characteristics, potentials and limitations)

• Everything about you 

What is some key info about our cells?

all cells have a nucleus that contains the genetic information, the information is stored on the 46 chromosome (23 pairs)

eggs cells and sperm cells have 23 individual chromosomes and combine to form a new cell with 46 chromies

What is a genotype?

• inside cell

• Specific genetic makeup 

• Present from conception

• Never changes 

What is a phenotype?

• observable characteristic (skin and grey hair)

• Can be altered by other genes, and the environment (hair dye)

• (chicken have a genetic code for teeth, but they don't)

• how tall you “can” grow vs how tall you actually “grow”

What is a dominate gene?

• The particular characteristic that it controls will be displayed 

• brown eyes

What is a recessive gene?

• Characteristic will not show up if there is a dominant trait, only if there is two recessive 

• blue eyes

What is ploygentic transmission?

this is multiple gene pairs contributing to a phenotype, allows for variations in a trait

What is Recombination DNA procedure?

This is a type of genetic engineering, this involves

• Enzyme cut DNA to combined with DNA from another organism and is then Inserted into host cell

What is Gene knockout?

• Particular gene function is eliminated 

What are the ethical issues with genetic engineering?

This means that few behaviours are polygenic and not controlled by a single gene

What is Huntington's disease?

a neurodegenerative disease that affects motor activity, affects the brain

• Symptoms show 30-45, death happens after 5-15 years 

• Affect muscle coordination, cognitive decline and dementia 

• 50% chance of passing it to your child ( caused by single dominant gene)

What is Behavioural genetics? how do you find it out?

Study of how behaviour us influenced by genetics

• Understanding the influence of inelegance, alcoholism addiction schizophrenia 

How do we find this out?

•  Study of the family tree 

What is the genetic relatedness with parents, siblings and grandparents?

50%,50% and 25%

What is the Concordance or co-occurrence rate?

This looks at the % of a trait or disorder that pair or relatives will share

What are Adoption studies

looking at whether the child shows more traits of biological parents or of thier adoptive parents

What are monozygotic twins?

This is identical twins- single fertilized egg, the egg then splits 

What are Dizygotic twins?

this is fraternal twins- two eggs and two sperm at the same time 

What is heritability?

This looks at how much of the differences in a characteristic is related to genetics within a population

Traits can include characteristics such as height, eye color, and intelligence

The higher heritability and higher contribution genetics have

What are factors about heritability?

applies only to a particular group living in a particular environment.

Heritability estimates do not apply to individuals, only to variations within a group.

Even highly heritable trait can be modified by the environment

What is reaction range?

range of posibilites- upper and lower limits- that the genetic code allows

giving us our lower limits and upper limits, our environment brings us to out the upper limit and determines where the person will fall in the limit

Minnesota twins study

A shared family environment accounts for very little between siblings

What is the heritability for intelligence?

genetics accounts for 50-70% of variation between people

What are attitudes?

they have an inherited component and looks at preservation of life, equality, athleticism-highest genetic component

What is Evolutionary psychology?

How behaviours and tendance have evolved in response to environmental demands

What is evolution?

change over time in frequency with which genes and characteristics they produce occur within an interbreeding population

What is Mutations?

create genetic variation making evolution possible that is passed to offspring 

What is natural selection?

 if a trait is given to some members a competitive advantage that trait will be passed on to the next generation 

What is an evolutionary snapshot?

• Acquiring a language 

• Receiving specific stimuli faces 

• Need to belong to a group and ready to be liked 

• Some basic emotions seem to be universal 

What is parental investment?

This is the time, effort energy, risk associated with carried success for offspring 

Humans put in a lot of parental investment for few offspring 

What are sex investments?

females have a bigger parental investment, this determines the mating system/Mating styles 

What is polgynous?

this is most common in mammals and females have the most parental investment (one male many female; males are greater in size difference in the two sexes

What is monogamus?

this is most common in 90% of birds- two parents have equal parental investment, little sexual dimorphism between males and females, no difference is size 

What is polyandry?

This is rare is mammals and occurs in some fish(seahorse )and insects- one female and many males, females are bigger in size the male has more parental investment

What is polygynandry?

This is for chimps there is a promiscuous relationship among males and females