biological psychology

Biological Psychology


-Cortex: 

Cerebral Cortex:

Large surface area is folded so it can be placed into the limited volume of the skull



Occipital lobe: primary visual cortex, the processing of visual information happens here

  • “Optical” is close to the word occipital - both relate to vision

  • Primary auditory - first stop for the processing of auditory info

  • Temporal lobe is right by the temples


Parietal lobe: yellow part, above occipital and temporal love

Focused on the processing of sensory information. The front lobe of the partial lobe has a sensory cortex, processes tactile sensory information

  • If someone were to “pet” you, you would feel that in your parietal. The parietal lobe would register that sense of touch


Somatosensory Cortex

  • If a body area is more sensitive, a larger part of the somatosensory cortex is devoted to it. (areas with more sensory receptors, lips and mouth are all sensitive. 


Frontal Lobe: 

  • One of the last parts of the brain to develop

  • Not fully developed until 20-25 years of age

  • Senses and motor control exist pretty early but impulse control/planning of actions develop a bit later


Motor Cortex: 

  • Cortical representations of information are weighted bt “importance”

  • Its easier to type/write with your hands but hard with toes bc theres less motor abilities there

  • Mouth has a lot, fine motor control of your tounge is very fast


contralateral - oppositely mapped, if i were to move my right hand, it's actually my left motor cortex thats initiating that movement, inputs are crossed across the body

If neurons are disrupted in areas of the motor cortex, things become much more difficult like writing or grabbing items



Frontal : front of brain

Pariteal: top of head

Occipital: Back of 

Temporal: side of head - temples



Language in the Brain: 

  • Broca’s Area - language production

  • Located where the frontal lobe meets the temporal lobe

Case where this one dude understood speech, understood what you asked him, but had difficulty with speech production


Broca’s Aphasia - 

After a stroke a victim can understand speech but have a very difficult time speaking

  • Even have difficulty writing / sign language

  • There can be some recovery, (someone had a stroke at 20 and she recovered quite a bit and often hand writes without much difficulty)

Wenicke’s Area-

Very easy for someone with wernicke's aphasia to produce grammatical sentences, but they don't make sense. They also cannot understand when someones talking to them. 


wernicke's aphasia - speech comprehension


Both broca and wenicke are located on the left side of the brain, speech things located on the left side of brain.

  • There can be awareness that their speech is messed up


Brain Plasticity:

The brain can remap functions, there is greater plasticity in younger people its pretty age dependent


Ramusens encephalitis: in vv early childhood the brain is thought to be pretty “plastic” it can easily adapt and reorganize


Big myth in psych” left brained ppl are more logical and right side are more creative” MYTH everything we do kinda uses a lot of parts of the brain


There is some lateralization of brain function:

Largely symmetric, but there is some “laterilization”

  • Contralateral organization: left hemisphere controls the right side of the body and vice versa

  • Typically the hemispheres are connected!


Split brain: the corpus callosum is cut in surgery : to isolate seizures; very small group of ppl with a split brain


Split brain studies: 

right side of the brain controls the left hand, if u ask this person to draw a picture with their left hand they would draw a cow, not a hammer

Left brain - language and speech

Right brain: drawing / pictures


Left side of a screen is sent to the right side of the brain, 


 

If he drew with his left hand, he would draw the ring

Things that are sent to the left visual field - are sent to the right brain, so theyre drawing with their right hand????


Left hand is controlled by the right brain

Right hand is controlled by left brain





Left hand is controlled by the right brain

Right hand is controlled by left brain

 So if we asked katie to draw with her left hand shell draw a cup

If we ask katie to draw with her right hand shell draw an apple


Father of neuron science - Santiago Ramon y Cajal


General structure of the Nueron - 

Neuron : A cell that specializes in receiving and transmitting information

Cell Body: coordinates information-processing tasks and keeps the cell alive

Dendrites: receive info from other neurons and relays it to the cell body (like tree branches coming off the cell body)

Axon: carries info to other neurons, muscles or glands (inside of the sausage

Synapse: the region between the axon of one neuron and the dendrites (or cell body) of another

Myelin Sheath: fatty sheath that insulates axons resulting in increased speed of and efficiency of neural communication 

  • Formed by glial cells

  • Works like “wire insulation”

  • Most neurons in the brain have myelin

  • “Sheath” a protective coating like a knife sheath - used to insulate the axon

What happens when the myelin is damaged?

  • Ex: Multiple sclerosis: makes it difficult to send and receive messages results in weakened muscles/paralysis. 

  • Body attacks myelin and inhibits it from doing its job (protecting transmissions)


How do neurons “send” and “recieve” messages?

2 parts to the process:

  • Action potential

  • Transmission across the synapse