Psychology Chapter 2

Front 1

What do dendrites do?

Back 1

Receive information and conduct it toward the cell body.

Front 2

What does the axon do?

Back 2

Passes messages through its terminal branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands

Front 3

What is myelin sheath and what does it do?

Back 3

Fatty tissue that insulates the axons and speeds their impulses

Front 4

What are glial cells?

Back 4

Provide nutrients and insulating myelin, guide neural connections, and clean up after neurons sending messages to one another. It may also play a role in learning and thinking.

Front 5

When do neurons transmit messages?

Back 5

When stimulated by signals from our senses or when triggered by chemical signals from neighboring neurons. In response, a neuron fires an impulse, called action potential (a brief electrical charge that travels down the axon).

At resting potential, the axon is negatively charged

Front 6

What happens during a neuron's chemistry-to-electricity process?

Back 6

Ions are exchanged, the fluid outside an axon's membrane has mostly positively charred irons, a resting axon's guilt interior has mostly negatively charged ions. When a neuron fires, the first section of the axon opens its gates, and positively charged sodium ions flood in through the cell membrane. This depolarizes the axon section, causing the next axon channel to open, and so on. During a resting pause, the neuron pumps the positively charged sodium ions back outside.

Front 7

What happens when excitatory signals minus inhibitory signals exceed a minimum intensity, or threshold?

Back 7

The combined signals trigger an action potential. The action potential then travels down the axon, which branches into junctions with other neurons or muscles and glands. Increasing the level of stimulation above the threshold will not increase the neural impulse's intensity.

All or none principle.

A strong stimulus can trigger more neurons to fire, and to fire more often but it does not affect the action potential's strength or speed

Front 8

What is a synapse?

Back 8

The meeting point between neurons a synapse. The axon terminal of one neuron is in fact separated from the receiving neuron by a synaptic gap less than a millionth of an inch wide.

Front 9

What is reuptake?

Back 9

The sending neuron reabsorbs the excess neutronsmitters from the synapse.

Front 10

What does Acetylcholine play a role in?

Back 10

Learning and memory. It is the messenger at every junction between motor neurons and skeletal muscles. When ACh is released to our muscle cell receptors, the muscle contracts. If ACh transmission is blocked, the muscles cannot contract and we are therefore paralyzed

Front 11

What happens to the brain when it is flooded with heroin and morphine?

Back 11

The brain may stop producing its own natural opiates and when the drug is withdrawn, it causes extreme discomfort.

Front 12

What is dopamine's function?

Back 12

Influences movement, learning, attention and emotion

Front 13

What is serotonin's function?

Back 13

Affects mood, hunger, sleep and arousal

Front 14

What is norephinephrine's function?

Back 14

Helps control alertness and arousal

Front 15

What is GABA's function?

Back 15

A major inhibitory neurotransmitter

Front 16

What is glutamate's function?

Back 16

A major excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in memory

Front 17

What makes up the central nervous system?

Back 17

The brain and the spinal cord

Front 18

What is the peripheral nervous system responsible for?

Back 18

Gathering information and for transmitting CNS decisions to other body parts

Front 19

What is a nerve?

Back 19

Electrical cables formed of bundles of axon that link the CNS with the body's sensory receptors, muscles and glands.

Front 20

What makes up the peripheral nervous system?

Describe the components of the PNS

Back 20

The autonomic and the somatic components. Autonomic controls self-regulated action of internal organs and glands. Somatic controls voluntary movements of skeletal muscles

Front 21

What two components make up the autonomic system?

Back 21

The sympathetic (arousing) and the parasympathetic (calming)

Front 22

What are neural networks?

Back 22

The brain's neuron cluster into work groups. They govern our reflexes, out automatic responses to stimuli, illustrate the spinal cord's work.

Front 23

What is a simple spinal reflex composed of?

How do they communicate?

Back 23

A single sensory neuron and a single motor neuron. They often communicate through an interneuronThe interneurons respond by activating motor neurons leading to the muscles.

Front 24

What does the endocrine system do?

Back 24

The endocrine system's glands secrete another form of chemical messengers, hormones, which travel through the bloodstream and affect other tissues, including the brain. Their messages take more time to travel from the gland to the target muscle, but the effects outlast neural messages

Front 25

What can the ANS do?

Back 25

Order the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys to release epinephrine and norepinephrine. These hormones increase heart rate, blood pressure and blood sugar.

Front 26

What is the most influential endocrine gland?

Back 26

The pituitary gland, a pea sized structure located in the core of the brain, where it is controlled by an adjacent brain area, the hypothalamus. Pituitary secretions also influence the release of hormones by other endocrine glands. It is the mast gland.

Front 27

What is a lesion?

Back 27

Tissue deterioration.

Front 28

What is the medulla?

Back 28

It is the control for your heartbeat and breathing, just below the pons.

Front 29

What are pons?

Back 29

They help to coordinate movements.

Front 30

What sits on top of the brainstem and what does it do?

Back 30

The thalamus, which acts as the brain's sensory router. It receives information from all the sense except smell and it routes that information to high brain regions that deal with seeing, hearing, tasting and touching. It also receives some of the higher brain's replies which it then directs to the medulla and the cerebellum

Front 31

What lies inside the brainstem and is located in-between your ears?

Back 31

The reticular formation, a finger shaped network of neurons extending from the spinal cord right up through the thalamus. It filters incoming stimuli, relays important information to other brain areas and controls arousal.

Front 32

What is the "little brain" do?

Back 32

Enables nonverbal learning and memory. It also helps us judge time, modulate our emotions, and discriminate sounds and textures and controls voluntary movement.

Front 33

What lies between the oldest and newest brain?

Back 33

The limbic system. This system contains the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the hippocamus.

Front 34

What does the hippocampus do?

Back 34

Processes conscious memories

Front 35

What has the amygdala been linked to?

Back 35

Agression and fear, and other emotional memories.

Front 36

What does the hypothalamus do?

Back 36

Governs bodily maintenance. Some neural clusters in the hypothalamus influence hunger; others regulate thirst, body temperature and sexual behavior. It monitors the state of your body. The hormones that the hypothalamus secretes will in turn trigger the adjacent master gland, your pituitary to influence your sex glands to release hormones.

Front 37

What is the cerebrum?

Back 37

The two cerebral hemispheres contributing 85 percent of the brain's weight and form specialized work teams that enable our perceiving, thinking and speaking.

Front 38

What is the motor cortex?

Who discovered this?

Back 38

An area at the rear of the frontal loves that controls voluntary movements. Fritsch and Hitzig discovered this

Front 39

What is the cortical area?

Back 39

Specializes in receiving information from the skin sense and from the movement of body parts.

Front 40

What are association areas?

Back 40

Are found in all four lobes. In the frontal love, they enable judgement, planning and processing of new memories. (Phineas Gage)

In the parietal lobe, they enable mathematical and spatial reasoning. In the temporal lobe, it enables us to recognize faces.

Front 41

What is plasticity?

Back 41

The brain's ability to change, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.

Front 42

When does reassignment occur?

Back 42

When disease or damage frees up other brain areas normally dedicated to specific functions

Front 43

What is neurogenesis?

Back 43

The formation of new neurons

Front 44

What is the corpus callosum?

Back 44

A large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them.

Front 45

What is behavior genetics?

Back 45

The study of relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior.

Front 46

T/F Adoptive families who grew up together resemble each other in personality

Back 46

False

Front 47

What do evolutionary psychologists study?

Back 47

The evolution of behavior and the mind, using principles of natural selection

Front 48

What is a mutation?

Back 48

A random error in gene replication