Psychology Ch. 2
Terms
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- action vs. resting potential
- a neural impulse (brief electric charge that travels down an axon)vs. when the cell is not conducting an impulse
- agonist vs. antagonist chemicals
- naturaly occuring vs. created
- all-or-nothing law of nueral firing
- once a neuron begins firing it can only firing at full charge there is no partial firing
- androgyny
- a condition of being neither clearly male or female; having characteristics of both
- blood brain barrier
- The barrier between brain blood vessels and brain tissues whose effect is to restrict what may pass from the blood into the brain
- Broca's aphasia located in left frontal lobe
- unable to control muscle movements in speech
- Coral Gilligan's critique of Kholberg's theory
- women value things differently; not lack of moral development
- cortexes of the brain
- visual, auditory, cerebral, motor
- dendrite (purpose of)
- the bushy, branching extensions of a neuron that receive messages and conduct impulses toward the cell body
- endocrine organs and hormones secreted by them
- hypothalamus, thyroid gland, pituitary gland, parathyroids, adrenal glands (release norepinephrine and epinephrine), pancreas, ovary, and testis
- endorphins
- "morphine within" - natural, opiatelike neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure
- feral children
- is a human child who has lived isolated from human contact from a very young age
- glial cells
- cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons
- hypothalamus
- a neural structure lying below the thalamus; it directs several maintenance activities and helps givern the endocrine system cia the pituitary gland
- imaging techniques: PET, CAT, MRI, FMRI
- takes pictures of the brain as the neurons are metabolizing (red areas = healthy, black = dead); slices of the brain from any angle (colorized c-ray from any degree); allign atomic particles with magnets to pick up energy they give off and to convert it t
- L-dopa
- A chemical related to dopamine that is used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease
- limbic system: structures and functions
- amygdala (fear, rage), hippocampus (memory), pituitary gland (in charge of endocrine system), and hypothalamus (regulator)
- major neurotransmitters (ACh, GABA, Serotonin, Dopamine, Glutemate, Norepinepheine)
- Ach - enagle muscle action, learning, and memory (used with alzheimers), GABA - a major inhibitory neurotransmitter (linked to seizures, tremors, and insomnia), Serotonin - affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal (depression), Dopamine - influences movem
- myelin sheath: where and purpose?
- a layer of fatty tissue segmentall encasing the fibers of many neurons; enables vastly grater transmisson speed of neural impulses as the impulse hops from one node to the next
- nervous system: major parts
- peripheral nervous system; central nervous system
- neuron: three basic parts
- dendrite, axon, myelin sheath
- occipital lobe
- the portion of the cerebral cortex lying at the back of the head; includes the visual areas, which receive visual information from the opposite visual field
- pancreas
- regulates the level of sugar in the blood
- phenylketonuria (PKU)
- is an autosomal recessive genetic disorder which can cause problems with brain development
- pineal gland (why unique)
- small endocrine gland in the brain; produces melatonin which regulates sleeping patterns
- pituitary gland
- the endocrine system's most influential glad; reulates growth and controls the endocrine glands
- plasticity
- the brain's capacity for modification
- reflex arc
- the neural pathway that mediates a reflex action
- reticular formation: related to sleep, arousal, attention
- a nerve network in the brain that plays an important role in controlling arousal
- role of hypothalamus: water balance
- lets us know when we are thirsty
- somatosensory cortex: location and used for what sense?
- a sensory system that detects experiences labelled as touch or pressure, temperature (warm or cold), pain (including itch and tickle), as well as proprioception, which is the sensations of muscle movement and joint position including posture, movement, v
- Tay-Sachs disease
- genetic disorder; The disease occurs when harmful quantities of a fatty acid derivative called a ganglioside accumulate in the nerve cells of the brain
- thalamus (what sense doesn't get routed through here)
- relay station for sensory information to all other parts of the brain for further processing; EXCEPT SMELL
- thyroid gland
- controls how quickly the body burns energy, makes proteins, and how sensitive the body should be to other hormones
- Turner's syndrome (x with missing chromosome)
- Instead of the normal XX sex chromosomes for a female, only one X chromosome is present and fully functional
- Wernicke's aphasia located in left temporal lobe
- inability to comprehend langauage and expression
- what part of brain do we share with animals, how do we differ?
- hindbrain; frontal lobes
- Wilder Penfield's research on the brain
- he treated patients with severe epilepsy by destroying nerve cells in the brain where the seizures originated; allowed him to create maps of the sensory and motor cortices of the brain