Psychology Chapter 3 Learning Outcomes

_____ refers to the time following an action potential during which a new action potential cannot be initiated.

A refractory period

_____ is the neurotransmitter that regulates motor behavior, motivation, pleasure, and emotional arousal.

Dopamine

_____ excitatory neurotransmitter(s) that enhance(s) transmission of information throughout the brain.

Glutamate is an

An advertisement for a new drug therapy catches your eye. The advertisement claims that the drug will counteract the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. How does the drug probably work?

The drug probably acts as an acetylcholine agonist.

A(n) _____ is referred to as an all-or-none event.

action potential

For the _____ to be conducted along the length of a neuron's axon to a synapse, stimulation must reach a certain threshold.

action potential

Donna has been suffering from depression. Her psychiatrist prescribes Prozac, which works by blocking the reuptake of serotonin, thus increasing the amount of serotonin in her brain. Prozac works as a(n):

agonist

The action potential is referred to as a(n) _____ event because stimulation below a threshold leads to no action potential, and stimulation above it always produces one.

all-or-none

Katie has a rare neurological disease in which her neurons can receive new information and process it, but some of them just cannot pass the information along. This disease MOST likely affects the _____ of the neuron.

axon

The two stages of communication between neurons are:

conduction and transmission

Bryant has a very rare disease in which his neurons transmit signals but some of his neurons have difficulty receiving the messages. The component of his neurons that is MOST likely affected by this disease is the:

dendrite

Compare your forearm, hand, and fingers to a neuron. In such an analogy, the dendrites are your:

fingers

Tyler has been diagnosed with a disease that involves deterioration of the myelin sheath. As the disease progresses, he begins to have trouble with his coordination. This is MOST likely caused by:

his neurons communicating slowly and inefficiently.

Patients suffering from Parkinson's disease have trouble with motor skills because they have problems with their dopamine levels. Doctors use L-dopa to treat the symptoms of the disease because it is an agonist for the neurotransmitter. This means that it:

increases the activity of dopamine

Acetylcholine (ACh) is:

involved in functions such as voluntary motor control and attention.

All of a person's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors spring from _____, which are cells in the nervous system that communicate with each other to perform information-processing tasks.

neurons

Byung-hun is a cognitive scientist who formulates complex mathematical models of memory processes. The components of his brain that process information used in formulating these models are his:

neurons

Victor is very cognitively inclined and loves to challenge his mind with new tasks. The components of his brain that process information in these tasks are his:

neurons

Receptors are located on the dendrites of the neuron receiving a signal and allow the binding of:

neurotransmitters

When the neuron is at the resting potential, there is a high concentration of _____ ions inside the cell membrane and a high concentration of _____ ions outside the cell membrane.

potassium (K+); sodium (Na+)

Which function is NOT attributed to glial cells?

receiving shit from other cells

During the _____, the ions of the neuron are imbalanced and it _____ immediately send another signal.

refractory period; cannot

A battery that is NOT connected to anything is a good analogy for the _____ of a neuron.

resting potential

The typical sequence of events for neuron activity is:

resting potential, action potential, refractory period

Lately, Temika has had a very odd sleeping pattern and has been depressed. Temika's doctor might check her levels of:

serotonin

Neurotransmitters are chemicals that transmit information across the _____ to dendrites on the receiving neuron.

synapse

Yael floats a note across a river to Faye instead of directly passing it from her hand to Faye's hand. If this scenario is compared with communication between neurons, the river represents the:

synapse