PSYC 2200
What is are some benefits of reflexes? (2)
- speed - adaptive for survival because there could be terrible consequences of waiting until the appropriate brain circuits informed the appropriate muscle circuits to pull your hand away from a hot stove, for example
What are the functions of the stress hormone cortisol? (3)
- stimulates the sympathetic nervous system - increases arousal & vigilance - sharpens memory
What are some brain areas that play a role in habit formation? (2)
- striatum - frontal cortex
What are some characteristics of the cells that make up the retina? (3)
- very compact & organized - light responsive - very easily activated
What are the 3 principles for why female pups who are given estrogen act like males when they grow up?
1) default state is female 2) in the developing embryo, testosterone is metabolized into estrogen through aromatization 3) alpha fetoprotein
What are 3 related systems / brain circuits defining pleasure responses?
1) liking 2) wanting 3) learning
What are the 2 extremes of the philosophical continuum about the way people think about learning & memory on a molecular level?
1) localizationalists 2) learning is diffuse across the brain ("equipotentiality-ists")
What are the 3 types of cellular layers in the LGN?
1) magnocellular layers 2) parvocellular layers 3) koniocellular layers
What are 3 major visual processing pathways after information comes out of the visual cortex?
1) magnocellular pathway 2) parvocellular pathway 3) mixed magnocellular / parvocellular pathway
What are the 3 parts of the ossicles?
1) malieus (hammer) 2) incus (anvil) 3) stapes (stirrup)
What 2 ideas did Lashley come up with as a result of his experiments with rats & mazes?
1) mass action 2) equipotentiality
What are the 3 pathways / systems through which dopamine influences behavior?
1) mesostriatal system 2) mesocortical system 3) mesolimbic system
What are 3 categories of TBI? How are they classified?
1) mild: < 30 min 2) moderate: 30 min - 24 hours 3) severe: > 24 hours Classified based on how long the person lost consciousness for
What are 4 versions of the endogenous morphine/opioid receptors?
1) mu 2) delta 3) kappa 4) nociceptive
What are 2 kinds of receptors that give us information about proprioception within the muscles?
1) muscle spindle organ 2) golgi tendon organ
What are 2 types of proprioceptors?
1) muscle spindles 2) Golgi tendon organs
What are the 2 major divisions of sleep?
1) non-REM sleep 2) REM sleep
What are 2 different categories of cues for satiety?
1) oral cues 2) stomach cues
What are 2 defining qualities of sound vibrations?
1) pitch 2) loudness
What are 2 major types of amnesia?
1) retrograde amnesia 2) anterorgrade amnesia
What are the 2 types of photoreceptors?
1) rods 2) cones
What are 3 specialized types of V1 neurons?
1) simple cells 2) complex cells 3) hypercomplex cells
What are the 3 distinct stages of non-REM sleep
1) stage 1 sleep 2) stage 2 sleep 3) slow wave sleep (SWS) (i.e. stage 3 & 4 sleep)
What are the 2 halves of the retina?
1) temporal hemiretina 2) nasal hemiretina
How many surface colors can humans discern?
2.3 million
What is the range of sound vibrations that humans can respond to?
20 - 20,000 Hz (or 20 kHz)
Compare mutations in a 20 year old man's sperm to a 36 year old man's sperm
36 year old man's sperm has about 2x as many mutations as a 20 year old man's sperm
What part of the electromagnetic spectrum can humans see?
400-750 nanometers
What technique does Daniel Kish use to "see", despite having no eyes?
A "flash sonar" technique that resembles sound localization techniques used by bats & dolphins
Kluver-Bucy syndrome
A condition caused by lesioned temporal lobes that is characterized by increased exploratory behavior & dampening of emotional responses like fear & aggression
Astigmatism
A condition where the corneal surface is NOT completely round or smooth (i.e. has bumps or pockets), which can cause the light to be imperfectly focused on the back of the retina, leading to lines of different orientations not being cleanly activated
Insulin resistance
A condition, often caused by diets high in fat & sugar, in which insulin has decreased effectiveness at lowering blood glucose levels; leads to increased food consumption & fat storage
Subcoeruleus region
A critical generator of REM sleep
Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS)
A disorder characterized by insensitivity to androgens during prenatal development that directs the sexual organization toward the development of a female (even for genetic males); genetic defect so patient has NO androgen receptors yet is biologically male
Insight
A form of mental restructuring that enables an individual to arrive at a solution to a particular problem
Betz cells
A form of pyramidal cells involved in the primary motor cortex; located in layer V of the primary cortex
Obstructive / peripheral sleep apnea
A form of sleep apnea characterized by some type of blockage of the airway (often a result of obesity due to excess weight around the throat, making it easier to narrow the passageway); most common type
Williams syndrome
A genetic condition characterized by specific facial features, cardiovascular challenges, delayed cognitive development, & other physiological effects; exhibit reduced amygdala activity in response to social situations & images of fearful facial expressions (rather than images of natural disasters)
Melatonin
A hormone secreted by the pineal gland that acts as an internal zeitgeber & a synchronizer so that every cell knows what time it is; chemical trigger signaling increased blood flow in distal areas of the body, promoting heat loss & the onset of sleep
Insulin
A hormone that facilitates the storage of energy in body fat & liver tissue & that removes food metabolites from circulation; *intermediate-term satiety signal*
Leptin
A hormone that is produced in adipose tissue (fat tissue) & is a critical hunger regulatory signal (i.e. *long-term satiety signal*) conveying metabolic information from the body to the hypothalamus about how many nutrients are stored in fat; also located in the arcuate nucleus
Vitreous humor
A jellylike substance, consisting mostly of water with specific amounts of salt, sugar, & proteins, that fills the internal cavity of the eye; keeps the eye in its spherical shape
Eudaimonia
A life well lived; adoption of a lifestyle / process that facilitates positive emotional responses throughout one's lifetime
Afterimage
A lingering but altered visual perception in the absence of the actual stimulus Ex: if you stare at something that is bright red for a long time & then look away to a blank wall, you will see a green version of it
Cholecystokinin (CCK)
A molecule that can tell the sphincter that the body has reached satiety & to close the passageway between the stomach & the duodenum (i.e. is a *short-term satiety signal*); also acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain
Agouti-related peptide (AgRP)
A neurochemical that works in conjunction with NPY neurons to maintain energy regulation by increasing appetite & decreasing energy expenditure when necessary; produced by hypothalamic neurons
Hypocretin / orexin
A neuropeptide (type of protein) that comes from the hypothalamus & keeps you awake; its levels increase throughout the day & then decrease when you need to sleep
Vasopressin
A neuropeptide in the posterior pituitary gland; constricts blood vessels to increase blood pressure & triggers a response in the kidneys to reduce fluid release to the bladder
Neuropeptide Y (NPY)
A neuropeptide neurotransmitter that is released from the hypothalamus when energy demands increase (ex: due to exercise or lactation); increased food intake
What are some problems with barbiturates? (3)
- addictive - over time, they suppress REM sleep - can build up a tolerance to them
What supports the opponent-process theory of color vision? (2)
- afterimages - color-blindness & the way that people can be color blind
What are some theories for how the LIP is involved with decision making? (2)
- contains a priority / salience map of any stimulus that is deemed important - encodes a combination of sensory, motor, & cognitive signals that might guide decision making
What are some treatments for sleep apnea? (2)
- continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine - surgery to correct the obstructed airway (not usually the 1st choice of treatment, though, due to risks of complications)
What is associated with fewer switches between external awareness & internal awareness? (3)
- during SWS - under general anesthesia - during vegetative states
What are some examples of the diverse effects of pheremones? (2)
- eliciting aggression in conspecific males - triggering sexual receptivity in females
What are some symptoms of narcolepsy? (5)
- excessive sleepiness - intermittent & uncontrollable episodes of sleep during waking hours - cataplexy - hypnogenic hallucinations - immediate entering of REM sleep & more stage 1 & 2 sleep than SWS
What are the conditions to being frightened to death, according to Martin Samuels? (2)
- fear factor is high - NO perceived escape from impending doom
What are some mechanisms for learning-dependent structural plasticity? (3)
- formation & rearrangement of dendrites on neurons in active regions in the brain - synaptic restructuring - creation of new neurons that are situated within emerging memory / learning cellular networks
What do nuclei in the arcuate nucleus contain? (2)
- hunger-motive pathway - satiety-motive pathway
What are some neurotransmitters involved in wakefulness? (2)
- hypocretin / orexin - histamine
What are some of the roles of the stomach? (3)
- large reservoir to contain the food that you eat - adds hydrochloric acid & other enzymes to break down the food more - churns to mix the food up with enzymes & to help things digest
What are some neurobiological changes in CA deer mouse fathers? (3)
- larger immunoreactive area for oxytocin-secreting cells - increased vasopressin - thicker fibers
What inhibits NPY? (2)
- leptin - insulin
What are some satiety signals that activate the satiety pathway? (3)
- leptin - insulin - CCK
What are some categories of uncertainty? (4)
- sensory uncertainty - state uncertainty - rule uncertainty - evaluation uncertainty
What does short-term sleep deprivation often lead to? What about long-term sleep deprivation?
- short-term sleep deprivation: non-REM sleep rebound effect - long-term sleep deprivation: REM-sleep rebound effect
Why has lots of work been done on the cerebellum? (2)
- simple circuits with lots of connections SO is a great place to study how synapses work - very easy access due to its location
Neuromodulators
Able to change the state or arousal of the entire brain in a way that can turn it on/off
What are probabilities computed in the brain during decision-making challenges related to?
Action-outcome associations
How is the ACC involved in the recognition of unexpected outcomes?
Activated when an outcome occurs at an unexpected time
What happens as ghrelin migrates from the peripheral bloodstream to the brain?
Activates receptors in the arcuate nucleus
Aka of Africa
African tribe in which fathers spend 1/2 of their time with or within arms distance of their child
Sleep
An altered state of consciousness characterized by diminished awareness; a reversible state characterized by minimal movement, a relaxed posture, & decreased attention directed to the environment
How does the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) work?
By integrating relevant information for the emergence of a final decision
How does the uterus keep the corpus luteum alive?
By secreting chorionic gonadotropin
When did the prevalence of prefrontal lobotomies decrease drastically? Why?
By the 1960s due to the advent of drugs that could make a different in terms of behaviors associated with mental disorders
What are factored into Bayesian statistics to arrive at an optimal response choice? (2)
BOTH past experiences & current likelihoods
Homesostasis
Balance; there are resources in the body that we want to maintain at an optimal set point- if the levels go too high, the body will lower them, & if they go too low, the body will raise them
Explain how the nucleus accumbens & amygdala work together, in regards to reappraisal
Balancing act between the positive / negative & attributing reward to different situations --> add value on an ongoing basis to something that is happening in our environment & can then modulate responses based on the situation
What was the original pharmacological treatment for insomnia?
Barbiturates
Facial microexpressions
Barely perceptible brief facial expression fragments
What part of the amygdala receives threatening / emotionally arounsing information? Where does it transfer this information to?
Basal lateral amygdala receives the information & then transfers it to the central amygdala, which ultimately stimulates relevant brain areas that initiate the fear response (i.e. medulla, basal forebrain, hypothalamus)
How do scientists parse out smell vs. taste? When is this particularly important?
Based on the avenue that the information takes to get into the brain - particularly important when examining fish because everything is dissolved in the water
What is the receptive area of the cochlea?
Basilar membrane
Why don't memory cues work on STM?
Because once the information is gone, it is NOT there for you to access anymore
Why can animals still entrain to light cues if the optic tract is cut on both sides?
Because some input from the retinal ganglion cells, which melanopsin, goes to the SCN
Why was H.M.'s case unique?
Because the doctor made a bilateral lesion of the medial temporal lobe, which was much cleaner & more precise than typical brain damage
In what way is conditioned defeat a psychological stressor?
Because the physiological response occurs in the absence of an actual behavioral response
Why is it easier to access the female hormonal system?
Because there's so many fluctuations & times to interfere with it
Why can exposure to loud sounds damage the hair cells?
Because they are very finely attuned
What is a potential problem with the eustachian tubes?
Because they go to the back of the throat, they can get inflamed, causing pain
Why do pups develop as females?
Because they have *low* levels of estrogen
Why do climbing fibers have a lot of control?
Because they synapsed very close to the cell bodies of the purkinje cells (rather than at the top), which means that climbing fibers have a lot of control due to temporal / spatial summation
Why is it much easier to fly west than east?
Because you can allow your body to free run to catch up to wear it needs to be (rather than having to set your body clocks backwards so you're getting up way earlier than your body is used to)
What did Egas Moniz do?
Began performing prefrontal lobotomies on patients with mental conditions after hearing about the removal of the PFC in monkeys leading to reduced aggressive behavior
What brain area is responsible for the form of motor learning involved in the eye-blink reflex conditioning task? How does it do this?
Cerebellum - contributes to motor skills by initiating the activation of deep cerebellar nuclei that receive information from excitatory mossy fibers or inhibitory processes from Purkinje cells
Explain the cerebellum's "side loop"
Cerebellum --> thalamus --> frontal areas (& then back to the cerebellum)
What happens to animals if you remove the entire amygdala?
Changes the animal's ability to respond to emotions / their emotional states
Explain the pathway of auditory information once it reaches the cochlea (7)
Cochlea --> 8th cranial nerve --> pons brainstem area (brainstem auditory nuclei) --> inferior colliculus --> medial geniculate nucleus (MGN) in the thalamus --> primary auditory cortex --> secondary, tertiary, etc. cortices
Hue
Color
What do some patients with orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) damage engage in?
Confabulation
What does the nervous system require for muscles to function in a coordinated & effective fashion?
Constant feedback about the status of the muscles --> need to monitor levels of contracting & stretching so that the muscle is not damaged
Multisensory neurons
Contain several receptive fields for different sensory modalities; individual cells that respond to multiple senses
Purkinje cells
Contain very extensively branched dendritic trees (most ornate neurons in the nervous system!); stacked in rows that look like plates & receive inputs about the state of every single muscle
Ventral tegmental area (VTA)
Contains dopaminergic neurons that are close to the substantia nigra & then project to places across the brain that receive dopaminergic input
Organ of corti
Contains the area of the cochlea that contains the receptive cells (hair cells) for audition
_______________ of our lives constructs our personalized perceptual realities
Context
What allows us to have different responses to the same stimulus?
Context - must be able to reappraise on a rolling basis according to new information how we feel about things in our environment
Explain the basal ganglia's "side loop" to process motor activity
Cortex --> caudate / putamen --> globus pallidus --> thalamus (& then back up to the cortex)
Superior orbital sulcus
Cortical area implicated in context perception; continuously updates knowledge of current context
What system underlies declarative memory?
Cortical-hippocampal system
What does damage to the corticospinal tract often lead to?
Deficits with their forelimbs (ex: issues flexing fingers independently to pick up a pencil with 2 fingers)
What type of waves are present during slow wave sleep (SWS)?
Delta (δ) waves
Motor homunculus
Depicts the proportion of motor cortex areas devoted to certain body parts
Steroid hormones
Derived from cholesterol & are fat soluble, meaning that they can easily travel across the cell membrane; reproductive & stress hormones Ex: aldosterone, cortisol, progesterone
Opioids
Derived from poppies, which contain opium
Benzodiazepines
Drugs that affect GABA receptors by increasing their functioning; can be used to facilitate sleep
What drugs are used to treat ADHD?
Drugs that modulate dopamine functioning, such as dopamine agonists (ex: methamphetamine, Ritalin) --> work by enhancing the saliency (relevance) of target stimuli during the learning process
What type of drugs have been used to treat children exhibiting excessive levels of aggression?
Drugs that reduce noradrenaline levels (ex: β blockers)
When does sleep walking happen?
During non-REM sleep (NOT REM sleep because there is no muscle tone)
REM sleep behavior disorders
Dysregulation in which patients can have muscle tone during REM sleep, leading to movement during REM sleep cycles; can be a marker of other kinds of brain dysfunction or disorders
Protein kinase (PKA)
Enzyme that facilitates synaptic transmission & behavioral sensitization
What types of neurons were Moruzzi & Magoun stimulating?
FTG neurons
What are lying & deception linked to? How did Ekman figure this out?
Facial microexpressions - linked these to lying / deception by examining the facial expressions of psychiatric patients who were known to have lied during a clinical interview by concealing their plans to attempt suicide
Adipose tissue
Fat tissue
What is the purpose of the 3 major visual processing pathways after information comes out of the visual cortex?
Feature extraction
Sociobiology
Female mammals are much more invested in their offspring than males, which sets up a biological difference in how they treat offspring & translates into different behaviors, including mate selection
Medial forebrain bundle
Fiber tract that runs through the middle of the VMH; contains many pathways & integrates lots of information together
Episodic memory
Form of autobiographical memory
What is a study showing emotional regulation?
Found that 1st-year college students who believe that they have control over their emotional responses were more likely to exhibit healthy mental health profiles (with reduced depressive symptoms, increased social adjustment, & increased sense of well-being)
What is the organization of the arbor vitae, in terms of white & gray matter?
Gray matter on the outside, white matter on the inside
What is a characteristic marker of PTSD?
Heightened autonomic response (ex: heart rate activity in response to a stimulus related to the emotional event)
What is the association between noradrenaline & aggression? Why does this association exist?
High levels of noradrenaline accompany aggression - this is because aggressive encounters are stressful
What do lesions of the orbitofrontal cortex result in? What does this suggest?
Increased aggression - suggests that this area inhibits aggressive displays
What does damage of the frontal cortex lead to in humans?
Increased aggressive behavior
Pre-motor cortex
Involved in planning motor actions; part of a bunch of supplementary motor areas in the frontal lobe
What happens after visual information is processed in the LGN?
It travels in the form of *optic radiations* to the primary visual cortex (V1) / the striate cortex
Once visual information crosses over the optic chiasm, what happens?
It travels in the form of the *optic tract* to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) in the thalamus
Why did the jury acquit Kenneth Parks (who killed his father- & mother-in-law) after hearing from sleep experts?
Jury determined he was sleep walking & sleep attacking, with NO conscious control over his actions
Where is the olfactory bulb located?
Just beneath / the ventral part of our frontal lobe
Retina
A piece of neural tissue that contains the specialized photoreceptors & allows you to receive light info & turn it into a neural code
Fos
Protein produced by the intermediate early gene called c-fos; valuable marker of recent neural events because it is produced in accordance with the activation of intracellular mechanisms Ex: Fos expression in the hippocampus has been associated with recent firing of neurons
What is the major function of cones?
Provide information about color & other visual details under well-lit conditions
Ventral stream
Provides information about the identification of various objects; "what" stream that expands upon the parvocellular layers of the LGN
Where do odorant molecules bind to?
Receptors on the cilia of the sensory bipolar neurons
What did Eugene Aserinsky do?
Recorded eye movements & brain activity during sleep, which led him to discover REM sleep
What do the otolith organs measure?
Relationship to gravity
Somatosensory system
Relays information about the body's interactions through touch, position, & movement with the external world
Where do most of the cells in the corticospinal tract originate in?
Layer V of the primary cortex, which contains Betz cells
What is an example of classical conditioning being used for negative outcomes?
LeDoux's studies on the pathways involved in fear or emotion --> could use a conditioned stimulus (tone) that would signal the arrival of shocks SO there would eventually be a fear response when the tone is played
Learning
Learned associations between events or responses that lead to pleasurable (or negative) outcomes, thus causing an increase in behavioral & cognitive reward repertoires
Sexually dimorphic nucleus (SDN) of the hypothalamus
Located on both sides of the ventricle; large in males & smaller in females
Premotor cortex
Located ventral to the supplementary motor complex, directly in front of the primary motor cortex
Pre-frontal lobe / frontopolar cortex
Location of judgement, attention, reasoning, personality, etc.; decision area that decides whether you should move by putting together motor inputs with inputs from the parietal lobe, occipital lobe, etc.
Pyramidal decussation
Location of the crossing over of information; dividing point between where the spinal cord stops & the brain begins
What are novel experiences associated with, in terms of learning & memory?
Long-term structural modifications leading to long-term memories
What does mechanoreception work through?
Mechanical displacement on the surface
At what point in the night do we stop cycling down to stage 4 non-REM sleep?
Once we have been asleep for 3-4 hours
What is one hypothesis for why neurogenesis is associated with the learning process?
One area of production of new neurons is the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus within the hippocampus
Echidna
One of the earliest mammals to evolve from terrestrial reptiles; has a very large prefrontal cortex because since it does NOT have REM sleep & its accompanying theta waves, it does NOT have a neural format for offline processing during sleep --> therefore it must process survival & emotionally relevant information in "real time" as the response occurs, which requires a large amount of neocortex
How does the body build up a tolerance to a drug?
Over time, as you take the drug, your body will make more enzymes to break it down, leading to the drug being broken down faster & you feeling like you need to take more
What is one exception to the rule of sensory adaptation? Why?
Pain - because it relays an important biological message relevant to one's health
Associativity
Pairing weak & strong input strengthens both
What has allowed us to learn a lot about the function of the basal ganglia?
Parkinson's disease
Odorant molecules
Molecules that we can smell
Medial pre-optic nucleus
Monitors body temperature & can initiate physiological changes that allow us to cope with that temperature (i.e. thermoregulate)
Does CAH occur in only females?
No - it occurs in both males & females BUT has more of an impact on females
Can you regain a frequency once it is lost?
No - once you lost a frequency, it tends to be gone forever
Is stress-induced memory impairment permanent? What is a study addressing this?
No - study found that memory recovers when rats are taken out of the stressful environment & housed in a familiar one
If you do a castration surgery to remove all circulating androgens & the ability to produce them, does sexual behavior fully go away?
No - suggests that hormone levels & behavior do NOT always go together
Lateral pre-optic area
Part of the hypothalamus that is responsible for sensing whether we have enough water in our system
Duodenum
Part of the small intestine that is located right where the sphincter comes down from the stomach & connects to the small intestine
What was the result of a study in which participants only ate raw fruits & vegetables?
Participants had difficulty maintaining a healthy body weight, even when consuming 10 lbs of food a day
Minimally conscious state
Patients may exhibit non-reflexive behaviors (ex: visual tracking, responding to simple commands) BUT show NO further evidence of awareness
The different types of cones have __________ ___________ BUT also ___________ _____________
Peak sensitivity; broad tuning (i.e. can still respond, but not as robustly)
Hypothalamic hormones / releasing hormones
Peptide hormones that travel to the anterior pituitary from the hypothalamus Ex: CRH
Protein hormones
Peptides with more than 50 amino acids; can NOT easily travel across the cell membrane Ex: prolactin, insulin, glucagons, luteinizing hormone
Optogenetics
Perfect blend of an electrode with very specific timing & a genetic probe that can target specific types of neurons (ex: dopaminergic, serotonergic)
Is there any place in the brain that you can have damage that causes complete loss of hearing in one hear? What are a few exceptions? (3)
No - the exceptions are the cochlea, 8th cranial nerve, & cochlear nucleus, in which damage can cause loss of hearing in one ear
Are decibels / loudness linear or additive?
No - they are logarithmic Ex: if there was a TV playing at 60 dB & then you added another TV, the combined dB might be 64 dB (NOT 120 dB)
Are long-term memories permanently stored?
No - they are maintained through a dynamic process, in which memories that are NOT retrieved for a long time may decay or change from the original version
Are SCN neural messages related to the interpretation of visual stimuli?
No - they are solely related to the detection of light in the environment
Do taste receptors only exist in the mouth?
No - they exist throughout the digestive system
Do aplysia have a brain & spinal cord?
No - they have a series of ganglia throughout their body
Do male & female fetuses begin with distinguishable genitalia?
No - they have indistinguishable genitalia until about 6 weeks of development
Are objects represented in rich detail in the relevant cortical areas responding to contextual cues? Why or why not?
No - this increases interpretive speed
Why can defeat have significant consequences for an animal?
Often marks a pronounced loss of control over social conflicts & valuable resources
What do the olfactory bulbs contain?
Olfactory glomeruli
The neurons in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus are constantly __________________. What does this mean for eating behavior?
On & inhibiting the cells in the LH --> important because you will only eat when the paraventricular nucleus is inhibited
What are some examples of how the skin can reveal many physiological clues? (4)
On a caucasian person: - using a tourniquet to trap blood somewhere makes the skin appear reddish - if blood is forced out of the hand, it appears yellowish - rich, oxygenated blood appears bluish or purple - deoxygenated veins make the skin appear greenish
Which hemisphere is more engaged during emotional encounters? What is some evidence for this?
Right hemisphere Study found increased activation of the amygdala in the right hemisphere (NOT the left hemisphere) when subjects viewed an image showing threatening body posture compared with images of neutral posture
Compare humans & rodents in terms of the amount of the cortex dedicated to olfaction. What does this suggest?
Rodent brain devotes a larger proportion of the cortex to olfaction - suggests that rodents rely on this sense more than humans do & would experience significant survival challenges if it was lost
Delayed nonmatching-to-sample task
Same as the delayed matching-to-sample task, except animals must reach for the unfamiliar object
Golgi tendon organ
Sensory receptor that detects excessive contraction; located in the tendons
At what point are oxytocin receptor density differences between monogamous & non-monogamous species present?
Shortly after birth
What types of motor units are characteristic of muscles you have more control over (ex: fingers)?
Those with fewer innervated muscle fibers
Mesostriatal system
Substantia nigra to the caudate putamen
Night terrors
Sudden shifts in consciousness during SWS that result in an abrupt wakening & panic responses
Henry Molaison (H.M.)
Suffered from debilitating epileptic seizures that did NOT respond to medication, leading to the removal of his medial temporal lobes, including the hippocampus (which had been implicated in the start of the seizures) --> caused him to have anterograde amnesia
Where is vasopressin located?
Throughout the limbic system (amygdala, hypothalamus, septum)
Interaural differences
Time differences
Cilia
Tiny hair growths located on the hair cells
What did Gene Kempermann do?
Suggested that the mammalian brain's hallmark ability to create new neurons creates a survival advantage by allowing mammals to adapt to a changing environment
Evolutionary / adaptive theory of sleep
Suggests that animals evolved different sleep durations that helped them survive; sleep is viewed as a state of adaptive inactivity
What did Carla Shatz do?
Summed up Hebb's research by saying "cells that fire together wire together & cells that are out of sync don't link" --> means that WHEN things happen in the nervous system is very important
What is a treatment for strokes?
Tissue plasminogen activator (TPA)
What are GABA agonists used for?
To calm people down
Why do habits emerge?
To continue to automate the selection & activation of specific movements & free up brain processing for more important tasks
Basal cells
Supporting cells in the nasal system; actually are stem cells that are constantly turning over / being regenerated
Omega-3
Supports cognitive functions by activating genes involved in neuroplasticity
Flocculonodular lobe
Supports fundamental motor functions such as the maintenance of balance & posture; oldest part of the cerebellum
What brain area plays a key role in the neurobiology of circadian rhythms?
Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
Explain how the autonomic nervous system & HPA axis work together during stressful situations
Sympathetic activation & parasympathetic withdrawal occur almost immediately following the stressor (they sound the alarm), while the HPA axis is a bit slower & works to amplify the message so appropriate brain areas can be activated to resolve the crisis for the long term
Explain how BOTH the sympathetic & parasympathetic nervous systems are involved in voodoo death
Sympathetic nervous system has more influence earlier on, while the parasympathetic nervous system controls later events
Trust game
Trust is exhibited if subject 1 sends $$ to subject 2 & trustworthiness is exhibited if subject 2 reciprocates by returning part of the $$ to subject 2
What do certain areas of the nucleus accumbens shell result in?
Very specific appetitive (desirable) behaviors
What are some characteristics of REM dreams?
Vivid, hyper-color, very weird
Explain how synaptic strengthening changes throughout the day
Synaptic strengthening occurs throughout the day & reaches critically high levels by the end of the day (BUT to maintain the most efficient memory system, it is important to prune the neural networks, especially in the neocortex)
What will an EEG show if a person is having a seizure?
Synchronous activity
Chemical senses
Tase & olfaction; detect chemicals that are dissolved in saliva or floating in the air
Interoreceptors
Tell you the state of what's going on inside your body; located deep down in your viscera / gut
What happens in pups to make them develop & act as males?
Testes create testosterone, which is then aromatized into estrogen --> there is NOT enough alpha fetoprotein to bind up all this estrogen SO the circulating estrogen is what turns these males into males (i.e. masculinizes them)
Ventral striatum (ventral pallidum)
The nucleus accumbens, which has an output system from the VTA that leaves through the ventral portion of the globus pallidus; picks up information from many different places & acts as a decision-making gatekeeper
How do the number of muscle spindle organs & golgi tendon organs vary?
The number of them varies in different muscles Ex: more muscle spindles & golgi tendon organs in a muscle / tendon that is in an area involved in fine motor control
What do taste receptors in the digestive tract give you information about?
The nutrient density you have in your food
Docasahexaenoic acid (DHA)
The omega-3 fatty acid that most commonly appears in the cell membranes of neurons; may have contributed to modern humans' large brains in proportion to body size
Conduction deafness
The ossicles don't work SO cannot conduct sounds from the eardrum to the oval window; also, can be caused by the eustachian tubes getting infected & leading to degeneration of the bones
Bidirectional angular accelerometers
The technical term for the semicircular canals
Theory of equipotentiality
The theory that multiple brain areas contribute equally to a particular task or function; for complex behaviors, all of the brain is equal & able to code for the information / behaviors
Adequate stimulus
The type of physical energy that these receptors respond to effectively
Action-outcome associations
The various rewards associated with specific actions are determined
Magnocellular layers
The ventral layers of the LGN that are characterized by larger cells; provide information about the position of the visual stimulus (i.e. "where")
What is an example of inattentional blindness?
The video of a team playing basketball in which a gorilla walks through the scene BUT 50% of people who are asked to count the # of times the ball is passed do NOT see the gorilla --> by selectively focusing attention on the ball passing, they fail to attend to a visual detail
Extrastriate cortex
The visual cortex located outside of the primary visual cortex (V1) / striate cortex
Opponent-process theory of color vision
The visual system is designed to detect opposed pairs of colors, specifically green vs. red, blue vs. yellow, & black vs. white
What is hue determined by?
The wavelength of the light
Explain the stepwise movement from drinking water to the cells
Water goes from the mouth --> stomach --> intestines --> blood plasma --> extracellular space --> intracellular space
What happens when either a hypertonic or hypotonic situation arises?
Water moves inside or outside of the cells to reestablish isotonic fluid conditions
Aqueous humor
Watery; occupies the space between the cornea & the lens
What is the problem regarding water balance?
We are constantly going from our optimal set point to losing water (through urinating, sweating, humidifying water as we breathe out, etc.), unless we are actively drinking water all the time --> there must be a mechanism for bringing the water balance back up
Triune brain
We have the basic functions of the brainstem (reptilian brain), the slightly more complex emotion-related functions of the paleo-mammalian brain, & the functions of the neo-mammalian brain (primates)
Explain how adenosine is involved in sleep
When you use up AMP in your cells, there is a buildup of adenosine in the extracellular space between the cells --> these increased levels of adenosine are a signal that you've used a lot of cyclic AMP & should be going to sleep
What are some things that increase neurogenesis in rodents? (2)
- voluntary running - environmental enrichment
What are 2 major types of ganglion cells?
1) X cells / parvocellular cells 2) Y cells / magnocellular cells
What are the 2 somatosensory pathways?
1) discriminative touch (i.e. the posterior column or the medial luminiscular pathway) 2) pain, temperature, & tickle (i.e. the lateral spinal thalamic tract)
What are 2 pathways for tactile information to travel on?
1) dorsal column-medial leminiscus pathway 2) spinothalamic (anterolateral) pathway
What are 2 parts of the striatum?
1) dorsal striatum 2) ventral striatum
What are the 2 parts of declarative memory / explicit memory?
1) episodic memory 2) semantic memory
What are 2 changes of state?
1) evaporation 2) condensation
What are 2 types of fibers that make up skeletal muscle?
1) extrafusal fibers 2) intrafusal fibers
What are 3 warning signs of a stroke?
1) face drooping 2) arm weakness 3) speech difficulty FAST
What are 2 divisions of the skeletal muscle fibers?
1) fast twitch muscle fibers 2) slow twitch muscle fibers
What are the 7 universal facial expressions?
1) fear 2) happiness 3) anger 4) contempt 5) disgust 6) surprise 7) sadness
What are the 3 major functional sections of the cerebellum?
1) flocculondodular lobe 2) vermis 3) cerebellar hemispheres
What are 3 theories / proofs for how frequencies are coded in the auditory system?
1) frequency theory 2) volley theory / cross-fiber theory 3) place theory
What are 2 ways to approach studying the neural basis of motivation?
1) go through 3 homeostatically regulated behaviors (temperature, water, & food) that can serve as model systems for the neural basis of motivation 2) study reward & the neural basis of reward
What are the 2 fundamental aspects of happiness, according to Aristotle?
1) hedonia 2) eudaimonia
What are 2 kinds of strokes?
1) hemorrhagic stroke 2) ischemic stroke
What are 3 types of spatial cells?
1) place cells 2) direction cells 3) grid cells
What are 2 parts of the insula, which receive very different inputs?
1) posterior insula 2) anterior insula
What does 1 kHz equal?
1,000 Hz
Growth hormone-releasing protein-6
A drug that is similar to ghrelin
Liking
A sensory-stimulating emotional experience that is closely associated with pleasure
How does the pupil accommodate for darkness? How does it accommodate for brightness?
Accommodates for darkness by dilating to let more light in & accommodates for brightness by constricting to minimize the amount of incoming light
What neurotransmitter is released at the neuromuscular junction?
Acetylcholine (ACh)
What neurochemical is involved in orienting? Where does it come from?
Acetylcholine from the basal forebrain
Arousal
Alertness or vigilance; related to activation of the reticular activating system, hypothalamus, & basal forebrain
Why is the OFC known for its role in flexible behavior?
Because it can rapidly encode changing relationships between specific cues & associated outcomes
Why is the difference threshold / JND important?
Because it permits the measurement of subjective mental experiences in an objective way through altering stimuli
According to the opponent-process theory, why are opponent colors perceived?
Because of fatigue resulting from overstimulating the receptors for the opposing colors in the actual image
Delayed matching-to-sample task
Animals are presented with a stimulus followed by a delay & then the presentation of 2 stimuli (one that is similar to the sample stimulus & one that is different) that the animal must choose between; to solve the task, animals must be trained to reach for the stimulus that matches the sample stimulus
How does looking at ways that heat transfers affect animals?
Animals have to deal with heat / cold in their environments, which influences their behavior
On-center cells
Become stimulated when a light is focused on the center of the cell
What is the caudal region of the nucleus accumbens shell involved in?
Avoidance & defensive responses (ex: aggression, escape)
Diurnal
Awake during the day
How did LeDoux map the brain circuitry of the fear response?
By injecting a tracer (chemical) to track the neural pathways from the thalamus to other brain areas
What are mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons activated by? (2)
BOTH aversive / negative stimuli & rewarding stimuli
What do cells in the retina & LGN have?
Concentric receptive field
Functional genome
Consists of immune function, movement efficiencies, anatomy, motivation, etc.
What is the sensory ganglia?
Cranial nerves 7, 9, & 10
What did Curt Richter propose was the cause of voodoo death?
Excessive response of the parasympathetic nervous system, which calms the person to death --> increased vagal tone (inhibition of heart rate), resulting from stimulation of the vagus nerve
What is the treatment for CAH?
Hormone therapy at birth
Chronobiology
How time & biology interact
How do muscles work?
In pairs - for each muscle that contracts a joint, there will be a muscle that extends the joint
What does the hunger-motive pathway do?
Inhibits the paraventricular nucleus, thus creating a go signal for eating
Interoreception
Input; information we are picking up from internal organs in the body
What did Paul MacLean emphasize, in terms of emotional experiences?
Integration / interdependence of brain areas involved in emotional experiences
What did Paul MacLean do?
Introduced the term "limbic system"
Neuroeconomics
Investigates that neural computations that accompany value-based decisions; the ways in which the brain makes choices among various options
Orbitofrontal cortex
Involved in decision-making & executive functions
Habenula
Involved in fear processing response of freezing
How is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) involved in the decision-making process?
Involved in the computations associated with decision-making
Ovary
Involved in the maturation process of the follicles
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP)
Involved in the production & transport of cellular energy
Paraventricular nucleus in the hypothalamus
Involved in the production of oxytocin
Morris water maze
Involves a pool with water & a single platform; the water is initially transparent but becomes murkier during testing so the animal can NO longer see the platform & must rely on spatial memory to locate it
Sleep spindles
Moderately fast & intense oscillations (12-14 Hz) with low amplitudes that last up to 1.5 seconds; characteristic of stage 2 sleep
Photopigments
Molecules consisting of *opsin* (a specific type of protein) & *retinal* (made up of fatty substances such as lipids)
Are dendrites set in stone?
No - they can rearrange to form new synapses & spines in accordance with cellular demands
Tectum
Orients us to stimuli in space
What does oxytocin promote?
Prosocial behaviors
What does damage to the fusiform face area lead to?
Prosopagnosia
What are birth control pills our attempt to do?
Regulate the hormonal system
Hypercomplex cells
Respond to bars of a particular length by detecting endpoints, as well as aspects of position & orientation
Pacinian corpuscles
Respond to deep pressure
Where are rods more densely packed? How about cones?
Rods are more densely packed around the periphery of the retina, while cones are more densely packed in the center of the retina, especially the fovea
Umami
Savory taste; amino acid taste that is often found in MSG, which is sometimes added to food to make it taste better
What can ghrelin levels predict?
The next time you will eat
Why is sensory specialization important?
To prevent mass confusion & sensory overload
What are some cortical areas involved in complex movement? (2)
- supplementary motor cortex - premotor cortex
What are some hunger signals that activate the hunger pathway? (2)
- ghrelin - taste input
What do bats use to determine the position & distance of an insect from the bat?
FM-FM neurons
How is information about edges & contrasts perceived?
Lateral inhibition
What is our body's largest organ?
Skin
Subjective well-being
Subjective feelings of pleasure & reward
What brain area is working memory associated with?
The PFC
Pituitary gland
The master endocrine gland
Crepuscular
Primarily awake at dawn & dusk Ex: rabbits, owls
How do cones detect color?
By detecting the wavelength of the light coming in
NMDA receptor
"Coincidence receptor" that only responds to glutamate & lets things in / out of the cell if 2 conditions are met; uniquely capable of doing the things that are necessary for allowing learning & memory to happen
Zeitgeber
"Time giver"; stimulus that can cue you to a circadian rhythm Ex: light (strongest external zeitgeber), noise, puff of hot air
What are some forms of aggression that are seen in the animal kingdom? (6)
- *intraspecific* (ex: 2 males fighting over territory) - *predatory* (ex: lion having aggressive behavior toward a gazelle it is eating) - *fear-induced* (ex: cornered raccoon fighting against a dog who has cornered it) - *frustration* (ex: throwing your tennis racquet at someone after missing a point) - *maternal* (ex: mother lashing out at an intruder to protect her pups) - *sex-related*
What is the resting membrane potential of rods?
- 44 mV
Explain the difference between bats hunting for insects vs. bats that are in pursuit of specific insects
- bats hunting for insects emit a sonar signal with a long duration & narrow bandwidth to detect prey - bats in pursuit of insects emit more rapid, shorter-duration signals that alter the frequency modulation so it can be carried to the receiver (i.e. the bat), which can then detect the position of the insect
What are some studies showing that REM sleep is involved in procedural memory consolidation? (2)
- found memory deficits on a procedural task occurred when subjects went through REM sleep deprivation - found that increased time spent in REM sleep & increased intensity of REM sleep when learning acquisition of procedural tasks was taking place
What brain areas are involved in rapid encoding of flexible associations? (processing-based memory system) (2)
- hippocampus - neocortex
What are some brain areas that are capable of being a neuromodulator? (2)
- locus coeruleus - raphe nucleus
What are some unique characteristics / specializations of the organization of the cell layers in the fovea that allow it to have high spatial resolution? (3)
- lower cell density --> creates a clearer path to the photoreceptors - high density of photoreceptor cells - only contains cones
What are some characteristics of the California deer mouse? (2)
- monogamous species - biparental, specifically obligate paternal care
What are some brain areas involved in cognitive reappraisal? (3)
- prefrontal cortex - orbitofrontal cortex - cingulate cortex
What color pairs do afterimages come in? (2)
- red vs. green - blue vs. yellow
What are some critiques of the James-Lange theory of emotion? (3)
- studies have shown that some animals will still express emotions if the cortex is separated from the lower brain & spinal cord - unlikely that the emotion to be experienced could be determined solely by a bodily response - emotions arrive quickly SO physiological responses do NOT have time to occur before the emotion is experienced
What is the normal range of loudness?
0 dB to 90 dB
What percentage of genetic factors account for the variance in anorexia & bulimia?
50-80%
What percentage of the cortex participates in visual functions in the macaque? In humans?
55% in the macaque, 30% in humans
How long does it take for rods to take over in a dark room (i.e. for your eyes to adjust)?
7-10 minutes
Cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP)
A 2nd messenger in cellular signaling
Nash equilibrium
A solution to forming strategies that incorporate the potential actions of others
Cornea
A transparent surface that covers the pupil & iris
What is kept constant in a concordance study?
ALL are raised in the same environment, despite differences in the similarity of their genome
Orexigenic
Appetite stimulating
What happens to sleep quality as people age?
Age-related decline in sleep quality - older individuals don't sleep as much & regress to sleeping in more broken up chunks throughout the day (somewhat like newborns)
What types of frequencies can place theory explain?
All of them, up to 20,000 Hz
Phase difference (sound localization)
Allow you to detect different things at different frequencies according to differences in the waves that each ear experiences; phase detectors in the brainstem can group the fact that the waves differ between the 2 ears & use this information to decide whether sound is coming from one side of the body or the other
Round window
Allows fluids to move back & forth in the cochlea
How are drinks like gatorade used to avoid osmotic shock?
Allows for athletes to re-hydrate in a way that the body is replenishing the same tonicity that their cells already have (hypertonic)
Physical vigor
An animal's ability to energetically perform complex motor or challenging acts in a repeated fashion
Parahippocampal gyrus
Area surrounding the hippocampus
Why did early sleep researchers NOT get any information about sleep? Why did this change?
At first, researchers would only record activity for about 15-20 minutes after sleep began BUT this changed when one night, someone forgot to turn off the machine & they recorded an entire night of sleep, which helped them figure out the different stages of sleep
When is the only time that the time concept idea for sound localization occurs?
At the onset of the sound
Where are the olfactory bulbs located?
At the ventral surface of the brain, just above the olfactory epithelium
What types of behaviors did cats act out in their dreams when parts of the subcoeruleus region was damaged? What does this suggest?
Attacking, grooming, & locomotion - suggests that animals rehearse adaptive responses during REM sleep
Where is the lens located?
Behind the pupil
Tabula rasa
Blank slate
What is the first line treatment for insomnia?
CBT
In what way can opioids be involved in the learning process?
Can link into the dopaminergic pathway to tell you whether to do something or not Ex: at first the consumption of a drug makes you feel euphoric, but over time, the learning will shift so you feel the dopamine release when you see drug paraphernalia
Stage 2 non-REM sleep
Characterized by K-complexes & sleep spindles, as well as NO eye movements; takes longer to awake people from this stage & people appear groggier
Psychosurgery
Cutting off areas of the brain that might be involved with the goal of changing people's behavior
What is the source for the body's energy?
Cyclic AMP
What is loudness measured in?
Decibels (dB)
What did lesions of the lateral hypothalamus (LH) lead to?
Decreased eating & body weight in lab rats
Place theory
Different places along the organ of corti code for different frequencies
Functional neuroanatomy
Differentiators between what we know about the anatomy & what a person is feeling (i.e. their symptoms)
Explain the complexity of the olfactory system in regards to sensory neurons & receptors
Each sensory neuron expresses the gene for only 1 receptor BUT each receptor can detect multiple odorants
Why are temperature, water, & food balance nice systems to study?
Each translates to a behavior with clear psychological factors behind the behavior (ex: being too hot or hungry or thirsty) - the idea is to then scale up what we learn about motivation from them
Tympanic membrane
Ear drum; receives sound pressure, which causes the eardrum to vibrate at the specific frequency of the waves coming in
Explain how auditory information related to fear travels into the brain
Ears --> cochlear nucleus --> inferior colliculus --> MGN --> cortex & amygdala
What do motor responses require to contract a muscle?
Efferent (motor) nerve
What do the most common birth control pills contain? (2)
Estrogen & progesterone
What were the results of a study that gave tiny injections of testosterone or estrogen to male & female mice directly after they were born?
Found that a large dose of testosterone OR estrogen during early post-natal experience ends up masculinizing the female's behavior
What did Robert Heath do?
Found that implanting electrodes in the septal nuclei of human patients led to them pressing a button to stimulate their brains very frequently & reporting pleasurable responses
What is a study showing the impact of exposing rats to different environments (lab environment, natural environment, or stressful environment) on nucleus accumbens organization? (3)
Found that: - there was NO re-organization in the standard lab environment - in the natural environment, the appetitive zone increased to fill 90% of the shell, while the aversive zone shrunk to 1/3 of its original territory --> maximizes their potential of experiencing more pleasure - in the stressful environment, the aversive zone increased to fill more than 80% of the shell, while the appetitive zones were much smaller & pushed to the frontal region
Condensation
Gas to liquid; net gain of heat
What was a major confounding variable in LeVay's original study?
HIs best sample for gay men was AIDS victims
What is a signal that yawning is likely important?
Has been conserved across species through evolution
Dichromats
Have 2 types of cones
What is the nucleus accumbens a way to understand?
How animals can bring in sensory information & decide whether it gets rewarded or not, which turns into motivation
What is the key question related to consciousness?
How do we explain the subjective experience of conscious awareness with the objective properties of the brain?
What does "motivation in terms of external factors" mean?
How does the external environment affect our motivation & behavioral state?
What releases GnRH?
Hypothalamus
What is the significance of the cilia being linked together by tip links?
If one cilia is displaced, they ALL will be displaced
When does the phase difference idea of sound localization work?
In an ongoing way (NOT just at the initiation of the sound)
Halorhodopsin
Inhibits neural activity
What did Karl Deisseroth & his grad student Ed Boyden do?
Isolated the DNA coding photoreceptive properties in certain algae & transferred the genes into specific rat neurons, where they produced opsins (light-sensitive proteins) in the neurons of specific targeted brain areas --> allowed the researchers to control the firing of specific properties of neurons by shining lights on them
What can listening to loud noises do to the auditory system?
It can "overdo" the system, leading to accelerated hearing loss
Red-green colorblindness
Lack either the long (red) or the middle (green) wavelength-sensitive visual photopigments, making people human dichromats; can see all the objects in their environment in different shades of colors BUT can NOT view some subtleties in the environment that can be adaptive (ex: deciding whether a piece of meat is too raw to eat)
K-complexes
Large waves with a slow rise to the peak followed by a faster decline; characteristic of stage 2 sleep
Cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP)
Levels of it regulate the open or closed position of sodium ion channels; in the presence of light, it has lower levels, which leads to closed sodium channels, hyperpolarization, & reduced levels of neurotransmitter release
What is the adequate stimulus for photoreceptors?
Light (& sometimes tactile pressure on the eyelid, which creates bursts of apparent light)
Sleep rebound effect
Lost sleep is made up during the next opportunity
What is the result of leptin treatments in leptin-deficient humans & rodents?
Lost weight
Hypovolemia
Low blood volume
What area of the brain is involved in temperature balance behavior?
Medial pre-optic nucleus
Mu receptors
Mediate euphoria & analgesia; feel good & do NOT feel pain when bound to, which indicates that something is a rewarding experience
How do salty & sour tastes work?
Mediated by ionotropic receptors (i.e. directly activating ion channels)
What system is very important for promoting wakeful activity?
Monoamine system
Biparental species
Monogamous species in which males, in addition to females, participate in raising the young Ex: prairie voles
What is the major function of rods?
More active in dimly lit environments because they are more sensitive to light
What represents the most relevant perceptual experiences of animals, including humans?
Multisensory integration
What is perception of flavor based on?
Multisensory integration (vision + smell + taste + touch)
What happens to animals if you remove the basolateral portion of the amygdala?
NOT getting sensory input SO the animals become more aggressive in an intruder situation with a mouse
Morphine
Narcotic drug derived from opium; created in the late 1800s / early 1900s when people figured out how to distill the active ingredient in opium
Are cochlear implants the same as conventional hearing aids?
No
Are response systems as scripted as simplistic learning responses (ex: classical conditioning, reinforced operant responses) in real life?
No
Are the eustachian tubes directly involved in hearing?
No
Does the cornea have a blood supply?
No
In what way did Pavlov's classical conditioning revolutionize psychology research?
Opened the door for psychology to establish itself as an objective lab science (rather than a subjective discipline)
What is the key neurochemical involved with liking?
Opioids
What is located directly underneath the hypothalamus?
Optic chiasm
What did Walter Cannon propose was the cause of voodoo death?
Persistent & extreme activation of the sympathetic nervous system --> adrenaline release overstimulates the cardiovascular system (similar to what happens in a cocaine overdose)
What is required for transduction in the visual system?
Photopigments in the photoreceptors
Work
Physical or mental effort undertaken to obtain desired resources
What was historical treatment for individuals with mental conditions, especially emotional disorders?
Psychosurgery
What did William C. Young do?
Published a study emphasizing the importance of hormone exposure during specific critical periods / sensitive periods of prenatal development
What do researchers use to more accurately diagnose disorders of consciousness?
Recording & imaging techniques to detect functional brain activity in individuals who are experiencing sensory and/or language deficits that would restrict them from responding to a verbal command --> one study found that 4/5 patients who were previously considered unconscious could actually willfully control their brain activity in response to cues
Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
Released from the adrenal cortex in parallel with glucocorticoids; its natural circulating levels provide a buffer against the effects of stress hormones in the brain & other tissue (ex: is related to neurogenesis in the brain)
Gonads
Reproductive organs
Raphe nucleus
Seam located near the medulla that contains 2 nuclei that are the sole producers of serotonin; send their serotonergic projections all over the brain
Anterior insula
Secondary processing in which information about our gut gets interpreted & becomes how we feel about something; involved in complex internal sensations or feelings (ex: disgust, anger, sadness, elation, sexual arousal, anxiety)
What are some reasons that motor performance (ex: dance moves) are used as a selection method for male mates? (4)
Seem to be a valid assessment of the value of a male mate - reveals important information about the fitness of a male & suitability as a mate - impressive dancing conveys physical vigor - marker of overall organism health & performance potential
What must researchers be cautious about when examining the effects of sleep deprivation? What is a better way to assess the effects of sleep deprivation?
Sleep deprivation studies are inherently stressful for subjects SO the functional impairments may also result from that stress --> better way to assess the effects of sleep deprivation are to compare groups who report sleeping fewer hours each night
What types of summation are at play during the time concept idea for sound localization? (2)
Spatial & temporal summation
The fovea has very high __________ ______________. Why?
Spatial resolution - helps you see details
What have studies using the stress model found? (4)
Stressed rats: - showed reduced evidence of a low-threshold version of LTP - exhibited more errors on a water maze task - altered cell survival, neuronal morphological & metabolic functions - reduced levels of neural cell adhesion molecule & reduced spatial memory
What did Timothy Bliss & Terje Lome do?
Studied long-term potentiation (LTP) & how experience alters specific synapses in the hippocampus
What did John O'Keefe & John Dostrovsky do?
Studied why the hippocampus was so important in rats' spatial memory, which led them to discover spatial cells
What was the major conclusion from the study using the conditioned discrimination procedure?
The ability to inhibit conditioned responses to similar stimuli in a safe environment is important for building resilience against PTSD symptoms & requires sophisticated learning strategies that are compromised under high levels of stress --> this ability may be used as a behavioral marker for vulnerability to PTSD
What characterizes the moment you drop off to sleep?
The abrupt onset of theta waves
What holds the lens in place? (2)
The ciliary process & the zonule fibers on either side
What happens if you castrate a male before puberty?
The circulating androgens have never been allowed in the system SO these animals stay flat-lined & never exhibit any sexual behavior
What does the fact that olfactory neurons travel to the amygdala signify?
The close association between olfaction & emotions - smell is very integrated into the brain's emotional circuits
Skin theory of color vision
The colors emphasized in our visual repertoires allow us to see changes in skin color that provide information about a peer's health or emotional status
Subadditive neural response
The components become even stronger & the integrated response becomes even less exaggerated
Transduction
The conversion of physical energy to neural energy
Aromatization
The conversion process of testosterone & androstenedione to estrogens by enzymes in the female ovaries; metabolization of testosterone into estrogen
What focuses the image so it is projected to the retina at the back of the eye?
The cornea & the lens
What happens to motor information after it reaches the frontopolar cortex?
The decision gets fed back through all of the systems to the primary motor cortex
Sleep debt
The difference between the amount of sleep you supposedly need & the amount of sleep you actually get
Loudness (sound localization)
The ear that is closer to the sound will hear it louder than the other ear, which is somewhat blocked by the head
Adehonia
The inability to experience pleasure in previously rewarding or enjoyable activities
Anterograde amnesia
The loss of the ability to form long-term memories
Absolute threshold
The lowest intensity of a stimulus that a person can detect 50% of the time
What might physical vigor provide clues about?
The male's entire functional genome
How did Moruzzi & Magoun disprove Bremer's theory? How did they re-interpret his results?
The mid-pontine section resulting in the cats becoming insomniac suggests that sensory information isn't all that important --> concluded that there's likely a region between the mid-pontine section & the cerveau isole (removing the forebrain) that is a waking area in the brain
Fovea
The part of the retina where our vision is the sharpest because it contains a large amount of cones; the region in the middle of the retina that is in the center of the visual field
Sleep architecture pattern
The pattern of sleep stages
Purkinje cells
The principal inhibitory cell of the cerebral cortex' act as a balancing act between all of the input to determine whether it will fire or NOT
Retrieval
The process of pulling back out information in LTM so we can use it / work with it; if someone gives you a retrieval cue, you should be able to use it to access the stored memory
Ovulation
The process of the egg getting released from its follicle & traveling down the fallopian tubes
What type of organization does the cochlear nucleus have?
Tonotopic organization
What type of rhythms are the sleep stages that we cycle through?
Ultradian rhythms
How many different odors can humans detect?
Up to 10,000 different odors
Long-term depression (LTD)
Weakening of connections / synapses
Motivation
Why you change the trajectory of your behavior
Higher membrane resistance
A measure of the impediment to the flow of electric current across the membrane
Operant conditioning
A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer / reward / positive outcome or diminished if followed by a punisher; the outcome of the behavior shapes it
Entorhinal cortex
"The gateway to the hippocampus"
What are some types of contingency patterns?
- *time* (ex: reward presented 1 min after a targeted response) - *response* (ex: animal has to respond a certain # of times before the reward is given)
What did a histological analysis of H.M.'s brain after his death find?
- a portion of the posterior hippocampus was intact - BUT there was extensive damage to the entorhinal cortex, which isolated intact areas of the hippocampus
Why did Lashley focus on the cortex in his search for the memory engram? (3)
- most recently evolved brain area - involved in more advanced functions - more readily accessible than deeper brain areas
Encephalitis
An inflammation of the brain caused by the herpes simplex virus
What is one brain area that is involved in memory consolidation?
Medial temporal lobe, especially the hippocampus
What happens during the 1st week after the birth of a mouse hippocampal neuron?
Cell migrates to the inner granule cell layer of the dentate gyrus, where it begins growing processes in preparation for the formation of synapses
Law of effect
Refers to the relationship between behavior & consequences
What did Eric Kandel do?
Worked with aplysia (sea slug) to sgudy the mechanisms underlying learning
What are some studies using the delayed matching-to-sample task? (2)
- studies found that medial temporal lobe lesions impaired performance (BUT with a smaller magnitude than was expected, given H.M.'s deficits) - study found that animals with a joint lesion of the amygdala & hippocampus exhibited a performance deficit after the 8-second, 15-second, & 30-second delays & took more trials to reach criterion
What are 3 afferent pathways shown to express plasticity that are located in the hippocampus?
1) perforant pathway 2) Schaffer collateral pathway 3) mossy fiber pathway
What happened to Clive?
After an illness (encephalitis), he retained his fundamental level of intelligence & unimpaired use of his sensory & perceptual systems BUT each moment of his life was almost completely erased every time he blinked
How is memory consolidation studied?
By implanting electrodes into the brains of humans
Reinforcers
Events that increase the likelihood of a recurring response
Mossy fiber pathway
Granule cells form unmyelinated axons
Grid cells
Located in the entorhinal cortex (near the hippocampus); fire as an animal crosses compartments of an imagined coordinate system grid over a spatial area to allow it to determine the cumulative distance traveled
Long-term potentiation (LTP)
Long-lasting modifications / plasticity to certain afferent neural pathways when stimulated with a high-frequency stimulus; cell has a heightened response to a single stimuli because in the past, it has been given a lot of input simultaneously in the same pathway
Perforant pathway
Provides a connectional route from the entorhinal cortex to the dentate gyrus, CA1, CA3, & the subiculum
Contingency
The probability that a specific outcome will follow a specific response
What did B.F. Skinner do? (2)
- explored the impact on behavioral patterns of various reinforcers - formalized Thorndike's ideas into a framework called operant conditioning
What did Karl Lashley do? (4)
- searched for the memory engram, specifically focusing on the cortex - studied the interaction between the brain & behavior - 1st to run rats in mazes - thought Pavlov's localization idea was incorrect
What did Edward Thorndike do? (3)
- studied how animals solve problems as a means of determining their intelligence - law of effect - 1st to have ever done behavioral conditioning / operant conditioning
What are 2 debating theories of how the brain encodes memories?
1) the representation of a single memory is distributed (i.e. stored as bits & pieces that are distributed across millions or billions of neurons) 2) "sparse" representation of an image consisting of thousands (or fewer) of neurons
What are some model species for studying how parental care influences the male brain? (2)
- California deer mouse - degu
What neurochemicals are involved in emotional resilience? (2)
- DHEA - neuropeptide Y (NPY)
What are some studies showing how DHEA is linked to reduced anxiety & increased emotional resilience? (3)
- DHEA metabolites interfere with glucocorticoid receptor activation in the hippocampus, resulting in neuroprotection against damaged or dying neurons - study found that special ops soldiers with higher levels of DHEA have protection against stress-induced responses & better performance on military survival tasks - study found that students who secreted higher levels of DHEA relative to cortisol in response to a frustrating, unsolvable task were less likely to fail or drop out of an organic chemistry course
What are some different types of mechanoreceptors? (3)
- Meissner's corpuscles - Pacinian corpuscles - free nerve endings
What are some studies showing the importance of the SCN in sleep-wake cycles? (2)
- Michael Menaker bred a mutant strain of hamster with a shorter circadian rhythm (about 21 hours) BUT found that transplanting SCN cells from a wild-type hamster led to the restoration of a normal duration rhythm - found that lesioning the SCN in lab rats led to the peak in the stress hormone corticosterone that usually occurs just prior to the dark phase (because rats are nocturnal) disappears
What is a study showing the impacts of cAMP or PKA?
Found that even without a physical stimulus (ex: the shock), injecting cAMP or PKA into the sensory neuron results in increased neurotransmitter release
How early are place cells present?
In very young rats, just 2 days after their eyes open
What did Skinner emphasize the importance of, in terms of operant conditioning?
Reinforcement *contingency*
What were the results of the study using the conditioned discrimination procedure? (2)
- PTSD subjects rated the startle probe as more aversive - ALL subjects startled more in response to the noise in the presence of the stimuli predicting the threat BUT control & low-symptom PTSD exhibited a suppressed startle response when the safety signal was present, while high-symptom PTSD subjects found it difficult to discriminate between the safety & threatening stimuli
What did MacLean draw upon in creating the limbic system term? (2)
- Papez's circuit - relevant aspects of Kluver-Bucy syndrome
Activity-mediated spine enlargement
The shape of the spine changes with neural activity
Before the hippocampus's role in memory / cognition was discovered, where did researchers think memory was located?
Throughout the brain
What is a problem with the hypothesis that neurogenesis is involved with the learning process?
Timing - the complete process of neurogenesis takes too long for it to be a mechanism for ALL learning, which needs to happen quickly sometimes
What are some brain areas involved in REM sleep? (4)
- area between the caudal medulla & rostral midbrain - cholinergic basal forebrain area - subcoeruleus region - pendunculopontine tegmental nuclei
How are cilia arranged on the hair cells?
- arranged on an incline - linked together by *tip links*
What are some ways that homeotherms cope with warm temperature changes? (3)
- avoid the heat (nocturnal) - reflect light (white fur / feathers) - evaporate heat loss
What does the uterus do when stimulated by progesterone? (2)
- begins to make the lining very cozy & thick in preparation for the egg - releases chorionic gonadotropin
What are some brain areas that undergo changes in mother rats? (4)
- hypothalamus, especially the medial pre-optic area - hippocampus - prefrontal & orbitofrontal cortex - cingulate cortex
What might be the "recipe" for courage? (2)
- increased activation of the ACC - reduced activity in the amygdala & insula
Why is the rat model limited? (2)
- just 1 species - unnatural lab setting
What are some characteristics of anorexia nervosa? (2)
- more common in females - typical onset time is puberty during the teen years
What are some functions of the basal ganglia? (5)
- movement regulation - learning & habit formation - attention - rewarded behaviors - emotional responses
What are some other things that the basal ganglia is important for? (3)
- muscle memories - multitasking - habit formation
What is the visual information called when it is outside the CNS? How about when it is inside the CNS after hitting the optic chiasm?
- outside the CNS: optic nerve - inside the CNS: optic tract
Explain how LTP & LTD mechanisms can happen on BOTH the presynaptic side & on the postsynaptic side
- presynaptic side: serotonin coming in with habituation - postsynaptic side: calcium coming in with NMDA receptors
What are some benefits of exercise, in regards to the brain? (2)
- prevents cognitive decline - increases intelligence
What do the GABAergic neurons & galaninergic neurons in the VLPO do? (2)
- project to the tuberomammillary nucleus (TMN) - work to reduce wakefulness
What is some supporting evidence for the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion? (3)
- study found that removing the cortex in cats results in sham rage - Phineas Gage had compromised emotional filters, which made it difficult for him to interact socially after his accident - the autonomic nervous system works as a whole (so cannot differentiate between all of the different kinds of emotions)
What are some possible explanations for the social facilitation of eating? (3)
- we are around food longer when we are with others - we pay less attention to how much we are eating - presence of others may trigger an unconscious competition to eat more
What are some studies addressing the activity-stress research condition? (2)
- STUDY found that blocking dopamine with an antagonist leads to reduced amounts of running - STUDY found that rats kept in cooler temperatures exhibited increased running than those kept in warm temperatures --> the more uncomfortable the lab conditions became, the more likely the activity-stress rats would run
What are the 2 things that consciousness includes?
1) arousal 2) awareness
Compare the number of rods in the retina to the number of cones
100 million rods in the retina; 5 million cones in the retina
Alpha (α) waves
8-12 Hz; consistent in their shape & a little slower; lower frequency, higher amplitude
Hibernation
A seasonal rhythm enhancing survival by allowing an animal to withdraw from harsh environmental conditions; a form of prolonged sleep observed in mammals such as bats & bears
Lens
A series of clear protein crystals that refract light
What confirms the evolutionary significance of REM sleep?
Also exists in animals
What types of stimuli do we particularly use top-down visual processing to interpret?
Ambiguous / complex visual cues --> these are further defined by their context & the larger visual setting
What brain area has been implicated in stress-enhanced memories?
Amygdala --> interacts with stress hormones & other stress-related neurochemicals to facilitate the consolidation of a memory for the threatening experience
What, in general, initiates aggressive responses? What inhibits aggression?
Amygdala initiates aggressive responses, while the PFC inhibits aggression
Adipsia
An apparent absence of thirst
Ventral pallidum
An area in the basal ganglia implicated in reward systems; suggests that lifelong pair bonding is closely associated with the density of vasopressin receptors in reward areas of the brain
Organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalist (OVLT)
An area in the hypothalamus that is involved in the monitoring of thirst
Paraventricular nucleus
An area of the hypothalamus long thought to be involved with appetite inhibition that actually contains a subset of neurons that increase hunger by stimulating AgRP neurons in the arcuate nucleus
Wanting
An emotional experience that builds anticipating & is closely related to motivation & drive
What do estrogens begin as?
Androgens
Which affects quality of life more: anosmia or agusia?
Anosmia
Retrosplenial cortex
Another cortical area implicated in context perception; gist-based contextual associations
Vegetative states
Appear to be awake yet exhibit NO awareness of external stimuli (i.e. are unresponsive to the environment)
When does the McGurk effect occur?
As the cross-model systems attempt to correct the disparity between auditory & visual cues
Sleep disorders
Atypical & dysfunctional sleep-related conditions that cause distress & disruption
What are the dual stress systems? (2)
Autonomic nervous system & HPA axis
Nocturnal
Awake at night
External awareness
Awareness of the environment, achieved through sensory systems
What kind of synapse is involved when interneurons synapse on the presynaptic sensory neuron for sensitization?
Axoaxonic synapse (one axon to another axon)
Schaffer collateral pathway
Axons of the pyramidal cells connect & transfer information from the neurons CA3 & CA1
α motor neurons
Axons that enter the spinal cord via the ventral roots as they travel to the appropriate muscles
Arbor vitae
Cerebellar white matter that is in the shape of a tree; resembles the organization in the cerebral cortex
Pheremones
Chemicals that are released by one animal & detected by another; used to change the social behavior of members of their own species
Visual acuity
Clearness of vision
What is the biological mechanism behind the cerebellum's involvement in muscle memory?
Climbing fibers
Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Condition characterized by a mix of intrusive memories of a traumatic episode & accompanying avoidance of relevant triggers for the event
Declarative memory / explicit memory
Conscious retrieval of events & facts
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Designed to leave serotonin in the space between the cells longer so they have more time to act on the next neuron
Proprioceptors
Detect where our bodies are in space by telling us if our muscles are moving or if our tendons have stretch on them or not
Sensation
Detecting information about our environmental context
Explain the classification of emotions as a gut response / visceral reaction
Emotions have a gut state to them that regular cognition doesn't have, in which the entire body feels the emotion
What is a study showing that satiety is influenced by more than just oral cues?
Found that people who eat through a feeding tube still have satiety (i.e. know when to stop eating)
What is a study showing the impact of the OFC on flexible behavior?
Found that rats with OFC lesions were much slower in adapting when a sugar solution & bitter solution were reversed
Y cells / magnocellular cells
Ganglion cells that are involved in detecting movement; found outside of the fovea in the periphery of the eye
Fast & slow twitch muscle fibers are _____________ _______________
Genetically regulated
What activates NPY?
Ghrelin
What 2 important things does blood bring to cells?
Glucose & oxygen
Trichromats
Have 3 types of cones; normal color vision in humans
Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
Head injury
Hypertonic solution
Higher concentration of solutes outside of the cells than exists inside the cells; much more concentrated fluid due to solutes going into the blood plasma Ex: if you eat too many salty snacks, there will be excess salt outside of the cells
What is sleep apnea a risk factor for? (3)
Hypertension, heart attack, stroke
What did Paul Ekman do?
Identified universal facial expressions that could be understood across cultures
Where are the photoreceptors located within the retina?
In the bottom layers of the retina
What visual features are processed by magnocellular fields?
Information about movement & more general visual patterns ("where information")
What visual features are processed by parvocellular neurons?
Information about visual details, including color ("what" information)
Post-retrieval liability
Instability of memories each time they are received
What is the relationship between DHA consumption & depression rates?
Inversely correlated
Explain the difference in the medial pre-optic nucleus between males & females? Why is this?
It is much larger in males than females - this is because prostaglandins influence the microglia such that their shape in the medial pre-optic nucleus is more compact / dense in males & more diffuse in females
Smooth muscle
Located in internal organs (ex: stomach)
Connectomics
Mapping brain tissue in great detail; can give us new insights into brain areas
Social facilitation of eating
Most people eat more when with others
How are complex cells structured?
Multiple simple cells connect to 1 complex cell
Explain self-care & grooming, in terms of pleasure and/or reward
Neither pleasurable nor rewarding
Coma
No signs of wakefulness or awareness
Tonotopic organization
Organized by frequency from high to low - highest frequencies are in the middle of the cochlear nucleus, while the lowest frequencies are out towards the side
Reinforcement schedules
Patterns by which reinforcements are given over time
Contrast enhancement
Perceived contrast between lighter & darker bands (March bands)
What animal has been used to study how operant conditioning can mold their behavior?
Pigeons
Why might it be more difficult for older individuals to learn new motor skills / make new procedural memories?
Procedural learning may require a larger neural commitment, or # of synaptic modifications, than declarative memory does
Reflex arc
Receptor --> sensory neuron --> synapse on the dorsal root --> synapse on the ventral root with a motor neuron --> effector (muscle)
In Thompson's studies on bunnies, what is the pathway of motor information going out?
Red nucleus --> reverse spinal tract, which is part of the descending motor pathway --> 6th cranial nerve
Pleasurable
Refers to immediate positive emotions
Paramedian lobule
Regulates limb movement
Opponent cells
Respond to 2 different colors
Simple cells
Respond to bar-shape stimuli located in specific areas in specific orientations (ex: vertical, horizontal); fires to lines of particular orientations in particular places in the visual field
Free nerve endings
Respond to tissue damage & temperature changes, which we experience as pain
Specialized types of V1 neurons
Respond to very specific features of the visual stimulus
Affective neuroscience
Study of emotions
What types of summation are involved in whether a complex cell fires?
Temporal & spatial summation
What does the large proportion of raccoon & platypus cortex dedicated to sensory functions suggest?
That the amount of cortical territory devoted to a sensory or motor function is related to the importance of that function to the animal's survival
Papillae
The bumps that contain taste receptors
Seasonal ovulation (seasonal cues)
The goal is for babies to be born in an optimal environment Ex: macaque monkeys ovulate in early winter so the babies are born into an optimal environment
Flexor
The muscle that closes the joint Ex: bicep
Corticospinal tracts
The path that axons travel from the cerebral cortex to the spinal cord; essential for voluntary movement
Sclera
The white of the eye that goes around the edge
What type of waves are present during stage 1 sleep?
Theta (θ) waves
Where does eye enter the eye?
Through the pupil
Retinohypothalamic tracts
Tracts extending from the retina
What do multisensory neurons contrast with?
Traditional sensory neurons
Maintenance insomnia
Trouble staying asleep
What types of frequencies can volley theory / cross-fiber theory explain?
Up to 600 Hz
What percentage of strokes can be prevented?
Up to 80%
How long after the aplysia tail shock can the sensitization response last?
Up to an hour
What is the target tissue of progesterone?
Uterus
What types of frequencies can frequency theory explain?
Very low frequencies, up to about 200 Hz
Why is vasopressin known as the antidiuretic hormone?
"Diuresis" refers to the production of urine & vasopressin triggers a response in the kidneys to reduce fluid release to the bladder
Sleep efficiency
% of time in bed that one is asleep
What is the ARAS comprised of?
*ACh-secreting neurons* making up the cholinergic systems in the brainstem & basal forebrain area
What determines whether PTSD develops?
*Biological predispositions* interact with the *person's experience of the threatening event* to determine whether PTSD develops
Biochemical reactions are ______________. Why is this relevant?
*Interdependent* (ex: the product of one reaction might be needed for the reaction of the next system) - it is important to keep our temperature constant because if one cell / part begins going faster or slower, the reactions become uncoupled in the cell, which can lead to inefficiency or cell death
In rats, what areas of the cortex are the most prevalent? (3) What does this suggest?
- **whiskers - nose - mouth Suggests that these areas are very important for survival
What were some lifestyle changes that came from cooking food? (5)
- *controlling fires provided protection*, which may have prompted humans to gather around a fire to sleep - sleeping in groups & cooking together may have facilitated *social cooperation* - transportable heat source allowed humans to *explore & survive in colder environments* - preference for soft foods allowed for *faster weaning of young & shorter intervals between births* - direction of food production may have *increased cognitive powers*
What are some characteristics of hibernation? (3)
- *shut-down of bodily functions* (which allows the animals to persist on low caloric resources) - *low body temperature* (maintained as low as -3 degrees celsius) - *minimal cortical EEG activity* (reflecting suppressed neuronal activity)
Where can auditory info go after arriving at the primary auditory cortex (area A1)? What happens at each of these areas? (2)
- *temporal lobe*: can help us identify certain sounds - *parietal lobe, specifically the posterior parietal cortex*: plays a role in spatial localization & guiding our movements in certain directions
What are some brain areas that contribute to the interpretation of visual context to facilitate object recognition? (2)
- *visual cortex* --> may group objects into categories based on physical appearance - *parahippocampal cortex (PHC)* --> sensitive to contextual relations based on the presence of other objects
What did Nathanial Kleitman do? (3)
- 1st scientist to devote his career to the study of sleep - lived in a dark underground chamber for a month to determine whether internal sleep rhythms persisted without external cues like sunlight (they did) - stayed awake for 180 consecutive hours & concluded that extreme sleep deprivation was an effective form of torture
Explain the forefeet & hindfeet of raccoons (3)
- 5 fingers on their forefeet & 5 toes on their hind feet - soft skin on their digits (which do NOT have webbing between them) - top region of the digits is covered with short hairs, while the palms & soles are hairless
What neurotransmitters have an effect on sleep? (3)
- ACh - norepinephrine - serotonin
What are some neurochemicals involved in the stress response? (2)
- CRH - dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)
What are some theories regarding color vision? (3)
- Young-Hemholtz trichromatic theory of color vision - opponent-process theory of color vision - skin theory of color vision
What are some mechanisms of synaptic restructuring? (2)
- activity-mediated spine enlargement, especially of the bulbous head at the end of the spine - emergence of new spines on dendrites located near the originally activated spine set
What did John Locke believe about learning? (2)
- all knowledge develops through our experiences - our minds at birth are a tabula rasa
What are some effects of prolonged or chronic activation of the stress response? (2)
- allostatic overload - serious side effects (ex: insulin resistance, increased risk for diabetes, hypertension, immunosuppression, cardiovascular disease)
What are some of the roles of the small intestine? (2)
- allows for further digestion, especially by the microbiome - transports nutrients out of the digestive system & into the blood
What are some brain areas involved in conditioned defeat? (3)
- amygdala - PFC - BNST (also implicated in anxiety, in addition to aggression)
What brain areas within the limbic system are important in emotional experiences? (4)
- amygdala - hypothalamus - cingulate cortex - PFC
What are some brain areas that play a role in managing impending stress? (4)
- amygdala - locus coeruleus - PFC - hippocampus
After synapsing on the olfactory bulbs, where do olfactory axons travel to? (3)
- amygdala - piriform cortex - entorhinal cortex
What are some applications of conditioned defeat to humans? (3)
- animal model in males for the evaluation of chronic stress & various anxiety disorders - may provide insight about the impact of persistent bullying on children - may inform us about neurobiological mechanisms involved in PTSD (which also involves a mismatch between emotional responses & non-threatening stimuli)
What brain areas are involved in executive attention? (2)
- anterior cingulate cortex (ACC): cognitive conflicts & error detection - dorsolateral PFC: various response conflicts
What are the effects of altered levels of adrenal steroids on CAH genetic females? (3)
- as children, engage in more masculine play; as adults, express more interest in male-dominated careers - have better spatial abilities - higher rates of bisexuality & homosexuality
What are some examples of the cross-talk happening between the mother & baby during pregnancy & afterwards? (3)
- at the end of pregnancy, the baby's endocrine system sends information to the mom, who will then start the process of labor - the baby nursing causes the mother to release more milk & the mother's uterus to contract so the body goes back to its regular position - kangaroo mothers can have multiple offspring that are different developing ages in their pouch & each can get different kinds of milk from different nipples
What are some ways that individuals who have been deaf since birth experience enhanced visual sensitivity & reorganization of the sensory areas of the cortex? (2)
- auditory cortex is activated when viewing sign language - have larger visual field areas than hearing individuals
What brain areas are involved in slow encoding of rigid associations? (processing-based memory systems) (3)
- basal ganglia (involved in movement & habit formation) - cerebellum (involved in motor coordination & learning) - neocortex (involved in semantic memory)
What are some examples of the evolutionary / adaptive theory of sleep? (3)
- bats can only hunt for a few hours during dusk & dawn SO extended periods of sleep provide protection from predators; elephants, however, can forage throughout the day SO extended periods of wakefulness allow more time to consume large quantities of food needed to maintain their large body mass - hibernation to conserve energy due to diminished food availability in very cold, harsh climates - humans do NOT have to forage all day to provide sufficient energy for a healthy body SO it may have been adaptive for our ancestors to rest in a safe place, hidden from predators at night
Explain how developing neurons play different roles at different stages of development (2)
- before growing a full set of processes, neurons may modulate background neural activity & influence firing patterns of neurons in established neural networks - during later learning, new neurons may be less necessary as surviving neurons are maturing & integrating into the appropriate circuits SO strategic downsizing must occur
What are some reasons that the visual system is appealing to neuroscientists? (4)
- begins at a particular location & goes in a particular direction - easy to manipulate because you just have to change the light going in & then can see the impact on the rest of the system - makes sense to study vision because humans are a visual species - it has an interesting setup, in that it represents a 3D visual space in the brain's "language"
What are some things that can be observed while studying subjective well-being? (2)
- behaviors such as the amount of time a mother rat spends with her pups or how hard she works to get access to them - mechanisms involved with motivating animals to engage in essential behaviors (ex: grooming) that do NOT appear to be as pleasurable or rewarding
Why can blood leaking out into brain tissue (as in a hemorrhagic stroke) be problematic? (2)
- blood is NOT going where it's supposed to go - blood is pooling up, thus increasing volume in the brain & compressing brain areas, which can lead to dysfunction
What are some studies with humans showing the importance of oxytocin & vasopressin in social and romantic bonds? (2)
- brain-imaging studies show deactivation of the right PFC (involved in negative emotions) when viewing photos of loved ones & brain areas rich in vasopressin & oxytocin receptors are activated - relationship exists between a specific vasopressin allele & the quality of pair-bonding, or romantic commitment
What are the functions of chewing? (3)
- breaks down food - adds water in the form of saliva (thus increasing lubrication so the food moves more easily through the system) - adds enzymes to the food, especially to break down sugars
How are layers in the LGN divided up? (2)
- by what type of ganglion cells are synapsing on the layer (X / parvocellular cells vs. Y / magnocellular cells) - according to whether information is coming from the contralateral eye or the ipsilateral eye
What are some brain areas involved in HSAM?
- caudate & putamen in the striatum - larger areas of white matter serving as connections among various brain areas - larger areas of the insula & parahippocampal cortex
What are some brain areas that may be involved in bulimia? (2)
- caudate putamen - frontostriatal brain area
What do both rods & cones consist of, in terms of their anatomical organization? (2)
- cell body - outer segment that is pointed toward the back of the eye & filled with membranes that contain photopigment
What are some brain areas that play a role in the transformation of an athlete from novice to expert? (3)
- cerebellum - neurons in the primary motor cortex - mirror neuron system
Where is brain activity associated with internal awareness located? (2)
- cingulate cortex - parahippocampal cortex
What brain areas are involved with outputs of emotional information from the cortex? (2)
- cingulate cortex / limbic lobe - ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)
What are some of the roles of the large intestine? (2)
- collects everything we haven't digested & holds onto these waste products - acts as a recycling center so we can reuse certain products (ex: water, salts)
What are some critiques of Lashley's work? (2)
- completely relies on the idea that learning & memory exist in the cerebral cortex BUT if they occur somewhere else, the theory falls apart - having rats run a maze is NOT a simple learning behavior; it is very complex due to all the visual cues, smells, somatosensory cues, etc. in the maze, which makes it difficult to find a particular change happening in the brain from learning & memory
What are some characteristics of the behavioral response of the amygdala? (2)
- completely ruled by the amygdala (especially the baso-lateral area) - interacts with the ventral striatum & dorsomedial thalamus
What are some characteristics of non-REM dreams? (4)
- concrete & factual - recounting events that have happened before - black & white - recurring nightmares can happen
What are the functions of angiotensin II? (3)
- constricts blood vessels - triggers the release of hormones aldosterone & vasopressin - stimulates drinking (likely by activating the OVLT & SFO)
What are the functions of vasopressin? (3)
- constricts blood vessels so blood pressure increases - tells the kidneys to stop releasing so much water - causes animals to drink
Which tracts primarily innervate our limbs? (2)
- corticospinal tract - corticorubro spinal tract
What did brain scans of Clive's brain show? (2)
- damage throughout the cortical areas (temporal, occipital, parietal, & frontal lobes) - complete destruction of the hippocampus
In what ways might sleep disruption patterns help to maintain fevers? (3)
- decrease in body temperature that occurs with SWS works against the high temperature of a fever - shivering (which is involved in heat production during a fever) is NOT possible during REM sleep due to loss of muscle tone - increased energy conservation during non-REM sleep may be beneficial because the body's metabolic rate increases to sustain the high body temperature maintaining a fever
What did Giuseppe Moruzzi & Horace Magouin do? (4)
- did a mid-pontine section & found that the cats were insomniac (i.e. awake most of the time) - lesioned all of the sensory areas & found that this didn't have much of an effect on sleep-wake cycles - found that if they stimulated the reticular formation, the animals would wake up - found that wakefulness comes from activation of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)
What did William Dement do? (2)
- director of the world's 1st sleep clinic - charted brain wave activity throughout the entire night of sleep, identifying several stages / patterns
What are some behaviors that have evolved to prevent continuous tissue-damaging aggressive encounters? (2)
- dominance hierarchies - behavioral postures that send a message of submission
What are the key neurochemicals involved with learning? (3)
- dopamine - serotonin - ACh
Where is brain activity associated with external awareness located? (2)
- dorsolateral prefrontal cortex - interior parietal lobe Involved in goal-directed behavior & cognitive processing of external stimuli
What are some brain systems involved in action-outcome associations? (2)
- dorsomedial striatum - PFC
What is some evidence of structural changes in the aplysia during habituation? How about during sensitization?
- during habituation, fewer presynaptic terminals were observed, which leads to fewer synaptic connections with motor neurons & interneurons - during sensitization, the # of presynaptic terminals almost doubled & there were changes in the dendrites of postsynaptic cells in response to the additional sensory input
What are some things that the brain's preparedness to form habits may contribute to? (3)
- dysfunctional behavior (ex: addiction, OCD) - cultural / religious rituals - superstitious behaviors
What are some differences in the brain of blind individuals? (2)
- enhanced auditory capabilities from the neural network integrating auditory & tactile sensory domains - more neural connections between the primary auditory & visual cortical areas
Where are some different places in the brain that olfactory information goes? (4)
- entrohinal cortex in the hippocampus - piriform cortex - amygdala - hypothalamus
What are some methodological challenges involved in conducting research on the link between testosterone & aggression? (2)
- ethical & practical challenges with stimulating actual aggressive responses in the lab - time delay between the violent event & current baseline testosterone levels
What are some ways to study the effects of hormones on development? (2)
- experimental manipulation - observing humans born with medical conditions that impact endocrine functions
What is some evidence that the cerebellum may also be involved in non-motor functions? (2)
- extensive connections between the cerebellum & BOTH sensorimotor & association areas of the cerebral cortex may explain its role in motor & cognitive functions - patients with cerebellar lesions have identified non-motor symptoms (ex: reduced pleasure, anxiety, repetition of responses, aggression)
What holds the eye in the optic socket? (2)
- extraocular muscles - optic nerve
What did a concordance study find regarding homosexuality?
- for monozygotic twins, there is a 50% chance that a twin will also be homosexual - for dizygotic twins, there is a 22% chance - for an adopted brother, there is an 11% chance
In what way is the trichromatic theory correct? In what way is the opponent-process theory correct?
- for the trichromatic color theory, peak sensitivity of the cones responds to 420 (blue-violet spectrum), 560 (yellow-green spectrum), & 630 nanometers (orange-red spectrum) - for the opponent-process theory, opponent cells that respond to 2 different colors have been found in the LGN & visual cortex
What are some studies showing the impact of NPY on emotional resilience? (2)
- found a reduction in anxiety when NPY was infused into the basolateral amygdala in rodents - found lower NPY levels in patients suffering from major depression & in soldiers exhibiting PTSD symptoms
What are some studies showing the effects of excessive food exposure on humans, especially children who are establishing lifelong eating habits? (2)
- found that children watching a cartoon with food ads ate 45% more goldfish than those watching the same cartoon without food ads - found that adult subjects viewing snack ads consumed more of BOTH healthful & unhealthful foods, & that viewing food ads in general was associated with increased consumption of unadvertised foods, regardless of health status
What is a study showing the influence of vasopressin & oxytocin on the formation of strong social & romantic bonds? (2)
- found that following pre-treatment with either vasopressin or oxytocin, BOTH male & female prairie voles showed increased preference for spending time with a familiar prairie vole compared with males & females that had received NO hormone manipulation - also found NO effect of vasopressin or oxytocin administration when these neuropeptide systems were blocked with chemical antagonists
What is a study showing that circuits that pick up emotional content can run more quickly than our higher-level cognitive processes allow us to do? (2)
- found that it takes longer for subjects to find things on a simple search task that do NOT have emotional content - backward masking study found that despite not being consciously aware of emotionally arousing stimuli (because the images are flashed so quickly), participants have increased GSR (autonomic response)
What is a study showing how difficult sweets are to refuse? (2)
- found that rats that had access to a sugar solution (along with rat chow) for 12 hours exhibited binging & withdrawal symptoms, & had increased dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, which modified sensitivity of dopamine receptors - if deprived of sugar for 14 days, these rats showed an increase in level pressing for sugar by 123%
What are some studies showing that sleep loss compromises one's health? (2)
- found that vaccines were less effective in individuals who have an interrupted night of sleep - found that sleep duration of 7 hours or less & sleep efficiency of 92% or less were correlated with a 3-fold & 5-fold increase, respectively, in cold susceptibility
What are some studies showing the role of the hypothalamus in thirst regulation? (3)
- found that when small amounts of a hypertonic solution of sodium salts were injected into the hypothalamus of goats with isotonic fluid conditions, the goats started to drink - found that electrically or chemically stimulating the hypothalamus led the goats to drink - found that lesions to the hypothalamus seemed to eliminate the goats' urge to drink & they became severely dehydrated
What is a study showing the effects of external cues on internal sleep-wake behaviors?
- found that when the lights were shifted forward 6 hours, the rats were able to shift their behavior of activity to 1am-1pm (instead of 7pm-7am) - found that if a constant dim light is on, the rats end up free running, which involves a cycle that is a bit longer than 24 hours
What were the results of a study examining the effects of tactile stimulation on the recovery of adult male rats that had experienced lesions of the bilateral medial frontal cortex? (2) What was the major conclusion?
- frontal-injured group that received tactile treatment (being stroked with a hairbrush) had success rates on a reaching task that were closer to those of a non-injured sham control group than the injured control group that received NO tactile treatment - tactile stimulation increased the arborization of the dendrites in the pyramidal cells adjacent to the lesioned area (an effect which is associated with increased neural connections) Conclusion: tactile treatment seems to facilitate function recovery from brain injury
What are some potential causes of insomnia? (3)
- genetic predispositions that alter neurobiological components of the sleep-wake cycle - presence of illness or anxiety - ill-advised sleep habits (ex: frequent daytime napping)
What did Gustav Theodor Fechner do? (2)
- had an insight while laying in bed that prompted him to appreciate that intersections between the mind & the physical world could be investigated by measuring a person's perception in response to a changing material stimulus (i.e. psychophysics) - discovered the difference threshold / just noticeable difference (JND)
Why do people study development using the visual system as a model? (3)
- hierarchical setup where features progressively get extracted - easy to drive with light - maps that are translated from 3D to 2D in the brain
What are some brain areas involved in PTSD? (5)
- hippocampus - ventromedial PFC - amygdala - insular cortex - ACC
What is some evidence that the hippocampus might be related to survival abilities? (2)
- hippocampus is much more elaborate in mammals & has dropped to the ventral areas of the brain (except for rodents, in which it is still in the dorsal areas) - hippocampus is more developed in species that are opportunistic / adapt to new environments, while it is smaller in those that have more homogenous environments (ex: dolphins)
In the cortical-hippocampal system, what unique functions of declarative memory does the hippocampus contribute to? How about the surrounding cortical area in the parahippocampus?
- hippocampus: processing & linkage of sequences of events & places - parahippocampal cortex: convergence pathway to the neocortical areas, which add appropriate context from sensory, cognitive, & motor cortical areas
What is some evidence for the amygdala pre-screening for emotionally arousing stimuli? (3)
- humans who have a bilateral amygdalectomy (NO amygdala on either side) are unable to experience emotional content - individuals with autism have fewer neurons in their amygdala as they develop, which might lead to problems recognizing emotional content of situations - psychopaths are unable to experience emotion in the same way as a typical individual, which may be related to the reduced connections between the amygdala & the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
What is the cue to start eating? How about the cue to stop eating?
- hunger = "on" signal for eating - satiety = "off" signal for eating
What happens if the cilia is pushed in the direction it is supposed to move? What happens if the cilia is pushed in the opposite direction?
- if the cilia is pushed in the direction it is supposed to move, it will lead to depolarization, thus activating the cell - if the cilia is pushed in the opposite direction, it will lead to hyperpolarization, thus making it less likely that the cell will be activated
In what way is the blood volume responsive to how much blood is flowing through the system?
- if there is too much blood or a high amount of water in the blood, there is a higher volume SO the blood vessel walls are being pushed against - if there is NOT enough volume, the blood vessel walls would be more slack because there's not as much pressure against the walls of the blood vessels
What is some evidence for the lateral interpositus nucleus being involved in information coming together to make associations? (2)
- if you remove the lateral interpositus nucleus, the animals will NOT learn to associate the tone with the air puff so they won't blink in response to the tone - if you insert a cryoprobe into the lateral interpositus nucleus & make it so cold that it doesn't function properly, the animal will NOT learn the association BUT if the probe is warmed back up, then it will begin to function normally again & the association will be made
What is the major difference between classical conditioning & operant conditioning?
- in classical conditioning, the animal is learning to connect 2 stimuli together - in operant conditioning, the animal learns that in a particular stimulus context, there is a particular response that is the most appropriate --> the association is with the right responses (NOT with another stimulus)
What are some problems with benzodiazepines? (2)
- in the long-term, can produce side effects such as fatigue, dizziness, & nightmares - tolerance builds slowly (i.e. the drug is broken down slowly) SO if you are consistently taking them, you will end up with much more in your system than you might think
What did a study with the trust game find? (2)
- increase in oxytocin levels of subject 2 individuals that was proportional to the amount of $$ received (which did NOT happen with control subjects, who were given $$ from an unknown source) - nasal dose of oxytocin increased the cooperative generosity of BOTH subjects 1 & 2
What might be the mechanism for the long-term brain changes in pups of mothers with high-fat diets? (2)
- increased density of new neurons, which expressed orexigenic peptides - increased lipids in the fetus around the 3rd ventricle of the developing brain, which may then increase the production of neurons that eventually migrate to the LH & paraventricular nucleus, where they regulate the production of orexigenic peptides like orexin
What is increased melatonin a signal for? How about decreased melatonin?
- increased melatonin is a signal for sleeping - decreased melatonin is a signal for waking up
What are some ways that exercise affects the brain? (3)
- increased oxygen & nutrient delivery = increased neurogenesis - increased BDNF (neural growth factor) = increased cellular survival in the brain - increased angiogenesis, especially in the cerebellum & motor cortex
What neurobiological changes occur as a result of defeat? (2)
- increased stress hormones (adrenocorticotropic hormone, glucocorticoids) - reduced testosterone levels
Where are some brain areas where FM-FM neurons have been found? (3)
- inferior colliculus - MGN - auditory cortex of echolocating bats
What are some characteristics of the autonomic & hormonal responses of the amygdala? (2)
- information goes out the centro-medial side - sends input to the hypothalamus, midbrain, pons, medulla, & basal forebrain
What happens to information that comes into the temporal hemiretina on either eye? How about information that comes into the nasal hemiretina?
- information that comes into the temporal hemiretina will stay on the same side - information that comes into the nasal hemiretina will cross (decasate) to the other side
Within the mesocortical system, what is information that goes to the cingulate gyrus involved in? How about information that goes to the frontal lobe?
- information that goes to the cingulate gyrus may be involved in *emotional regulation* - information that goes to the frontal lobe may be involved in *planning cognition*
What are some ideas for how NPY works to reduce anxiety? (2)
- interferes with the consolidation of stressful memories - counteracts the axiogenic effects of CRH
Why was the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion so important? (2)
- introduced *animal models* into affective neuroscience - introduced the technique of using *lesions* to experimentally induce the fundamental mechanisms of emotions
What did Hans Selye do? (2)
- introduced the term stress - thought that the stress response was consistent --> generalized adaptation syndrome
What happens to the visual image as it enters the eye? (2)
- inverted - left-right reversed (i.e. input from the left visual field strikes the right side of each retina & is sent to the right visual cortex, while input from the right visual field strikes the left side of each retina & is sent to the left visual cortex)
What are some applications of the idea that each cell has its own internal clock?
- jet lag: some cell types are going to come back "online" sooner because they're going to have a normal baseline that's closer to the time of the new place you are in - certain diseases: the body might be out of phase (ex: pancreas cells are out of sync with the rest of the body), leading to certain symptoms
What are some reasons that hawks (& other birds of prey) have excellent visual acuity? (5)
- large eyes proportional to their head size that are positioned at the front of the face contributes to superior depth perception & binocular vision - have 2 foveae in each eye - have up to 5x more photoreceptors per square millimeter than humans - can keep their head very steady & use compensatory motor reflexes to maintain a consistent position in order to keep their eyes on the target - sensitive to objects moving more slowly than humans can perceive
What are some brain areas involved in water balance? (2)
- lateral pre-optic area - organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalist (OVLT)
What are some brain areas that are involved in aggression? (7)
- lateral septum - bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BNST) - anterior hypothalamus - medial amygdala - medial pre-optic area of the hypothalamus - ventromedial hypothalamus - periaqueductal gray
What is some evidence suggesting that LTP might be a biological mechanism for some forms of memory? (3)
- localized in the hippocampus, which is important for learning & memory --> when it was blocked in the hippocampus, learning & memory decreased - high-frequency stimulation used to induce LTP is similar to the theta brain wave rhythm recorded in the hippocampus during learning - certain biochemical modifications (ex: modification of the NMDA receptor) are critical in both LTP & memory formation
What is some evidence of serotonin's role in anorexia? (2)
- low levels of serotonin metabolites in the CSF of ill anorexia patients, which may indicate low extracellular levels of serotonin (BUT elevated serotonin metabolites are found in the CSF of recovered patients) - anorexia patients have different patterns of serotonin receptors (5-HT1A & 5-HT2A) than healthy individuals, which may produce negative mood, inhibition, & vigilance
What are the functions of the pedunculopontine tegmental nuclei? (2)
- maintain the fast desynchronized beta waves during waking hours - facilitate the transmission of neural messages to the hypothalamus & basal forebrain, after which some projections ultimately travel to the cortex
What are some proposed functions of yawning? (2)
- may help regulate brain temperature because the inhalation of cool air into the lungs decreases cerebral blood temperature --> rising brain temperatures that occur when animals are sleep-deprived may prompt yawns, which are associated with feelings of sleepiness - increased blood flow accompanying yawning may activate some neural circuits that have low levels of activity
What are some practical applications of learning about the mechanisms contributing to hibernation? (2)
- may provide information about *arousal mechanisms necessary to shift the brain back into real-time responsiveness*, even from a prolonged state of unconsciousness - may have *relevant applications for stalling or halting the progression of diseases* (ex: rabies-infected bats usually die within 6 days BUT can survive the long winter when they hibernate because the virus also hibernates)
What are some submodalities of exteroreceptors? (3)
- mechanoreceptors - thermoreceptors - nocioceptors
Where is oxytocin located? (3)
- medial pre-optic nucleus of the hypothalamus - amygdala - BNST
What brain areas work together to signal the occurrence of negative surprises? (2)
- medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) - ACC
What are some at-home insomnia treatments? (3)
- melatonin supplements - alcohol - marijuana
What are some treatments that can help with the realignment of biological rhythms? (2)
- melatonin supplements - light therapy
Explain William C. Young's experiment
- method: administered testosterone to some pregnant guinea pigs during most of their 69-day gestation - results: some female offspring were born with ambiguous external genitalia, neither clearly male nor female, BUT those exposed to lower prenatal testosterone showed NO modifications of typical female external genitalia
Explain Berthold's experiment & findings
- method: castrated 6 male chickens; 2 remained castrated, 2 had one of their original testicles implanted into their bodies, & 2 received a transplantation of the other male's testicles - results: found that the castration-only pair remained small, developed NO plumage, & never exhibited small advances or aggressive behavior, while the pairs receiving implanted testicles matured into roosters with all the typical behaviors & plumage
What is a study showing the brain areas involved in context / top-down visual processing?
- method: fMRI study in which subjects were exposed to 2 types of visual stimuli--one characterized by a strong visual context (ex: bowling pin, construction hat) & another characterized by a weak visual context (ex: camera, scissors) - results: found that when subjects were exposed to strong visual context objects, they showed increased activation in the PHC & retrosplenial cortex; also with tasks that required higher-order integration to continuously update the interpretation of the visual stimulus, the superior orbital sulcus was activated
What is a study showing the importance of early experience for the visual system's healthy development?
- method: fitted kittens with goggles / glasses that had small vertical slits to see through on one eye & horizontal slits to see through on the other eye; when the kittens grew up, they removed the goggles.& tested from their visual cortex when they were exposed to different line orientations - results: found that the cats' eyes that were exposed to horizontal lines during development could only perceive horizontal lines of light & those that were exposed to vertical lines could only perceive vertical lines of light
What is a study showing the long-term impacts of uncorrected astigmatism?
- method: gave people who were 20+ years old with severe astigmatism & had them wear lenses that perfectly corrected their astigmatism - results: found that they simply couldn't see certain orientation lines, even though their visual system was corrected, because the higher levels of the cortex hadn't developed due to the lack of experience that would typically allow them to develop
What is a study investigating the precise movements in human males to determine the type of moves the females found the most attractive?
- method: had males come into the lab & dance, after which their movements were created into 3D avatars; then females rated the dance moves - results; the most attractive moves involved the speed & movement of the right knee, as well as variation in neck & back movements
What is a study examining how the brain responds when a person experiences a self-generated vs. an other-generated tickle stimulus?
- method: participants went through fMRI scans during 4 conditions (self-generated movements producing tactile stimulation, self-generated movements w/o tactile stimulation, externally produced tactile stimulation, & NO movement / NO tactile stimulation) - results: found that when tactile stimulation was self-produced, *significantly less activity was observed in the somatosensory cortex, the anterior lobe of the cerebellum, & the anterior cingulate area of the frontal cortex*
What is some evidence that dopamine density may also facilitate the tendency to form social bonds? (3)
- montane voles have more dopamine D1 receptors in the nucleus accumbens & PFC, while prairie voles have more dopamine D2 receptors in the medial PFC - when male prairie voles initially contact a female, increased D2 receptor activity is activated in the male's nucleus accumbens, while increased D1 receptors are activated once the bond is formed - peripheral administration of a dopamine agonist that increases dopamine activity in the brain also increases partner preference
Where is movement of the feet located on the motor cortex? What about the mouth?
- movement of the feet is toward the top of the motor cortex - the mouth is on the ventral side
What happens if you inject a mu agonist into the VTA or nucleus accumbens? How about when you inject a mu antagonist?
- mu agonist: the animals will eat more food that they typically think is pleasurable - mu antagonist: the animals will NOT eat as much of their favorite food because the experience of eating it is NO longer as pleasurable
What did Paul MacLean do? (2)
- named the limbic system - proposed the triune brain
What are some predisposed temperaments & traits that are associated with anorexia nervosa? (3)
- negative emotionality - perfectionism - obssessive-compulsive tendencies
What neurotransmitters function as inhibitory molecules for the paraventricular nucleus? (3)
- neuropeptide Y (NPY) - AgRP - GABA
What activate the thalamocortical neurons? (2)
- noradrenaline from the locus coeruleus in the pons - serotonin from the raphe nuclei
What are some other brain areas, outside of the limbic system, that are involved in emotional experiences? (3)
- nucleus accumbens - insula - coactivation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) & anterior insular cortex
What are some other areas involved in face perception (besides the fusiform face area)? (2)
- occipital face area - superior temporal facial recognition area
What are some brain areas associated with wanting? (6)
- orbitofrontal cortex - anterior cingulate cortex - insula - nucleus accumbens - ventral tegmental area - hypothalamus
What are some relevant brain areas associated with liking? (7)
- orbitofrontal cortex - anterior cingulate cortex - insula - nucleus accumbens shell - ventral pallidum - periaqueductal gray - amygdala
What are some brain areas associated with learning? (4)
- orbitofrontal cortex - insula - amygdala - hippocampus
What were the results of the wedding experiment? (4)
- oxytocin levels increased more during the ceremony for the couple & their close relatives than for other guests - the groom's vasopressin levels reduced following the ceremony - cortisol was high in the bride both before & after the wedding ceremony, while the groom's cortisol levels reduced immediately following the ceremony - the groom's testosterone levels doubled during the ceremony
What are some cortical areas that are involved in context perception? (3)
- parahippocampal cortex (PHC) - retrosplenial cortex - superior orbital sulcus
What brain areas are involved in rapid encoding of single or categorized items? (processing-based memory systems) (2)
- parahippocampal gyrus - neocortex
What were the reasons that a sleep clinician agreed with the jury's decision in Kenneth Parks' case? (5)
- personal & family history of parasomnias (i.e. walking, talking, eating, etc. during sleep) - recent sleep deprivation & physical stress from rugby - recent emotional stress because of gambling debt - reported experiencing NO pain when he cut the tendons in his fingers - he had organized a picnic at his in-laws for the next day
What are some treatments for insomnia? (2)
- pharmocotherapy - cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
What structures make up the outer ear?
- pinna - external auditory meatus (ear canal) - tympanic membrane (ear drum)
What are some functions of the hypothalamus? (2)
- plays a role in the regulation of sex hormones - can control output from the pituitary gland
Explain the difference in vasopressin receptor density between monogamous & non-monogamous species
- prairie voles (monogamous) have a denser distribution of vasopressin V1a receptors than montane voles (non-monogamous) in the olfactory bulb, BNST, & ventral pallidum - montane voles have the densest distribution of V1a receptors in the medial PFC & lateral septum
Explain the difference in oxytocin receptor density between monogamous & non-monogamous species (2)
- prairie voles have higher oxytocin receptor densities in the nucleus accumbens, PFC, & BNST - non-monogamous species have higher densities in the lateral septum, ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus, & amygdala
What is the purpose of hormones during the prenatal period? How about during a more mature developmental stage?
- prenatal period: *organization* (i.e. long-lasting structural differentiation) of brain areas involved in sex-typical behavior - mature developmental stage: *activation* of those brain areas
What is some evidence supporting strong ties between emotional responses & facial expressions in non-human animals? (2)
- primates display emotions with distinct facial expressions during play, aggression, & threat - mouse facial grimace scale describes changes in facial characteristics associated with pain that are used to communicate information about pain to other animals
What are some practical applications of the study showing the impact of exposing rats to different environments on nucleus accumbens organization? (3)
- provides insight into how stressful contexts may lead to stress-related disorders, such as PTSD & depression - demonstrates that environmental conditions (& maybe even CBT) can produce more positive nucleus accumbens responses in humans by physically altering the nucleus accumbens shell - important to evaluate lab animals' physical & social environment when examining neurobiological effects
In Thompson's studies on bunnies, what are the pathways of the sensory information coming in? (2)
- puff of air follows the touch pathway - tone follows the auditory pathway from LeDoux's experiment (ears --> cochlear nucleus --> inferior colliculus --> MGN --> cortex and/or amygdala)
What were the results of a study in which growth hormone-releasing protein-6 was administered to rats? (2)
- rats that had complete access to food showed reduced activation in the arcuate nucleus, while those that were fasting showed increased activation in the arcuate nucleus - rats that had fasted AND received injections of insulin to the lateral ventricles showed reduced activation, even though insulin levels remained low outside the brain (thus showing the importance of CNS levels of these satiety signals over PNS levels)
What did Candace Pert do? (2)
- received morphine compounds during her recovery from an injury, which peaked her interest in morphine - made radioactive morphine & incubated it with body tissue to see where it would bind, which led her to discover the receptors
What can the cilia do in the nasal system? (2)
- recognize odors in the air that have been dissolved in the mucus - has machinery to transduce a signal from the chemical that will travel through the *cribiform plate* (a bone) to cranial nerve #1
What are some ways that homeotherms cope with cold temperature changes? (4)
- reduce conduction (fur, fat, feathers, jacket) - increase production of heat through increasing metabolism or using muscles (including shivering) - avoid the cold (migration) - hibernate
What do the vermis & lateral cerebellar hemispheres do? (2)
- regulate muscle tone - contain the deep nuclei (ex: dentate nucleus) that communicate in a structured, map-like fashion with the various motor & nonmotor areas of the cerebral cortex
What are some key characteristics of the corticorubro spinal tract? (3)
- runs in the *dorsolateral* part of the spinal cord - bias for *forelimbs* - bias for *flexors*
What are some key characteristics of the vestibulospinal tract? (2)
- runs in the *ventromedial* part of the spinal cord - bias for *extensors*
What are some key characteristics of the reticulospinal tract? (2)
- runs in the *ventromedial* part of the spinal cord - bias for *flexors*
What are some key characteristics of the tectospinal tract? (3)
- runs in the *ventromedial* part of the spinal cord - bias for *flexors* - primarily goes to the *shoulders & upper body*
What are some key characteristics of the corticospinal tract? (3)
- runs up & down in the *dorsolateral* part of the spinal cord - preferential bias to innervate our *forelimbs* - specific bias to *flexors*
What are some observations / studies regarding the male cycle? (2)
- scientist noticed that the closer he got to leaving the island, the more his whiskers grew, possible signifying a hormonal response in anticipation of seeing people - study found that men who are watching their sports team win have higher levels of testosterone than those who are watching their team lose * both show that external cues can regulate the hormonal system in males too
What are some types of spontaneous ovulation / some cues for it? (3)
- seasonal ovulation - social cues - odor cues
What are some characteristics of newborn's sleep? (2)
- sleep 17-18 hours a day - have much more REM sleep than adults (50% of their sleeping hours are spent in REM sleep)
What evidence supports the homeostatic / repair & restore theory of sleep regulation? (3)
- sleep rebound effect - sleep deprivation has a negative impact on cognition, motor performance, & emotional regulation, & can lead to hallucinations - secretion of human growth hormone during SWS
Why are aplysia well-designed for experiments about learning & memory? (3)
- small nervous system (only about 10,000 cells) - some neurons are very large SO can see them without a microscope & put a recording device / electrode into them - have identifiable neurons (i.e. can record from the same neuron in multiple aplysia)
What were some adaptions that occurred after humans began cooking food & eating more soft food (rather than raw food)? (2)
- smaller teeth - smaller gut (because cooked food allows us to obtain necessary levels of nutrients from smaller volumes of food)
Why don't the terms "warm blooded" & "cold blooded" make sense? (2)
- some homeotherms, such as newborn mouse pups, rely on their mother to keep them warm SO their body temperature would decrease if the pup is left alone (which is similar to poikilotherms) - poikilotherms are not always cold --> they will feel warm in warm environments
What are some other neuroanatomical differences between males & females? (4)
- spinal cord differences (due to different tissues needing to be innervated) - area in the hypothalamus with dendrites that stick out in opposite directions - corpus callosum - anterior commissure
What did Penfield do? (2)
- stimulated the cortex of conscious human patients undergoing brain surgery to map out the sensory & cortical areas - his work culminated in the motor homunculus
What did Dr. Frank Beech do? (3)
- studied how hormones affected behavior (i.e. behavioral neuroendocrinology) - was interested in species-specific behavior across multiple species - focused on reproductive, sexual, & maternal / paternal behavior
What is some modest evidence for the James-Lange theory? (4)
- study found higher heart rates in anger & fear responses than in happiness, which provides evidence for emotion-specific autonomic activity - study found that subjects with spinal cord injuries & healthy subjects found an electrical shock equally painful BUT that subjects with spinal cord injuries had reduced brain activation in areas such as the posterior cingulate & PFC - pure autonomic failure disease - locked in syndrome
What is some evidence showing that the amygdala is associated with emotional responses? (3)
- study found that bilateral lesions of the amygdala resulted in Kluver-Bucy syndrome behaviors & monkeys becoming so passive that they lose their social status in dominance hierarchies - humans with amygdala damage often have an impaired ability to recognize emotional facial expressions - fMRI studies found increased amygdala activity in response to pictures of fearful faces
Explain some studies with the Iowa Gambling Task (2)
- study found that individuals with VMPFC lesions / damage will NOT switch to the low-risk cards & will continue to play with the high risk cards --> this is because they are NOT getting the gut feeling that the high-risk cards are bad SO they don't change their behavior - study found that the VMPFC lights up on an fMRI scan when people are getting the visceral responses to bad outcomes with the high-risk cards
What is some evidence for the importance of the neocortex in all the memory modes? (2)
- study found that lesions of the temporal neocortex inhibit the meaningfulness of the acquired associations, leading to learning & memory impairments - children who are born with very little cerebral cortex can categorize individuals as familiar or unfamiliar BUT have impaired memory performance in all 3 modes
What are some studies showing immunosuppression due to chronic stress? (3)
- study found that medical students who reported less emotional stress & more social support showed stronger virus-specific T-cell responses - study found that individuals who were caregivers for their spouses with Alzheimer's exhibited weaker antibody responses to vaccinations - study found that healing rates of an oral wound was 40% slower in students who were experiencing academic stress & that couples in hostile marital relationships exhibited a 60% reduction in wound healing rate
What are some studies showing that maternal rats are good at responses that would be useful in caring for her pups? (4)
- study found that mother rats were good at finding good in a radial arm task - study found that mother rats performed better on an elevated plus maze, which measures anxiety, because they were more likely to spend time on the open arm - study found that mother rats were faster at killing a cricket - study used the dry land maze (in which rats learn which hole is baited with a food reward & then must remember this) & found that mother rats can navigate it better
What are some studies showing the positive correlation between the degree of amygdala activation & rates of aggression? (2)
- study found that people with intermittent explosive disorder show increased amygdala activation when exposed to images of humans with angry facial expressions - study found that when people with tumors in the amygdala (& therefore experience stimulation of this area) exhibit uncharacteristic aggression
What are some studies showing various coping styles of animals under stress? (3)
- study found that pigs who were proactive copers (tried to escape) exhibited less activation of the HPA axis & bolder responses in social competition / novel environments, while those who were reactive copers (did not move) exhibited increased activation of the HPA axis & were more inhibited in various environmental contexts - study found that some pigs^ readily switched from a proactive to reactive strategy, which was adapted to the situation, & that they had higher levels of NPY & BNST than more consistent copers - study found that rats with bold temperaments consistently explored new objects & had lower corticosteroid levels than shy rats, who had 20% shorter life span likely due to higher stress hormone levels
What is some evidence for the Schacter-Singer theory of emotion? (2)
- study found that subjects who knew that an adrenaline injection resulted in their feelings of arousal did NOT attribute their emotion to a confederate, while those with NO knowledge of the source of their arousal attributed it to the confederate & then refined their emotion to match the circumstances - study found that men who had encountered an attractive woman on a scary bridge were more likely than the men who encountered her on a more sturdy bridge to exhibit indirect evidence of sexual attraction
What are some studies showing a potential relationship between testosterone & aggression in humans? (3)
- study found that testosterone is positively correlated with aggression in competitive male social interactions - study found that men watching their favorite sports team win have increased testosterone levels, while men watching their favorite team lose have reduced testosterone levels - strong positive correlation between criminal behavior & testosterone levels
What are some studies showing the specific functions of cortical areas involved in complex movement? (3)
- study found that the SMA is activated when a person imagines themselves performing a complex motor task; BUT when a task involves more executive control, the pre-SMA is activated & when a task involves skills that are more dependent on external guidance of an image, premotor cortical areas are more activated - when learning a fast, complex skill (ex: juggling), the pre-SMA, primary motor cortex, & the DLPFC are involved & individuals are more dependent on visual perception; BUT as you become more proficient at the task, activity in these areas decrease - after the initial learning period, increased activity is observed in the premotor cortex & SMA BUT activation decreases as mechanisms involved in neuroplasticity lead to learning of the task
What are some studies showing the the subcoeruleus region is a critical generator of REM? (2)
- study found that the more cholinergic cells that were damaged in the subcoeruleus region, the lower the probability of REM sleep - study found that damaging certain parts of the subcoeruleus region in cats leads to them retaining ALL of the physiological signs of REM sleep except muscle atonia, which resulted in them acting out their dreams
What are some studies supporting Richter's hypothesized cause of voodoo death? (2)
- study found that while lab rats could usually survive extended swimming sessions with no escape route, if their whiskers had recently been cut (i.e. reduced sensory feedback), they would drown - study found that an adrenalectomy did NOT protect the rats from death (BUT later studies found that these rats could still have sympathetic activation leading to cardiac lesions)
What did William James do? (2)
- suggested that emotions were the body's adaptations & responses to emotive stimuli - believed that emotions were a byproduct of the reflexive bodily responses to threatening stimuli
What did Jim Horne do? (2)
- suggested that the 2nd half of a night's sleep, characterized by increased REM periods, can be shortened with few negative consequences - adaptable range for sleep in adult humans: 6-9 hours per day
What are areas higher up in the brain that contain the same retinotopic map that is on the retina? (3)
- superior colliculus - LGN - Broadman's area #17
What are some structures located close to brainstem auditory nuclei, which send projections to the inferior colliculus? (2)
- superior olivary nucleus - trapezoid body
What does the supplementary motor cortex consist of? (2)
- supplementary motor area (SMA) - presupplementary motor area (pre-SMA) Both are located in the dorsomedial frontal cortex in humans
What composes the stress response? (4)
- sympathetic nervous system response - adrenaline response - hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis - corticosteroid / cortisol response
What have studies found regarding individuals with frontal lobe damage? (2)
- take more risks in a gambling task - are more likely to be in prison for committing crimes
Which tracts primarily innervate the core muscles in the back, shoulders, etc.? (3)
- tectospinal tract - vestibulospinal tract - reticulospinal tract
What did Berthold conclude from his experiment with chickens? (2)
- testicles were transportable organs because they function without a nerve supply or physiological connections to the body - proposed that the testes secreted a blood-borne product that was essential for normal development
What is some evidence that sensory systems, especially smell, played a significant role in the evolution of the mammalian brain? (2)
- the brain of the Morganucodon (mouse-sized animal that lived 205 million years ago) was 50% bigger, relative to body size, than the brains of reptiles at the same time --> specifically the olfactory bulbs & olfactory cortex were enlarged in comparison - the brain of the Hadrocodium (a small mammal that lived 10 million years after the Morganucodon) was 50% larger than the Morganucodon, specifically due to an increase in brain tissue supporting enhanced olfactory capacities
What does the activity-stress paradigm provide clues about? (2)
- the impact of increased activity & reduced food consumption on the brain & body - anorexia, in which individuals are searching for something to make them feel less anxious & more secure (dieting & excessive activity)
What are some characteristics of STM / memory tests of STM? (3)
- the longer the interval before the memory test, the worse people do - if there are more than 7 #s to remember, people do NOT do as well (7 +/- 2 is the limit) - memory cues don't work on STM
In what ways does Parkinson's disease disrupt the basal ganglia? (2)
- there is too much output from the basal ganglia, making the projections to the cortex become too inhibited, which leads to problems initiating movement - becomes hyper-responsive to peripheral input, which makes it difficult to filter through the most salient input to select among competing motor programs
What were the results of a study comparing CBT with pharmocotherapy for insomnia treatment?
- total duration of wake time decreased the most for the CBT group - CBT group had better sleep quality, with longer durations of SWS - after 6 months, the CBT group had less wake time & better sleep efficiency, while the medication group reported adverse side effects (ex: dry mouth, nausea, daytime sleepiness)
What are important aspects of becoming a skilled professional athlete? (2)
- trial & error (learning from one's mistakes) - reinforcement learning (being rewarded for making certain responses) ^ both are characteristic of practice sessions
What are some examples of poikilotherms using their behaviors to change their body temperature? (2)
- turtles will bury in the sand during the cold night & lay in the hot sun during the day to increase their body temperature - when galapagos turtles get too hot from sitting in the sun all day, they go into the ocean to cool off
What are some different ways to classify / define emotion? (3)
- universal facial expressions - gut response / visceral reaction - something that adds value to our lives / experiences
Where does output of the stomach stretch receptors go through? (2)
- vagus nerve - splanchnic nerve
What are some other types of dementia, in addition to Alzheimer's? (4)
- vascular dementia - mixed dementia - Lew body dementia - frontotemporal dementia
What protects the spinal cord? (2)
- vertebrae - meninges
What brain areas are involved in orienting? (2)
- visual sensory system (ex: thalamus, superior colliculus, frontal eye fields) - temporal & parietal cortical areas
What happens when both optic nerves are cut? How about when the optic tract is cut on both sides?
- when both optic nerves are cut, the animal is behaviorally blind SO it will free run no matter what happens with external light conditions - when the optic tract is cut on both sides, the animal is still behaviorally blind BUT it can entrain to light cues (i.e. NOT free running anymore)
What happens when the ciliary process relaxes? What happens when it tightens?
- when it relaxes, the lens get fatter - when it tightens, the lens will shrink, allowing you to see something up close
What are some examples of homeotherms evaporating heat loss (because then there is a net loss of heat)? (3)
- when water from sweat evaporates, we lost heat - animals that don't sweat (ex: rats, mice) will lick their whole body - dogs hang their tongues out to allow air to run over them & cool their tongues down --> cool blood from the tongue then coils around the direct line from the heart to the brain, thus cooling it down & then cooling down the brain
What did Frederick Bremer do? (4)
- worked with cats to study what the brain does when an animal sleeps, which he thought would show that sleep was a passive response to reduced brain activation - study found that severing the cat's spinal cord from the brain paralyzed the cats BUT did NOT leave them in a permanent state of sleep - study found that when he made a transection around the midbrain area, leaving the visual & olfactory nerves intact, the cats slept longer & woke up in the presence of strong odors or lights (which he thought proved his theory) - study found that removing the forebrain resulted in the cat being permanently asleep (i.e. comatose)
Delta (δ) waves
0.5-3Hz; even lower-frequency sleep waves that are larger & more spread out
What does 1 Hz equal?
1 oscillation / sec. Ex: 100 Hz = 100 oscillations per second
Quanta
1 packet of neurotransmitter
What percentage of the population is affected by synesthesia?
1%
What are 2 areas that the cerebral cortex talks to during reappraisal? What is each involved in?
1) *nucleus accumbens* - allows us to notice rewarding stimuli; positive value 2) *amygdala* - allows us to notice fearful things in our environment; negative value
What are 2 types of glutamate receptors?
1) AMPA receptors 2) NMDA receptors
What are the 3 parts of polysomnography?
1) EEG 2) electrooculogram (EOG) 3) electromyogram (EMG)
What are 2 possible pathways that visual information can go down after being processed in the retina?
1) LGN --> cortex 2) superior colliculus
What are 3 categories of attentional networks?
1) alerting 2) orienting 3) executive attention
What 2 things are characteristic of Alzheimer's?
1) amyloid plaques 2) neurofibrillary tangles
What are the 3 classes of molecules derived from cholesterol?
1) androgens (ex: testosterone) 2) estrogens (ex: estradiol) 3) progesterons (ex: progesterone)
What are the 3 semicircular canals?
1) anterior semicircular duct 2) posterior semicircular duct 3) lateral semicircular duct
What are the 2 sides of the amygdala?
1) baso-lateral area 2) centro-medial area
What are 2 ways that the amygdala can process all the information coming in?
1) behavioral response 2) autonomic & hormonal responses
What are the 3 types of cones & when are they preferentially activated?
1) blue --> 420 nm 2) green --> 534 nm 3) red --> 564 nm
What are 3 types of muscle?
1) cardiac muscle 2) smooth muscle 3) skeletal (striatal) muscle
What are the 3 components of the basal ganglia?
1) caudate nucleus 2) putamen 3) globus pallidus
What are 2 "side loops" within the motor system?
1) cerebellum 2) basal ganglia
What are the 4 main brain areas involved in Papez's brain circuit (i.e. the limbic system)?
1) cerebral cortex, specifically the limbic lobe / cingulate gyrus 2) hippocampus 3) hypothalamus, specifically the mammillary bodies 4) thalamus
What are 3 types of rhythms / frameworks for talking about cyclic behavior?
1) circuannual rhythms 2) ultradian rhythms 3) circadian rhythms
What are the 2 major roles of the ossicles?
1) conduct information into the oval window 2) amplify the signal
What are the 4 different processes by which heat moves back & forth in the environment?
1) conduction 2) convection 3) radiation 4) changes of state
What are 5 types of tracts?
1) corticospinal tract (aka the pyramidal tract) 2) corticorubro spinal tract 3) tectospinal tract 4) vestibulospinal tract 5) reticulospinal tract
What are 4 pieces of evidence that support Papez's brain circuit (the limbic system)?
1) damage or removal of any of the 4 brain areas leads to problems with emotions (ex: hyper-emotional, emotionally flat) 2) part of the hypothalamus can run the viscera / autonomic nervous system & change our affective response, thus contributing to the gut reaction / visceral reaction that is characteristic of emotions 3) we're consciously aware of our emotions, which suggests involvement of the cerebral cortex 4) loop / reverberating circuit makes sense for emotion, which can last for a while
What are the 2 ways in which the pituitary gland can control things, through the hypothalamic-pituitary axis (HPA)?
1) direct mechanism through the hypothalamus 2) indirect mechanism through the hypothalamus
What are 3 theories of sleep?
1) evolutionary / adaptive theory of sleep 2) homeostatic / repair & restore theory of sleep regulation 2) learning & memory theory of sleep
What are 2 forms of LTM?
1) explicit / declarative memory 2) implicit / non-declarative memory
What are 2 logical options for how the timing in our body works?
1) external cues tell us what time it is supposed to be so we can adjust accordingly 2) internal clock (i.e. can self-regulate in an endogenous way)
What are 3 categories of modalities in the somatosensory system?
1) exteroreceptors 2) interoreceptors 3) proprioceptors
What are 2 types of animals, in terms of heat transfer / body temperature
1) homeotherms ("warm blooded") 2) poikilotherms ("cold blooded")
What are the 2 general characteristics that differentiate hormones & neurotransmitters?
1) hormones travel in the *blood*, while neurotransmitters travel across the synapse 2) hormones act much more *slowly* (i.e. can have their effects over a long period of time), while neurotransmitters generally act more quickly
What are 3 dimensions of the light stimulus?
1) hue 2) brightness 3) saturation
What are 3 major places in the brain that visual information goes?
1) hypothalamus, specifically the suprachiasmatic nucleus 2) superior colliculus 3) lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN)
What are 2 scenarios with the female cycle?
1) if the egg is NOT fertilized, the cycle will start over again, which happens about once per month in human females 2) if conception occurs (i.e. the egg has been fertilized), the entire system stops, the fertilized egg will implant in the uterus, & an entirely new system kicks on to support the developing organism
What are the 2 neurons in the LH that can potentially turn on eating behavior?
1) increases arousal 2) increases feeding If both areas get turned on, the animal will go out to find something to eat
What are 2 types of ovulation?
1) induced ovulation 2) spontaneous ovulation
Where are 3 places that water is found in the body?
1) intracellular space within the cells (55% of water) 2) extracellular space between the cells (37.5% of water) 3) blood plasma (5% of water)
What are the 2 types of waves that are present during stage 2 sleep?
1) k-complexes 2) sleep spindles
What are the 2 parts of the cerebellar hemispheres?
1) lateral cerebellar hemispheres 2) cerebellar peduncles
What are the 2 corticospinal tracts in the motor system?
1) lateral corticospinal tract 2) anterior corticospinal tract (aka ventral corticospinal tract)
What are the 2 major brain mechanisms that monitor different types of hunger?
1) lateral hypothalamus (LH) 2) ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH)
What are 2 types of sleep apnea?
1) obstructive / peripheral sleep apnea 2) central sleep apnea
What are 3 types of insomnia?
1) onset insomnia 2) maintenance insomnia 3) termination insomnia
What are 2 classifications for hunger / satiety signals?
1) orexigenic 2) anorexigenic
What are 2 types of thirst?
1) osmoregulatory / osmotic thirst 2) hypovolemic thirst
What are the 6 retinal layers, from back to front?
1) outer segments 2) outer nuclear layer 3) outer plexiform layer 4) inner nuclear layer 5) inner plexiform layer 6) ganglion cell layer + then the nerve layer
What are the 2 sources that Purkinje cells get information from?
1) parallel fibers - synapse on the Purkinje cell dendrites 2) mossy fibers - synapse on the Purkinje cell body
What are 3 interesting observations from biopsychological research on patients with anorexia?
1) patients often *exercise compulsively* & report experiencing *adehonia* 2) another neurochemical suspect in the emergence of anorexia symptoms is *serotonin* 3) the *anterior insular cortex* responds to taste & the physical properties of food as well as their rewarding properties SO may play a role in the development of anorexia
What are 2 relevant cholinergic pons / midbrain areas?
1) pedunculopontine tegmental nuclei 2) laterodorsal tegmental nuclei
What are 2 further divisions of STM?
1) phonological loop (repetition of things that you hear) 2) visuo-spatial sketchpad (seeing in image of something in your head as you repeat it)
What are 3 main cell types with the cerebellar circuitry?
1) purkinje cells 2) mossy fibers 3) climbing fibers
What are 2 major types of aggression?
1) reactive-impulsive aggression 2) controlled-instrumental aggression
What are 3 types of colorblindness?
1) red-green colorblindness 2) blue-yellow colorblindness 3) complete colorblindness
What are the 5 tastes we can detect?
1) salty 2) sour 3) bitter 4) sweet 5) umami
What are the 3 parts of the cochlea?
1) scala vestibuli 2) scala tympani 3) scala media
What are the 2 main kinds of vestibular system receptors in the inner ear?
1) semicircular canals 2) otolith organs
What are Papez's 2 proposed neural streams?
1) sensory information from the environment goes to the *thalamus*, after which it goes to the *sensory areas of the cortex* & the *cingulate cortex*; from the cingulate cortex, it goes to the *hippocampus* via the cingulum, then to the *mammillary bodies of the hippocampus* via the fornix, & then to the *anterior thalamus* via the mammillothalamic tract 2) information projects directly from the *thalamus* to the *mammillary bodies* before projecting down to the *autonomic nervous system*
What are 3 classes of neurotransmitter systems that are used to impact people's behavior?
1) serotonin - SSRIs 2) norepinephrine - NRIs 3) GABA - GABA agonists
What are 2 major categories of memory (i.e. the 2-stage notion of memory)?
1) short-term memory (STM) 2) long-term memory (LTM)
What are 2 paths that threatening information takes when it arrives at the thalamus?
1) slow path to the cortex & then back to sub-cortical limbic structures 2) fast path to the amygdala
What are 2 types of homunculus?
1) somatosensory homunculus 2) motor homunculus
What are 3 characteristics of LTP?
1) specificity 2) cooperativity 3) associativity
What are the 4 chemical classes of hormones?
1) steroid hormones 2) amine hormones 3) peptide hormones 4) protein hormones
What are 3 big ways to understand the brain & how things can go wrong?
1) stroke 2) traumatic brain injury (TBI) 3) Alzheimer's
What are 2 ways that the ossicles can amplify the signal?
1) taking sound energy from the larger eardrum to the smaller oval window requires the signal to be amplified 2) lever effect, in which the bones each "kick" each other, leading to amplification of the signal 200x
What are the 3 kinds of cells in a taste bud?
1) taste cell 2) supporting cells 3) stem cell
What are 3 behaviors that can serve as models for the neural basis of motivation?
1) temperature balance 2) water balance 3) food balance
What are 2 potential ways that the unconditioned stimulus can come together with a conditioned stimulus to make the association? Which way did Pavlov think was the way learning worked?
1) the connection between the food & bell pathways could already be there in a specific place & then experience could strengthen an already-existing connection 2) new connection is created Pavlov thought #1 is how learning works
What are the 2 conditions that must be met for the NMDA receptor to work?
1) the post-synaptic cell must already be depolarized (i.e. sodium influx is occurring due to AMPA) 2) glutamate must be present
What are 2 different ways of looking at the results from the concordance study of homosexuality?
1) there is some genetic component to homosexuality (i.e. genes have some effect on the expression of behavior) 2) genes are NOT the only factor, though, because if the genes are 100% similar, the behavior should also be 100% similar if it is only genetically regulated
What are 3 ways that we can localize sound?
1) time concept 2) phase difference 3) loudness
What are the 3 directions that the semicircular canals allow you to detect movement in?
1) up / down 2) forward / backward 3) side to side
What are 2 types of motor neurons in the corticospinal tracts?
1) upper motor neurons 2) lower motor neurons
What are the 2 streams that extend from area V1?
1) ventral stream 2) dorsal stream
What are 3 major ways that the mammalian brain differs from other animal brains? How do all of these connect?
1) vocalizations 2) lactation / nursing 3) play All are related to the parental experience- caring for offspring may be the signature characteristic of mammals, which may have paved the way for very complex brains
What 3 variables are involved in what effects a castration surgery has?
1) when the castration occurs (i.e. before or after puberty) 2) previous sexual experience 3) levels of circulating hormone
What are 3 families of compounds that interact / bind with morphine receptors?
1) β-endorphins 2) enkephalins 3) dynorphins
What happens to raw foods after they are consumed? How does cooking food change this?
1/2 of the proteins in raw foods exit the small intestine undigested --> BUT if the foods were cooked, they would be more digestible because of denaturing
What is the pain threshold, in terms of decibels?
120 dB
Beta (β) waves
13-30 Hz; fast, irregular, low-intensity waves; high frequency, low amplitude
At what point in development have male & female external genitalia fully differentiated?
14 weeks
What is the top level of hearing by the time people are in their teens / early 20s?
17.5 Hz --> as you age, the range / bandwidth decreases
What is a normal BMI?
18-24
Explain the characteristics of a segmented sleep pattern
1st sleep is characterized by more SWS, while the 2nd sleep is characterized by more REM activity (which is easier to wake from)
Horizontal cells & amacrine cells
2 other types of specialized cells that facilitate the integration of the vast amount of information processed in the retina to create a uniform image; facilitate or inhibit communication between photoreceptors and ganglion cells to adjust the image sent to brain
Subsonic
20 Hz
How many separate nuclei are associated with the amygdala?
22
Ossicles
3 small bones located in the middle ear that transmit air vibrations; collectively, work as an amplifier to take the incoming sound information & deliver it to the oval window
Semicircular canals
3 structures in the inner ear that allow you to sense things on 3 different planes so that you always know where your body is in space
What is the limit for loudness idea of sound localization?
3-4 kHz
What percentage of mammalian species exhibit monogamy?
3-5%
Theta (θ) waves
3-7 Hz; low-intensity sleep waves that are slower
What percentage of the cortex is devoted to decoding light into images & complex scenes?
30% of the cortex
What percentage of children & adolescents are overweight or obese?
32%
Nicitating membrane response ("bunny blinking paradigm")
3rd eyelid on animals that is a membrane coming from the nose side of the eye over; blowing a puff of air into the eye causes the animal to blink this nicitating membrane
What is the case of S.M.?
44 year old woman who was born with a congenital disorder that eventually destroyed her amygdala during childhood --> showed NO signs of fear
After how long without sleep do we begin to experience psychosis?
72-92 hours
What percentage of the primate cortex comprises cortical association areas?
75%
What happens in the caudal section of the medulla, in regards to motor information?
80% of fibers in the pyramidal area cross over to the contralateral side of the body, while the remaining fibers stay on the ipsilateral side
What cranial nerve is the auditory nerve part of?
8th cranial nerve
Nasal patency response
90-minute cycle; breathe out of 1 nostril for 90 minutes & then out of the other nostril for 90 minutes to give the nostrils breaks from the wear & tear of air coming in
Stem cell
A basal neuron that retains the ability to make more cells if needed
Sensitive period
A certain period of time during which an organism is more susceptible to environmental influences or stimulation than at other times
In Kandel's habituation studies, what was viewed as learning / memory on a neurobiological basis?
A change in the amount of neurotransmitter released from one cell to another
Ghrelin
A chemical secreted by endocrine cells in the stomach that is a *hunger signal*; secreted outside of the CNS but is subsequently detected in the brain to regulate hunger & food consumption
Cerebellar cognitive affective syndrome
A clinical disorder caused by cerebellar damage; symptoms include impairments in executive function, language, sequencing events, & visuospatial abilities
Supplementary motor cortex
A cluster of cortical areas that helps to guide the execution of complex behavior; plays a key role in self-initiated (voluntary) movements as opposed to responses triggered by external events
Raphe nuclei
A cluster of serotonin-secreting neurons in the brainstem that play a role in sleep regulation (but also are fairly heterogenous, in that some also contribute to wakefulness)
Basal ganglia
A collection of interconnected nuclei that surround the thalamus & regulate movement; series of several structures that coordinate together in a complex circuit
Generalized adaption syndrome
A collection of symptoms associated with stress, including larger adrenal glands, smaller thymus glands, & gastric stress ulcers
What happens when bipolar cells are excited, in terms of lateral inhibition?
A corresponding horizontal cell in the retina is activated, which then inhibits adjacent bipolar cells in a graded manner laterally across the bipolar cellular field
What do humans exhibit in terms of their circadian rhythm in the absence of any external cues?
A cycle that is a little bit longer than 24 hours - BUT our body is precisely set up to actively search for entrainment cues that it can use to refine this period to be exactly 24 hours
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH)
A genetic condition resulting in exposure to higher-than-normal levels of androgens during gestation resulting from disrupted cortisol production; marked by ambiguous-looking genitalia & exhibiting more stereotypically masculinized behaviors
What might the insula be a key component of?
A more integrative neural circuit consisting of the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, & parietal cortex
Ascending reticular activating system (ARAS)
A neural network that sends projections from the brainstem & hypothalamus throughout the forebrain
Reticular formation
A neural system involved in sleep-wake cycles that runs up the midline area of the brainstem
What was sleep originally thought of as?
A passive response - go to sleep when there's not enough stimulation to keep us awake
How does locked in syndrome provide some support for the James-Lange theory?
A patient had a stroke at the bottom of the brain underneath the amygdala, leading to him being completely paralyzed from this area down --> the lack of input from the gut / viscera leads to stunted emotions (ex: rarely got frustrated / upset)
Estrus
A phase of the reproductive (estrous) cycle in which female animals are receptive to mating with males
Polysomnography
A physiological recording technique, which creates a record called a *polysomnograph*
Bayesian decision theory
A possible explanation of how the nervous system selects optimal actions for movement in an uncertain world; involves applying probabilistic reasoning to make inferences based on uncertain circumstances
Lateral inhibition
A process in which a cell's neighboring neurons inhibit the activation of that particular cell; refers to how the cells on either side of the cell that the light is hitting will be inhibited
Corona radiata
A projection of nerve fibers that connect the cerebral cortex to the brainstem & spinal cord
Eye-blink reflex conditioning task
A rabbit will learn to blink (motor response) on presentation of the conditioned stimulus to avoid the puff of air to the eye
Synesthesia
A rare condition in which stimulation of one sense triggers additional, seemingly unrelated perceptual experiences
Mechanoreceptor
A receptor in the skin that responds to touch or pressure; if they are disturbed through pressure (i.e. vibration, light touch, or deep touch) they will transduce a neural signal
Motor end plate
A section of the extrafusal muscle fiber; an area that is highly excitable & appropriate for the initiation of action potentials
What is a more extreme version of Jerry Lettvin's hypothesis, specifically the idea of "grandmother cells"? Why is this unlikely?
A single cell contains the memory of one's grandmother - unlikely because then each cell would be very vulnerable to the effects of cell loss
Explain how Leah Krubitzer's technique to determine rats' somatotopic map works
A single-unit recording electrode is placed in cortical layer 4 of a rat's brain, after which a researcher runs a paintbrush over the skin to stimulate the rat's body --> when stimulation of a specific region of the skin triggers neural activity, the boundaries of the neuron's receptive field are determined & then marked on the rat's body
Portal system
A specialized blood system connecting the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland
Basilar membrane
A structure that separates the scala tympani from the scala media & contains the hair cells on the apical (top) surface; moves in response to sound waves contains the hair cells
Neurogastronomy
A subfield of neuroscience that looks at the idea that what we taste goes together with what we smell & our somatosensory system to give us the experience of flavor
Accessory olfactory system
A supplement to the main olfactory system; consists of the vomeronasal organ (VNO) in the nasal cavity & its projections to the accessory olfactory bulbs, which then protect to the hypothalamus & amygdala
Explain why an externally-generated tickle results in more tickle sensation
A surprise tactile stimulus can NOT be canceled out by the anterior cerebellum & the unintended event is marked with the responses that accompany tickling
Intersex
A term that refers to any variation from typical XX or XY development (genetically female or male)
XBC cell
A type of bipolar cell that has a noticeably different shape than other bipolar cells
Phylogenetic tree
A type of diagram that represents the relationships among diverse biological species
What happened to the sensory systems as animals began to live in various habitats?
A vast array of sensory adaptations / specializations evolved Ex: honey bees can see UV light that humans cannot detect, male dogs can smell the social hormones excreted by a female dog 2 blocks away, dolphins rely on sounds to locate food in murky underwater environments
At what age do many subjects with HSAM report having their memories become enhanced?
About 10 years old
How many taste cells do we have in each taste bud?
About 100
How many sperm are produced each day, on average?
About 130 million
How many types of ganglion cells are there? Why?
About 20 - need a great variety of them to be able to see as well as we do because they are involved in many different specific functions (ex: fine examination, detecting motion)
When do peak glucocorticoid plasma levels occur?
About 20 min after the introduction of the stressor
How long does it take to transition from stage 2 sleep to SWS, the first time?
About 20 minutes
How long is the small intestine in humans?
About 25 feet
How long after the PGO spikes begin does REM sleep occur?
About 30 seconds
How many olfactory receptors do we have?
About 300 - allow us to discriminate millions of smells
How many eggs do females have at birth? What percentage is left by ages 30 and 40?
About 300,000 eggs --> by 30, females have about 12% of their eggs left & by 40, females have about 3% left
How many different maps in the cerebral cortex have to do with visual information?
About 40
How many muscles do we have that control how many joints?
About 640 muscles that control 200+ joints
How long does conditioned defeat endure in male hamsters?
About a month
What does Weber's law contrast with?
Absolute threshold
Schacter-Singer theory of emotion (two-factor theory)
Acknowledges the importance of BOTH autonomic arousal & cognitive perceptions in the expression of specific emotions; emphasizes the role of context-dependent cognitive interpretation in transforming general arousal to a specific emotion such as fear or happiness
Posterior parietal cortex
Activated when subjects are asked to localize certain sounds
What happens in the cerebellum when the tone is presented in the eye-blink reflex conditioning task?
Activates mossy fibers extending from the pontine nuclei that subsequently project to the granule cells in the cerebllar cortex
Chanelrhodopsin-2
Activates neurons
Diurnal
Active during the day
What is the function of the spinal cord, in general?
Acts as the transit system for motor neural signals --> means that when neural transmission in the spinal cord is disrupted, access to the body's muscles is also disrupted, resulting in diminished capacity or a shutdown of movement
Sensory adaptations
Adaptations that allow you to NOT consciously be aware of all sensations happening Ex: sensory adaptors adapt to the fact that you are wearing shoes so you are not constantly aware of the shoes' pressure on your feet
What works to reduce neural activation & facilitate sleep onset? How does it do this?
Adenosine - may inhibit the activation of cholinergic neurons in the ARAS involved in wakefulness OR facilitate the activation of sleep-promoting neurons in the VLPO
What is adenosine a byproduct of? What might this suggest?
Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) metabolism - sleep may reduce some type of cellular energy deficit established during prolonged wakefulness & its accompanying energy expenditure
How do researchers study the function of different areas of the nucleus accumbens shell?
Administer microinjections of a drug that blocks glutamate into different areas & then observe the outcomes
How is the redistribution of immune cells during acute stress accomplished?
Adrenal stress hormones alert the immune system of the impending threat, which can activate the immunological response
Compare levels of estrogen in females during early development vs. as adults?
Adult females have higher levels of circulating estrogen (& adult males have higher levels of circulating testosterone) BUT this is NOT what is happening in the developing system
Explain the conditioned discrimination procedure
After establishing light signals that predict or do NOT predict a threatening stimulus (air blast), participants with high-symptom PTSD, low-symptom PTSD, & NO PTSD were exposed to a novel aversive stimulus alone & in the presence of the light cues that were associated with the air blast
Explain Kandel's experiment with aplysia
After several touches to the aplysia's siphon (respiratory organ), it will habituate (adapt) & cease to respond by retracting its gill BUT if the touch is paired with a tail shock, the aplysia will become more sensitive to this threatening stimulus by responding with a much more intense gill retraction
Explain how the nasal system works
Air comes into the nasal cavity, where there is space for the air to circulate so the epithelial cells (located in the mucus) can pick it up; then, the molecules dissolves in the mucus & specialized cells, which have cilia on the end of the dendrite that reaches down to contact the epithelial surface in the mucus, pick up the information & send it through the cribiform plate (a bone) to cranial nerve #1
Electromagnetic spectrum
All possible wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation
How do cones enable us to detect color?
Allow us to distinguish differences in certain wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum
Fusiform face area / fusiform gyrus
Allows for humans' ability to recognize & analyze faces; important for allowing us to maintain effective social interactions
Why is the time it takes for an event to become a memory adaptive?
Allows the amygdala to first gauge the emotional relevance of the event --> otherwise, ALL events would be processed with the same degree of relevance
What is the purpose of having the otolith organs on BOTH the x & y planes?
Allows the calcium carbonate crystals to be on the same surface & to move to compress / deflect different hair cells depending on whether you're sitting, standing, lying down, etc.
What is the purpose of lateral inhibition?
Allows us to see sharp contrasts between edges
Discriminative touch pathway (i.e. the posterior column or the medial lumniscular pathway)
Allows you to know if someone is touching you, where, & how; recognition of shape, size, texture, etc.
What type of waves are present when people are sleepy / drowsy?
Alpha (α) waves
When an unexpected outcome is detected, what does the OFC do?
Alters the established behavior to a more adaptive default plan
Tuberomammillary nucleus (TMN)
An area involved in sleep-wake cycles & circadian rhythms that also contains histamine neurons that are active during immune responses (ex: allergic reaction)
cGMP phosphodiesterase
An enzyme that reduces cGMP concentrations that maintain the open sodium channels
What is the importance of the amygdala-hippocampus interaction?
An event must be noted before it can be consolidated into memory
Synaptic homeostasis hypothesis
An important function of sleep is to reduce weaker synapses to provide more energy & resources for weaker synapses
Superadditive neural response
An integrated response much stronger than any of its components; occurs in response to highly relevant incoming stimuli
Automatism
An involuntary complex response that occurs outside of conscious awareness
In humans, what is critical for triggering the development of either male or female external genitalia?
Androgens
What do the semicircular canals measure?
Angular acceleration
What happens if the vagus nerve & splanchnic nerve are cut, in terms of stomach cues?
Animals can NOT detect the stretch in their stomach & therefore will lack the satiety cue SO they will continue to eat
What is an extreme example of unequal distribution of synchronized brain wave activity during SWS?
Animals that are NOT completely inactive during sleep (ex: dolphins & other marine mammals) exhibit slow waves in only 1 hemisphere at a time while they are sleeping, which allows them to swim / avoid obstacles / surface to take a breath
Flehman response
Animals, such as cats & horses, will roll back the upper lip so the VNO can access the chemicals / pheremones (ex: female's urine); allows the male to determine the reproductive status of the female
What has the highest fatality rate of any psychiatric disorder?
Anorexia nervosa
How does the insula play a role in anorexia?
Anorexia patients may have a distorted insula response that does NOT appropriately prompt increased eating to maintain body weight at a healthy level
What should antagonist molecules of CCK do? What about agonist molecules?
Antagonist molecules of CCK should produce an increase in food intake, while those that use agonist molecules of CCK should stop food intake even sooner
Where are osmoreceptors located? (3)
Anterior wall of the 3rd ventricle, specifically the organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT) & the subfornical organ (SFO)
Which side of the spinal cord does the pain, temperature, & tickle pathway travel?
Anterolateral side
Anxiogenic
Anxiety-producing
Anxiolytic
Anxiety-reducing
Non-REM sleep
Any of the stages of sleep that do not include REM; composed of 3 distinct stages
Anorexigenic
Appetite suppressing
What is the rostral region of the nucleus accumbens shell involved in?
Appetitive responses (ex: eating)
What is the typical response to sensory stimuli that lead to a positive outcome? How about for stimuli that lead to a negative outcome?
Approach positively rewarding situations & avoid negatively rewarding situations
What does the brain need to receive when an individual is experiencing stress? Why?
Appropriate feedback so that baseline levels of stress hormones are re-established once the threat has passed
What is the major question regarding brain differences between males & females?
Are they relevant for behavior (i.e. are they functionally different)?
Explain how the input & output sides of the cingulate cortex / limbic lobe work?
Areas in the frontal lobe talk about / process the input information & then can affect the motor output that the cingulate gyrus is sending down to ultimately change the way that we feel or our behavioral responses
What does Paul Glimcher do?
Argues that somewhere between the sensory & motor responses are brain areas devoted to computing the most optimal outcomes leading to enhanced survival
When does our best coordination & reaction times occur? What is a study showing this?
Around 2:30pm (i.e. in the afternoon) Study found that people do much better at a manual dexterity task that requires them to use a tiny pair of forceps to put screws into a well when they do it at 2pm than 2am
When do melatonin levels peak?
Around 3-4 am
In humans, when does the stress hormone cortisol peak?
Around 6am, prior to our active period during the day
How does calcium function, in terms of NMDA receptors & LTP / LTD?
As intracellular messengers --> can start a cascade of changes that permanently change the way that the postsynaptic cell responds to stimuli Ex: might trigger the cell to put more AMPA receptors on the dendrites so it can be more responsive to what's happening & function at a higher level Ex: might lead to the cell changing gene expression
Additive response
As the components become stronger (ex: unisensory auditory & visual cues), the level of exaggeration of the integrated neural response becomes smaller
Cortical-hippocampal system
As we form memories for everyday events & relevant factual knowledge, a considerable amount of communication occurs between the hippocampus, parahippocampal region, & neocortex
Rapid encoding of flexible associations
As you go through your day, you are processing associations so they can be accessed in various contexts Ex: might indirectly access a memory of a dog joke you heard & present it in a novel context of watching a dog commercial on TV
Explain the system / organization of the frontal lobe, as you move more & more rostrally
As you move more rostrally in the frontal lobe, things get more complex *Primary motor cortex* (simple movements) --> *pre-motor cortex* (planning area; complex movements & actions) --> *dorsolateral prefrontal cortex / ventrolateral prefrontal cortex* (cognition, rule-guided behavior) --> *frontopolar cortex* (long-term goals, motivation, multitasking)
What does an EEG assess, in terms of sleep?
Assesses brain wave activity / neuronal activity
What does an electrooculogram (EOG) assess, in terms of sleep?
Assesses eye movements
What does an electromyogram (EMG) assess, in terms of sleep?
Assesses muscle tension, typically in muscles under the chin; records whether the tone of the muscle is contracted or relaxed
Bruce effect
Associated with a disruption of pregnancy when a female mouse is exposed to the scent of an unfamiliar male's urine
In what way are perfected dance moves of the male blue manakin adaptive?
Associated with reproductive success
Slow encoding of rigid associations
Associations acquired through classical conditioning, forms of habit, or procedural learning must be more rigid than the flexible associations for them to be beneficial for adaptive responses Ex: blinking when a threat is coming to the eye Ex: perfectly doing a dance move that has been practiced repeatedly
MPTP
Attacks the cells of the substantia nigra (a brain area that produces dopamine), producing a form of Parkinson's disease
Hypnogenic hallucinations
Auditory & visual hallucinations that occur while falling asleep
Explain prayer & mediation, in terms of pleasure and/or reward
BOTh pleasurable & rewarding
Universal facial expressions
Basic 7 expressions that people around the world can identify
Why are key components of the aggression circuit also involved in a broader social behavior circuit?
Because aggression is a social behavior
Why doesn't it make sense to say that either the male brain or the female brain is superior?
Because each evolved perfectly for the body they are in
Why is the neocortex involved in all 3 of the memory processing modes?
Because each involves spatial, temporal, sensory, & semantic types of representations (which tap into the neocortex)
Why is it important that the eye keeps its spherical shape?
Because if the eye isn't in the correct shape, the light won't refract properly on the back
How is the difference in where somatosensory information crosses over in the discriminative pathway vs. the pain, temperature, & tickle pathway interesting from a functional neuroanatomy POV?
Because if you get a cut in the spinal cord, you might lose touch information on the same side of the cut & lose pain information on the other side of the cut because pain information crosses over
Why might aggression levels remain unchanged when male prairie voles are castrated?
Because testosterone is more important in establishing the neural foundations of the aggressive brain network (organization) than in triggering the response (activation) later on for prairie voles
Why is conditioned defeat particularly maladaptive in the lab?
Because the animal is NOT responding to real-time contextual cues appropriately
Why is the corticospinal tract also called the pyramidal tract?
Because the cells where it originates in the cortex are pyramid-shaped
Why do many people find the James-Lange theory unsatisfying?
Because we feel that our emotions are driving our behavior
Off-center cells
Become inhibited when a light is focused on the center of a cell
What does "pre-optic" mean?
Before the optic chiasm
What did John R. Brinkley do?
Began performing "testicle transplant" surgery, in which he would transplant another animal's testicles into a human male to increase sexual performance
Circuannual rhythms / behaviors
Behaviors that are organized into very long periods of time (i.e. happen about once a year) Ex: migratory birds flying south for the winter Ex: children grow the most during the spring Ex: higher birth rate in March for the northern hemisphere
What did John de Castro do? What did he find? (3)
Believed that the lab has too many artificial obstacles to accurately assess human feeding patterns SO he gave his subjects eating diaries to record their food intake, feelings / emotional responses, & the # of people present Found that: - meals eaten with others are 44% larger than those consumed alone - social meals include more carbs, fats, proteins, & alcohol - increased # of people = increased size of meal
What type of waves are present when people are awake & active?
Beta (β) waves
What does layer V of the primary cortex contain?
Betz cells
How do non-steroid hormones work?
Bind to a receptor protein --> hormone-receptor complex changes its shape, activating a G-protein --> G-protein activates cAMP, the 2nd messenger which influences the cell's functioning
What can cause a hypotonic solution?
Blood loss (with its associated water & salt solute loss)
When you lose water, where do you usually lose it from?
Blood plasma
Ischemic stroke
Blood vessels in the brain get blocked / occluded by a blood clot, resulting in whatever the blood vessel was supplying is NO longer supplied with blood
Hemorrhagic stroke
Blood vessels that get weakened & then burst, leading to blood leaking out into brain tissue
What color is represented by the shorter wavelengths?
Blue & purple
What type of light are melanopsin retinal ganglion cells specifically attuned to?
Blue light
Homeotherms
Body temperature is constant & NOT dependent on the environment (i.e. their body temperature will NOT really change if you move them to a warmer or colder environment)
Poikilotherms
Body temperatures vary depending on the environment they are in (i.e. will be warm in a warm environment & cold in a cold environment)
Activation-synthesis model of dreaming
Brain activity is synthesized into a storyline called a dream; without brain circuits in the frontal cortex synthesizing material (because they take a functional break during REM sleep), the dream plots stray a bir from reality
What is the current criteria for death?
Brain-centered definition of death --> irreversible lack of brain function
What does activation of the tongue's taste receptors subsequently stimulate? How might this be altered in anorexia patients?
Brainstem areas (medulla & nucleus tractus solitari) before activating the thalamus taste center --> activation of this circuit in anorexia patients may lead to enhanced top-down modulation of food intake & the ability to regulate the basic functions of hunger
What is the cause of locked-in syndrome?
Brainstem lesion resulting from a stroke or tumor
Adenosine
Breakdown product for cyclic AMP
Cingulate cortex
Bridge between emotional & decision-making area
What does the activation of the frontostriatal brain area in bulimia patients suggest?
Bulimia involves a compromise of the brain areas involved in regulatory control, leading to binging when patients encounter eating opportunities
Genital ridge
Bump that contains the cells that will become the genitals & gametes
Upper motor neurons
Bundles of axons extending from the cell bodies in the motor cortex; encompass anything above what is in the ventral horn of the spinal cord & synapse on lower motor neurons
How do conventional hearing aids work?
By amplifying the sound so that individuals with hearing loss can better perceive the incoming sounds
How do researchers studying dreaming?
By bringing people into sleep labs & then waking them up during certain stages of sleep to ask what's hapening
How do cochlear implants work?
By bypassing the damaged portion of the ear & stimulating the auditory nerve
How does aromatization influence sexual differentiation of the brain?
By contributing to the production of prostaglandins
How does insulin increase satiety?
By crossing the brain-blood barrier & activating receptors in the arcuate nucleus (area of the hypothalamus)
How do different areas in the cortex work to help us see?
By extracting specific features (i.e. feature extraction)
How do antidepressants alter sleep rhythms?
By increasing the amount of time between asleep & entering REM sleep, as well as decreasing the amount of time ultimately spent in REM sleep (BUT there does not seem to be cognitive side effects of the REM loss)
Where are oxytocin & vasopressin initially synthesized? What happens after this?
By neurons in the paraventricular & supraoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus --> after this they travel through the axons to the terminal endings in the posterior pituitary for storage, after which action potentials from these neurons then signal the posterior pituitary to release the peptide hormones at the appropriate time
How is the female cycle regulated?
By the hypothalamus working through the pituitary gland
How did Helen Keller learn to interpret spoken language?
By touching a person's face & throat to detect specific movements of the throat, mouth, & face
How are motor neuron diseases often categorized? Explain the examples of Parkinson's disease & myasthenia gravis
By whether they affect the upper or lower motor neurons Ex: Parkinson's disease affects upper motor neurons, specifically cells in the basal ganglia Ex: myasthenia gravis affects lower motor neurons
How do animals learn to anticipate a reward?
Can change the sensory cue that is rewarding to help them predict what will be rewarding Ex: instead of an apple itself being rewarding, a tree that holds the apples might become rewarding, which will help the monkey predict where the apples will be Ex: if you pair juice with a light, the rat will eventually have a reward response just when the light comes on
What is a method of determining the cellular mechanisms of reconsolidation? What have studies using this found?
Can classically condition an animal (acquired memory) & then when the memory is retrieved due to the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus administer a drug that blocks the synthesis of proteins that play a role in memory-based synaptic plasticity --> studies have found that this leads to a disrupted version of the original memory
What is the substantia nigra's role in the basal ganglia "side loop"?
Can send excitatory neurotransmitter (dopamine) into the basal ganglia when a behavior is rewarding, thus helping you decide which movement to initiate --> the dopamine release signals that this activity is worth taking the inhibition off the thalamus, thus allowing it to tell the cortex to act Ex: if a rat is trained to get chocolate milk when there is a light, it will eventually associate the chocolate milk & later the light with a release of dopamine from reward pathways
Retrograde amnesia
Can't remember things that happened in the past prior to an event
Complete colorblindness
Can't see any color (i.e. monochromatic vision) because do NOT have cones
Blue-yellow colorblindness
Can't tell the difference between blue & yellow because missing the blue vs. yellow opponent process cell; much more rare
What happens when sleep apnea patients stop breathing?
Carbon dioxide levels build up in the blood until they reach a point that triggers a response in the brainstem, which wakes patients up --> because of this, patients are constantly waking up at night SO they don't get long periods of good, uninterrupted sleep
Dorsal column-medial leminiscus pathway
Carries tactile information through the spinal cord & medulla to the somatosensory cortex; carries information about tactile discrimination from the mechanoreceptors in the skin
Ventral roots of the spinal cord
Carry motor / *efferent* information
Dorsal roots of the spinal cord
Carry sensory / *afferent* information
Striatum
Caudate nucleus + putamen, collectively
What is the pathway regarding the basal ganglia & thalamus? What input makes this system work?
Caudate/putamen --> globus pallidus --> thalamus Dopamine from the substantia nigra makes this system work
Central sleep apnea
Caused by impairment of brain mechanisms that regulate breathing patterns during sleep; less common type
Area V3
Cells are involved in form analysis & motion
Area V4
Cells facilitate the ability to identify objects, as well as color perception
Area V2
Cells in this area respond to outlines or defining shapes, including illusory contours that do NOT actually exist
REM-on cells
Cells that are active during REM sleep (NOT wakefulness or non-REM sleep)
Osmoreceptors
Cells that are sensitive to cellular dehydration
Changes in what brain area accompany acrobatic training in rats?
Cerebellar cortex, especially the paramedian lobule
Cognitive reappraisal
Changing one's understanding of an event in a way that also changes one's emotional response to an event; refers to the transformation of an emotional response by re-interpreting a negative experience as one that is less threatening & therefore reducing the strength of physiological variables such as autonomic & neuroendocrine responses
REM sleep (aka paradoxical sleep)
Characterized by a flat EMG reflecting decreased muscle tone, faster EEG waves that look like beta waves (sometimes called sawtooth waves), & increased EOG amplitude, reflecting rapid eye movements; characterized by low-magnitude, high-frequency waves & atonia
Bulimia nervosa
Characterized by behaviors of binging & purging
Isotonic solution
Characterized by equal concentrations of solutes in the intracellular space & the extracellular space; allows us to function efficiently
Alerting
Characterized by heightened vigilance & sustained attention
ADHD
Characterized by inattention, impulsivity, & hyperactivity
Slow wave sleep (SWS) (aka stage 3 + stage 4 non-REM sleep)
Characterized by low-frequency delta waves; much more difficult to awake & people are extremely groggy
Intermittent explosive disorder
Characterized by reduced impulse control in social situations, including aggressive encounters
Stage 1 non-REM sleep
Characterized by slow eye movements on the EOG & EEG waves transitioning from alpha waves to slower theta waves; feelings of not being quite asleep but in a relaxed state, feeling like you are floating as conscious awareness is fleeting, & may involve simple, transitory dreams
Executive attention
Characterized by the ability to supervise the direction of focused attention
Monogamy
Characterized by the formation of strong pair bonds
Yawn
Characterized by the gaping of the mouth, accompanied by a long inhalation & brief exhalation, as well as stretching in some cases; a behavioral response that may help us navigate shifts in arousal
Orienting
Characterized by the selection of specific stimuli in the environment from multiple sensory options
Sleep apnea
Characterized by waking episodes that invade the nighttime sleep structure due to one or more pauses in breathing or the appearance of shallow breaths; a condition in which patients stop breathing while sleeping
Hormones
Chemicals released by special endocrine glands into the bloodstream, where they regulate the activity of certain cells or organs; chemical messenger that is secreted by a gland (NOT a neuron) & travels through the bloodstream to a target, where it exerts its effects
What is the pathway of the digestive system?
Chewing in the mouth --> esophagus --> sphincter part 1 --> stomach --> sphincter part 2 --> small intestine --> large intestine
What molecule are all sex hormones derived from?
Cholesterol
What is the site of transduction process for the olfactory system?
Cilia
Papez's circuit
Cingulate cortex plays a vital role in directing information upward & downward to ultimately result in relevant thoughts & feelings
Every cell in our body has its own _____________ ______________
Circadian rhythm
What did Ivan Pavlov do?
Classical conditioning / Pavlovian conditioning
Glomeruli
Clusters of axonal & dendritic processes; humans have about 10,000 of them
Cooperativity of LTP
Co-stimulation from more than 1 neuron at the same time strengthens BOTh pathways, even if one is weaker than the other to begin with
What is the EEG designed to pick up?
Collective / overall brain activity in an area (NOT action potentials from a specific neuron because these are too small)
What may play a role in color constancy?
Color-sensitive cells in area V4
What type of organization is found in the visual cortex?
Columnar organization
Explain how the retina is a map of light in 3D space & how this translates to columnar organization in the visual system
Columns are inhibited on the right & left BUT also the front & back of a column that is being activated --> can think about a circle in which the center column is excited & the outside is inhibited (or vice versa--they just have to be the opposite!)
Explain the basic pathway of taste information
Comes into the taste bud through the taste pore & then are received by the taste cells, after which a signal is sent down through the gustatory sensory neuron, which sends information through the sensory ganglia
Mossy fibers
Comes up to the top of the purkinje cells, where the axon then branches into a T-shape & runs along the stacked plates of purkinje to interact with them; excitatory, glutamatergic
What does the basal ganglia generally do?
Communicates regularly with the cerebral cortex to contribute to the efficient execution of appropriate movements
What might be used to evaluate the extent of TBI? What does it show? What does it NOT show?
Computed tomography (CT) scan --> shows whether there's bleeding or swelling around the brain BUT does NOT show the smaller things that are happening
Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS)
Condition that causes obesity in humans because they have very high ghrelin levels all the time & therefore feel hungry all the time
What did Arnold Berthold do?
Conducted the 1st endocrinological research project to explore how the testes contributed to the mature male characteristics (ex: aggressive behavior & distinct plumage) observed in roosters
Peptide hormones
Consist of chains of amino acids; can NOT easily travel across the cell membrane Ex: oxytocin, vasopressin, calcitonin
Processing-based memory system
Consists of 3 processing modes that vary across 3 variables: 1) fast vs. slow encoding, 2) single-item vs. associate encoding, & 3) flexible vs. rigid representation
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine
Consists of a breathing mask that delivers air pressure to hold the airway open
Motor unit
Consists of the α motor neuron in the ventral horn of the gray matter of the spinal cord, its axons, & the extrafusal muscle fibers it innervates
Substantia nigra
Contains dopaminergic neurons that project to axons in the basal ganglia, which has a key role in helping us decide what to do
How does the hippocampus play a role in managing impending stress?
Contains neurons with receptors for glucocorticoids, neuropeptides, serotonin, & noradrenaline
What does lateral inhibition emphasize?
Contrast enhancement
Spatial cell
Contribute to the brain's navigational systems by helping the animal to form a cognitive spatial map of the environment
Dorsal stream
Contributes information about the location of particular objects; "where" stream that expands upon the magnocellular layers of the LGN
How is the cerebellum involved in the transformation of an athlete from novice to expert?
Contributes to *sense of timing* that is critical for sports performance
Area V5 / medial temporal area
Contributes to the perception of motion
Central pattern generators
Control networks of neurons that spontaneously generate patterns of activity, such as walking
What are the ipsilateral fibers from the anterior corticospinal tract important for?
Controlling the muscles of the core/midline of the body
Vestibular nucleus
Controls information about where the body is in space
Iris
Controls the size of the pupil
Skin-related sensory systems
Convey messages to the brain about pressure, temperature, & pain
What is the target tissue of chorionic gonadotropin?
Corpus luteum
Explain more closely how the basal ganglia structures work to process motor activity?
Cortex is constantly sending information to the caudate / putamen with information about what's going on at that particular space & time in the brain --> the globus pallidus makes sense of these inputs & is constantly sending *inhibitory info (GABA) to the thalamus *BUT when the caudate / putamen gives information to the globus pallidus, it will NOT inhibit the thalamus because the caudate / putamen has then inhibited the globus pallidus, leading the thalamus to send an excitatory signal to the cortex
Parahippocampal cortex (PHC)
Cortical area that is sensitive to contextual relations based on the presence of other objects; contextual associations that are sensitive to visual appearance & that are organized in a hierarchy of spatial specificity
Solomon Shereshevsky ("S")
Could remember everything --> turned things multimodal by building elaborate things with visual / auditory / physical elements to it
What is the primary pathway for nasal information into the brain?
Cranial nerve #1 --> ipsilateral olfactory bulb, where there is a 1st synapse at the *glomeruli* --> many different places in the brain through *collaterals*
What is the purpose of convolutions in the small intestine?
Create more surface area for taking nutrients out into the blood
What is the cause of synesthesia?
Cross-talk between sensory areas might cross a perceptual border, thus resulting in synesthesia
Floater
Debris in the vitreous humor
What is SWS important for the consolidation of?
Declarative memories (i.e. information that can be consciously recalled for further processing)
What did temporal lesions (specifically of the hippocampus in H.M.) cause?
Deficits in declarative memory / explicit memory
What happens during the 2nd week in the development of a mouse hippocampal neuron?
Dendrites migrate toward the molecular layer of the hippocampus & axons migrate toward the hilus & CA3 cell layer
Is habituation considered part of learning & memory?
Depends on how you define learning & memory --> if they are defined as a change in behavior, yes BUT if they are defined as the information being saved, then maybe not because you need to re-habituate every time the stimulus is presented again after a break
What does the binding of odorant molecules to receptors on the cilia of the sensory bipolar neurons result in?
Depolarization of the olfactory neurons (i.e. olfactory transduction)
Amine hormones
Derived from the amino acid tyrosine; can NOT easily travel across the cell membrane Ex: norepinephrine, epinephrine, melatonin, thyroid hormones
Hierarchical model of the visual system
Describes how there are increasingly smaller #s of cells as we move from the photoreceptors to the bipolar cells to the ganglion cells to the thalamus & finally to the visual cortex, thus allowing for feature extraction
Explain the problem with evolved, predisposed threats in the modern age
Despite the nature of the most threatening stimuli changing dramatically over the past several centuries (ex: guns, bombs, poisons, etc.), our fears are very similar to those of our prehistoric ancestors (ex: heights, spiders)
Jet lag
Desynchronization of rhythms due to flying to different time zones- while the body is physically in a new time zone, physiologically it is set to the time zone you are used to; can cause negative side effects like difficulty falling asleep, early wakening, appetite changes, GI issues, & daytime tiredness
Spontaneous ovulation
Different factors contribute to when ovulation occurs
How does the amygdala play a role in managing impending stress?
Different nuclei respond to specific aspects of fear-related stimuli in an attempt to mobilize energy for the appropriate fear response (ex: freeze, flee, fight)
What happens if there is damage upstream of the cochlear nucleus? Why?
Different parts of hearing will be lost (BUT there will not be complete hearing loss) --> this is because information is crossed on the left & right side as some axons go to the same side of the brain & some go to the other side, leading to a very complex & interconnected system of auditory information
Insomnia
Difficulties initiating sleep, maintaining sleep, or both, & suffer from sleepiness during waking hours; the inability to sleep
What are the underlying mechanisms of narcolepsy?
Diminished receptor binding in the hypocretin / orexin system due to a gene mutation related to altered receptors for hypocretin / orexin --> studies have found significant reductions in the # of hypocretin / orexin-producing neurons in narcolepsy patients
What did Matthew Wilson do?
Discovered *sleep-reactivated hippocampal cells / place cells* in rats through a study that found that certain hippocampal cells were activated BOTH when the rats were learning how to use a maze & later when the rat was asleep (during SWS)
What did Cesira Batini do?
Discovered that a brainstem area below the mid-pontine cut (i.e. the raphe nuclei) is important for sleep production because cats showed NO signs of sleeping after a cut was made through their pons
What did Thorndike observe that led him to create the law of effect?
Discovered that once chicks learned how to get out of a maze to get a reward or cats learned how to solve a "puzzle box" to get food, they solved it faster on subsequent trials (i.e. response became more efficient)
Phobia
Disorder characterized by excessive fear of specific stimuli
Sleep paralysis
Disorder in which there is dysregulation between the state of consciousness & the muscle tone SO during these stages of decreased muscle tone, patients have a state of consciousness that is more like an alert state; basically, patients are conscious yet do NOT have the ability to move their muscles
Reactive-impulsive aggression
Displayed when a person is highly emotionally aroused; more directly regulated by limbic structures
Explain some brain differences in rodents that show how important sense of smell is for them (3)
Disproportionately large: - size of olfactory bulbs - size of VNO - proportion of genome devoted to olfaction
Where are 5-HT1B receptors located? What do activation of these receptors do?
Distributed among brain regions involved in aggression (ex: periaqueductal gray, lateral septum, hippocampus) --> activation of these receptors reduces aggression
What is the major difference between monogamous & non-monogamous species in the oxytocin & vasopressin systems?
Distribution density of receptors differs
Central sulcus
Divides the primary motor cortex in the frontal lobe (specifically, the pre-central gyrus) from the somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe
What happens to individuals with amygdala damage on the attentional blink task?
Do NOT show emotion-induced recovery of the attentional blink
Specificity of LTP
Does NOT happen in every synapse or every pathway; only happens to trained synapses
What is a problem with the evolutionary / adaptive theory of sleep? (2)
Doesn't explain: - sleep stages - why some animals (ex: lions) sleep all day unless they get hungry
In what way is habituation an important energy-saving mechanism?
Doesn't make sense to put forth the effort to respond to something that is just a bit annoying (NOT harmful)
What is implicated in excessive activity & dieting?
Dopamine
What is the key neurochemical involved with wanting?
Dopamine
What neurochemical is involved in executive attention?
Dopamine
What might also facilitate the tendency to form social bonds (in addition to oxytocin & vasopressin)?
Dopamine density
What might dopamine play a role in, in terms of pleasure & reward? What is the caveat to this?
Dopamine may play a role in shifting our arousal & motivation toward pleasurable aspects of a stimulus - BUT you must already find the stimulus pleasurable because dopamine will NOT change the intensity of the pleasurable impacts of something (even when the intensity of the drive to obtain it has been changed)
What did lesions to the LH actually damage?
Dopaminergic nigrostriatal bundle, leading to a general motivational deficit (NOT just a specific deficit in hunger motivation) & the rats being akinetic / not moving much / unable to thermoregulate / not reactive to fear, etc.
Lesions in what brain area are Korsakoff's syndrome & spontaneous confabulation linked to?
Dorsomedial thalamic nucleus
Lethal dose (LD50)
Dose that would kill 50% of the animals
When do dogs & rats secrete growth hormone?
During waking hours - similar to how melatonin is secreted maximally during sleep periods in animals that are active during the day, while it is secreted maximally during waking hours in animals that are active at night
When is spontaneous activity of serotonergic dorsal raphe neurons highest?
During waking hours with maximal activity
Explain how dopamine may play a causal role in anorexia?
Dysfunctional mesolimbic dopamine functions may be associated with altered reward & emotional experiences, shifts in decision making & executive control, increased repetitive movements, & decreased hunger
Confabulation
Effortlessly make up stories to fill in gaps in their memories; "honest lying" in which false memories typically include bits of true information so patients seem to fully believe them as honest reflections of their currently perceived reality
Gametes
Eggs & sperm
Pontogeniculooccipital (PGO) spikes
Electrical potentials that originate in the pons & then project to the LGN of the thalamus, before making a final appearance in the occipital cortex; appear in bursts of 3-10 waves correlated with rapid eye movements during REM sleep
Cannon-Bard theory of emotion
Emphasizes the role of the brain / cortex in emotional processing (rather than bodily responses); top-down theory Stimulus simultaneously --> response & emotion
Endorphins
Endogenous morphine
Where does information in the discriminative touch pathway travel?
Enters through the dorsal root ganglia in the spinal cord & then travels ipsilaterally to the brainstem area, where it crosses over to then go to the thalamus & somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe
Where does information in the pain, temperature, & tickle pathway travel?
Enters through the dorsal root ganglia where it immediately synapses on the contralateral side of the spinal cord to then travel up to the thalamus
One trial active avoidance
Essentially the same as one trial passive avoidance EXCEPT the animal has to do some type of action (ex: hitting a button) to avoid being shocked
What does the ovary release? Where does it travel?
Estrogen - travels back to the hypothalamus to act on it
How often are taste cells regenerated?
Every 10 days
Visual field
Everything on the left vs. the right in the world around you (NOT everything you can see with your left eye vs. everything you can see with your right eye)
What happened during the 19th century, in regards to hormones & behavior?
Evidence began to emerge that chemicals circulated through our bodies, playing roles in the development & expression of gender-related behavior
What is the function of the amygdala, piriform cortex, & entorhinal cortex in olfaction?
Evolutionary ancient structures that serve as portals to other structures of the limbic system
One trial passive avoidance
Ex: an animal might be put in a flower pot that's on top of an electrified floor SO when they get down from the flower pot, they will be shocked --> animals learn very quickly that they need to be passive (i.e. stay on the flower pot) & NOT touch the floor to avoid the shock
Social cues for ovulation
Ex: birds may all flock to a specific place to lay their eggs with the goal of reducing the chances that a predator can harm a large # of the offspring
Odor cues for ovulation
Ex: if female mice are put into a cage together, over time, based on odor cues, their cycles will sink up --> can even blow air from this cage to a cage with an isolated female mouse & she will also sync up with them, despite NOT being in physical contact with them
Center surround organization
Excitatory-center-inhibitory-surround receptive field; refers to how the cell with the light shining directly on it will be excited, while its neighbors will be inhibited (or vice versa!)
Melanocortin
Excites the paraventricular nucleus, thus acting as a satiety signal that reduces eating
What does the satiety-motive pathway do?
Excites the paraventricular nucleus, thus making you NOT go eat
Lower motor neurons
Exist in the gray matter of the spinal cord, specifically arising from the ventral horn; activate the movement of specific muscles & are the only thing that can actually make the muscle move
Light therapy
Exposure to intense light during certain times of the day
What allows for continual adjustment of movement patterns?
Extensive connections between the cerebellum & basal ganglia
What has allowed for knowledge about specialized sensory cortical areas?
Extensive work in which scientists have used electrophysiological recordings to systematically map the location of primary & secondary areas in the cortex
What does the pina focus sound information on?
External auditory meatus (the ear canal)
Parvocellular pathway
Extracts fine detail / foveal information; moves into the temporal lobe, where complex shape analysis occurs
Mixed magnocellular / parvocellular pathway
Extracts information about color & brightness; goes into the posterior inferior temporal cortex
Magnocellular pathway
Extracts information about movement; information goes to the posterior parietal cortex (the brain area where movement is perceived) & then starts to go to brain areas where you might start to plan your response to that movement
How might extreme dieting factor into serotonin levels in anorexia patients?
Extreme dieting may serve a self-medicating function by recalibrating serotonin & other related neurotransmitter systems that initially led to the dysfunctional psychological symptoms BUT over time, food deprivation & significant weight loss become larger issues
What is the pathway of taste information? (4)
Facial & glossopharyngeal nerves take the info to the brain --> nucleus of the solitary tract --> thalamus --> cortical insula area
What is the major function of multisensory integration?
Facilitates the timely detection of relevant stimuli in our environment
What is the frequency limit for the phase difference idea of sound localization?
Fairly low frequencies (up to about 1,500 Hz)
How large is the sleep rebound effect?
Fairly modest - no more than 30% of lost sleep is recovered following sleep deprivation
Estrogens
Female reproductive hormones
Mullerian duct
Female reproductive system precursor
What is the first step to figuring out how Pavlov's ideas work from a neurobiological POV?
Figuring out where in the brain the learning is happening
Direction cells
Fire in the subiculum (near the hippocampus) when an animal points its head in a specific direction
Explain the timing of the appearance of REM sleep?
First appears after about 80 minutes of sleep & then in intervals that increase to about 100 minutes for adults over the course of the night
When did photoreceptors first evolve? Examples? (2)
First evolved about 600 million years ago in single-cell organisms (ex: algae, bacteria) - sea squirts & hagfish had an "eye patch" (rudimentary form of an eye) - the lamprey had the 1st structure that resembles our eyes about 530 million years ago
Sleep practices are more accurately described as _____________ in nature
Flexible
What is one of the most dramatic modulators of aggression?
Fluctuation of testosterone levels (NOT stable levels)
Cochlea
Fluid-filled area in the inner ear that is shaped like a snail & is located directly under the temporal lobe; transduces the vibration signals into a neural code
Psychophysics
Focuses on the specific physical qualities of a sensory stimulus & one's perception of that stimulus
Chronic traumatic encephalophathy (CTE)
Form of dementia that happens from repeated TBI, even if they're mild
Follicle
Found in the ovaries; cluster of cells that function as a protective casing around the egg & support the ovaries' eggs so they can be released
Corpus luteum
Found in the ovary; a structure made up of the remnants of the follicle that used to house the egg that are no longer needed
What is a study examining dopamine's role in anorexia?
Found lower levels of dopamine metabolites in the CSF of anorexia patients BOTH ill & in recovery, which suggests that this may be a chronic condition (NOT the result of starvation during anorexia)
What is a study showing the hippocampus's role in the sequencing of events?
Found more fMRI activation of the hippocampus when subjects placed images from a movie in the correct sequence, compared to those who put the images in the order they thought they should be sequenced (logical inference task)
What did LeDoux find, regarding the brain circuitry of the fear response?
Found some shortcut processes directly from the thalamus to the amygdala, which initiated the fear response
What did Sir David Ferrier do?
Found specific motor areas of the brain in monkeys
What is a study showing multisensory integration?
Found that 23% of the same neurons responded to BOTH the sight of a person ripping paper & the sound of ripping paper
What is a study showing the impact of separating fathers from their offspring?
Found that CA deer mice show a caring response upon reunion with their pups, while the standard deer mice show a stress response
What did Lashley find with his studies? What did he conclude?
Found that NO cortical lesions affected the rats' ability to learn mazes --> concluded with the theory of equipotentiality for memory formation (i.e. that memory is the product of multiple regions of the cortex contributing equally)
What is a study showing that SWS provides an ideal electrophysiological environment for cortical synaptic downsizing?
Found that a glutamate receptor associated with synaptic strengthening was at its highest level during wakefulness & its lowest level during sleep, which suggest that the production of synapses increases during waking hours & decreases during sleep
What was a re-do of LeVay's study?
Found that a similar area lit up for heterosexual females & homosexual males BUT NOT for heterosexual males when androgen was inhaled; found that a similar area lit up for homosexual females & heterosexual males BUT NOT for heterosexual females when estrogen was inhaled
What is a study examining brain areas involved in decision making?
Found that activity in the lateral intraparietal area (LIP) was positively correlated with monkeys' demonstration of a final decision in a decision-making task
What did Wise & Schwartz do?
Found that administering the dopamine receptor blocker pimozide reduced the rats' motivation to respond for a food reward
What is a study showing the association between defeat & stress hormones?
Found that although 2 fighting hamsters are similarly active in the initial aggressive encounter, the winner exhibits baseline levels of stress hormones during the encounter, while the loser exhibits increased levels of stress hormones
What is a study showing comparing young blue footed booby birds with older birds?
Found that before injections with LPS (which makes the animals sick), the younger animals were more successful in their parenting BUT when they were injected, the younger fathers backed off their parental responsibilities, while the older fathers kicked things up --> terminal investment hypothesis
What is a study showing the amygdala-hippocampus interaction?
Found that blood flow in the amygdala was significantly correlated with short-term & long-term memory recall of images that were evaluated as either emotional or interesting
What is a study showing that the sleep duration of captive animals may NOT accurately reflect the total sleep duration of wild animals? What did the researchers conclude?
Found that captive wild sloths sleep up to 20 hours per day BUT wild sloths sleep only 9 hours per day --> in some cases, sleep may be a response to boredom
What is a study showing the connection between olfaction & emotions? What was the major conclusion?
Found that children of women who used alcohol to counter negative emotional states ("escape drinkers") found the smell of beer & other alcoholic beverages more aversive than did age-matched children of mothers who did NOT use alcohol in this way (control group) Conclusion: children's associations of alcohol with their mothers' distraught emotions influenced their individual preferences for other odors encountered in their lives
What is a study showing how easily misinformation is incorporated into earlier memories (i.e. reconsolidation)?
Found that college students can easily be prompted into thinking that childhood events that are fabricated & introduced in collaboration with the students' parents actually occurred
What is a study showing that exercise benefits the brain?
Found that elderly subjects participating in exercise programs had *larger pre-frontal & temporal lobe gray matter volumes* than their sedentary counterparts
Explain a study showing that reactivation of relevant neurons during SWS facilitates memory consolidation
Found that exposure to the same odor during SWS that was present while learning the location of objects in a 2D-spatial task increased subsequent recall lf the spatial memories & that hippocampal activation was more pronounced during odor exposure during SWS than in wakefulness
What is a study showing that the wanting pathway is likely associated with the drug-seeking behavior of addicts?
Found that following a period of salt deprivation, rats preferred a very salty taste that they previously disliked
What is a study showing the impact of the DLPFC on flexible behavior / successes vs. losses?
Found that high-performing physicians learned equally from successes & failures on diagnoses of fictional medial treatments & had increased DLPFC after failures, while low performers learned significantly more from successes & showed increased DLPFC activity following successes
What is a study showing the influence of vasopressin receptors in the ventral pallidum?
Found that if a gene is inserted so the montane vole expresses more vasopressin receptors in the ventral pallidum than it did previously, the vole exhibits increased partner preference
What is a study showing the involvement of the lateral pre-optic area in water balance?
Found that if an animal is well-hydrated (hypotonic situation) BUT then a cannula is used to deliver a very concentrated salt solution to the lateral pre-optic area, the animal will exhibit behaviors as if it is thirsty (& vice versa, if the animal is dehydrated but a hypotonic solution is delivered to the lateral pre-optic area)
What is a study using electroconvulsive shocks? What does this support?
Found that if an electroconvulsive shock was given directly after the rat touched the electrified floor, they wouldn't remember that the floor was an aversive stimulus the next day BUT if the electroconvulsive shock was given after a longer time period (ex: 2 hours later) following learning, the rats would remember --> supports the idea that STM is electrical activity in the brain
What is a study showing how you can induce sexual reproductivity during a desired time frame?
Found that if you give a female mouse a shot of estrogen & then a shot of progesterone 24 hours later, she will ovulate
What is a study showing that early hormonal experience determines whether the SDN is large or small?
Found that if you removed the gonads of a male mouse at birth & then gave them anti-testosterone drugs, then they grow up with a SDN that resembles a female; if you removed the gonads of a female mouse at birth & gave them androgens, then they grew up to have a large, male-like SDN
What is a study examining the role of epinephrine in memory?
Found that injections of epinephrine antagonists impairs rats' memory in the Morris water task, while infusion of β-adrenergic receptor agonists increased memory consolidation
What is a study showing structural changes to the maternal brain?
Found that maternal rats (specifically lactating females) have more dendritic spines that are bushier & have different shapes in the hippocampus, when compared to virgin rats
What is a study showing the association between dopamine & aggression?
Found that mice that are genetically engineered to lack the dopamine transporter (resulting in increased extracellular dopamine) exhibit increased aggresson
What is a study examining the effects on the offspring of separating degu fathers from their pups?
Found that offspring from intact families had more dendritic spines than those coming from single mother families
What is a study showing the link between TBI & CTE (as well as some kinds of depression & Alzheimer's)?
Found that older adults who have moderate TBI are 2.3x more likely to develop Alzheimer's & those who have had severe TBI have a 4.5x greater risk
What is a study with the attentional blink task?
Found that participants generally see the 1st target but miss the 2nd one, UNLESS the 2nd target stimulus is an obscene word --> idea is that the attentional deficit reduces with an infusion of emotional processing
What happened in William C. Young's experiment when the guinea pigs had their gonads removed & then received androgen injections?
Found that prenatal androgen injections reduced the females' typical sexual responses & increased the likelihood that they would display male-typical sexual behavior when they received androgen injections in adulthood (BUT the injections did NOT modify the males' typical sexual behavior)
What is a study showing that the type of diet consumed by a mother rat during pregnancy had long-lasting effects on areas of her offspring's brains associated with hunger regulation?
Found that pups that were born to high-fat diet mothers showed increased caloric intake, body weight, & activation of peptides (such as orexin) in the LH, even if they were raised by balanced diet mothers
What is a study examining the effects of stress on the amygdala?
Found that rats exposed to acute stress exhibited reduced spine density in the hippocampus & increased anxiety behaviors in the elevated plus maze
What did James Olds & Peter Milner do?
Found that rats really like brain stimulation in the reticular formation & the septum (which is close to the nucleus accumbens) - this behavior seemed to exceed mere arousal, suggesting that these brain areas are involved in pleasure & reward
What is a study showing cross-sensitization between sugar & amphetamine? What does it suggest?
Found that rats that were maintained on an intermittent-sugar diet & given daily amphetamine injections exhibited drug-induced hyperactivity after tasting 10% sugar solution one week later OR being given a low dose of amphetamine (which had no effect on control animals) --> suggests that sugar may serve as a "gateway drug" for other drugs of abuse
What is a study showing the effects of sleep deprivation on rats?
Found that rats who were prevented from sleeping due to a technique in which the rat is placed on a disk that rotates & drops the rat into water when it falls asleep show signs of sickness (reduced food consumption, inefficient temperature regulation, & death after a few weeks) *keep in mind that these results are also due to chronic stress!
What did a study using the Morris water maze find? What did this confirm?
Found that rats with hippocampal lesions (but NOT cortical lesions) were significantly impaired in the place version of the task, while BOTH groups of rats performed similarly in the visually cued navigation task --> confirmed the importance of the hippocampus in spatial learning in rodents
What did experiments with rodents regarding declarative memory find? How did researchers respond?
Found that rodents with hippocampal damage were NOT impaired with many types of learning tasks (ex: classical conditioning paradigms) --> researchers shifted to focusing on spatial learning & "place cells" in the hippocampus
What is a study showing the relationship between rapid eye movements & academic forms of learning?
Found that students exhibited an increased # of rapid eye movements shortly after their final exams than earlier in the semester (when they weren't studying as intensively)
What is a study showing the effects of leaving sleep apnea untreated?
Found that subjects with obstructive sleep apnea showed significant decreases in gray matter, including the frontal cortex, temporal lobe, & parietal cortex
What was the major result of LeVay's study on the SDN of homosexual males?
Found that the SDN, specifically the 3rd interstitial region / nucleus of the anterior hypothalamus (INAH3), was larger in straight men vs. gay men
What is a study showing the close bond between humans & dogs?
Found that the duration of gaze in dog owners who were allowed to look at their dogs was positively correlated with the dog owners' urinary oxytocin levels --> suggests that human-pet interactions alter oxytocin levels in a similar fashion as human-human interactions do
What is a study showing the impact of sleep on insight?
Found that the group that was allowed to sleep was more likely to discover a hidden rule that led to success on a cognitive task, leading to a reduction in the time to solve the task, & that the 2 groups that were not allowed to sleep were less efficient on the task because only 23% discovered the hidden rule
What is a study showing the hippocampus's role in forming associations among various types of stimuli?
Found that the hippocampus was activated on a PET scan when subjects tried to associate pairs of dissimilar words BUT NOT when they judged the familiarity of the words (novelty detection task) or contemplated the meaning of the words (semantic / deep processing task)
What is a study showing the importance of the adrenal gland in the immunological response to acute stress?
Found that the immunological response is NOT observed in animals that have undergone an adrenalectomy
What is a study showing the impact of low resource environments on the offspring?
Found that the offspring of moms who lived in low-resource environments (& had higher stress hormone receptors) had shorter tail length & lower bone volume
What is a study showing pro golfers "choking" under pressure?
Found that the performance of golfers declined when asked to think about the movement of their elbows prior to taking a shot
What is a study showing the effects of overconsumption of high-fat foods?
Found that the rats that had extended access (i.e. 23 hours per day) to a high-fat cafeteria diet showed significant weight gain due to increased caloric consumption (especially from the cafeteria diet), had higher thresholds for rewarding brain stimulation, & had lower expression of DA2 receptors in the striatum
What is a study showing the brain areas involved in osmoregulatory / osmotic thirst?
Found that when a hypertonic saline solution is infused into the brain, BOTH the anterior & posterior areas of the cingulate cortex & the insula are active
What is a study showing the effect of angiotensin II?
Found that when angiotensin II is infused into the brains of several animal species, they appear to be suddenly thirsty & begin drinking, even though they are not water deprived (which likely results from angiotensin II's actions on the OVLT & SFO)
What is a study showing the circadian rhythm related to lethal dose of pathogens or radiation?
Found that when animals were exposed during their sleep cycle, they were much more susceptible to it (i.e. there was a difference in LD50 based on the time of day of the exposure)
What is a study examining social contact among rats in natural enriched environments ("country rats") vs. artificial enriched environments ("city rats")?
Found that when animals were group housed in the natural enriched environments they were more likely to do things together / be in close proximity & had increased oxytocin --> suggests that this environment may facilitate social cooperation
What is a study showing increased automaticity among pro golfers?
Found that when asked to prepare to make a shot while in an fMRI, expert golfers exhibited increased activation in the parietal cortex, lateral pre-motor cortex, & occipital lobes, while novice golfers had increased activation in the limbic areas & basal ganglia
What is a study showing the effect of certain limbic structures on pleasure & reward?
Found that when rats were allowed to voluntarily press a lever to receive mild jolts of electrical stimulation targeted at certain limbic structures (ex: septal nuclei, nucleus accumbens), they would press it up to 2,000 times per hour & ignore other necessary actions (ex: eating, drinking, mating, caring for pups)
What is a study examining how the brain overrides the fear response to muster the energy to act?
Found that when subjects who were fearful of snakes were overcoming their fear by moving the snake closer to their heads, increased activity was observed in the *subgenual ACC* BUT when they were succumbing to their fear by moving the snake further away, there was increased activity in the *amygdala & anterior insular cortex*
What was a study examining the function of the ARAS?
Found that when the ARAS was lesioned in cats BUT the sensory pathways remained intact, the cats entered a permanent sleep state that could only be interrupted by very strong stimuli
What is a study showing the effects of isolating a cell without any external cues?
Found that when the cells were in isolation without any external cues (ex: melatonin), each cell type had their own internal clock - some were 23 hours, some were 24.5 hours, etc.
What is a study showing the role of hypocretin-producing neurons in the transition from sleep to wakefulness, using optogenetics?
Found that when the hypocretin-producing neurons were activated through the delivery of chanelrhodopsin-2, there was an increased probability of mice waking up from either REM or non-REM sleep
What is a study investigating the human brain's response to predisposed fears?
Found that when the tarantula was approaching, activation occurred in the *ACC & midbrain's periaqueductal gray* BUT when the tarantula was retreating, the *PFC* was activated (may have been signaling safety to the rest of the brain) --> the *amygdala & BNST* were activated throughout, probably to assess the threat value of the situation
What did Fritsch & Hitzig do?
Found that when they stimulated certain areas (which were generally in the front of the dogs' brains), the dogs produced specific movements; specifically stimulated upper motor neurons
What is a study showing brain areas involved in cognitive reappraisal?
Found that when women were asked to suppress any emotional reaction to a sad movie, there was increased activation of the prefrontal & orbitofrontal cortex
What is a study showing that coping strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, can be used to influence the immune system?
Found that women who learned to imagine a positive context for troubling images showed increased levels of an antibody, secretory immunoglobulin A
What is a study showing the involvement of the medial pre-optic nucleus on temperature balance behavior?
Found then when animals were warm BUT the pre-optic area had been cooled down with a cryoprobe, the animals exhibited behaviors like it was cold, even though their bodies were actually warm (and vice versa, for if an animal is cold but the pre-optic area is warm)
What brain areas are activated with alerting?
Frontal & parietal cortical areas (lateralized to the right hemisphere)
Supporting cells
Function somewhat like glial cells in the brain
The visual system is wired on the basis of ______________ _______________. What does this mean?
Functional information - means that if you have light activity coming into a particular region, those synapses will be strengthened; BUT if this light activity does not come in, then the brain will not wire up correctly
What input do young neurons begin to receive from nearby interneurons? What does this do?
GABA input - this depolarizes the neurons, making them more likely to survive to maturity
X cells / parvocellular cells
Ganglion cells that are involved in fine detail; found on the fovea of the retina
Locked in syndrome
Generally caused by a stroke or vascular problem where there are problems with blood flow
What is the association between GABA & aggression?
Generally decreases aggression in humans BUT GABAergic activity in the septum (involved with aggression suppression) seems to increase aggression in rodents --> species-specific differences in GABA's influence on aggression
5-α reductase deficiency
Genetic condition which inhibits the production of an enzyme (5-α reductase) that is necessary for the development of male external genitalia during gestation; results in genetic male babies born with female external genitalia
What happens to ghrelin levels during fasting? How about following a meal?
Ghrelin levels increase during fasting & decrease following a meal (so is known as a meal initiator)
Exteroreceptors
Give you information about what's happening on the outside / external surface of the body
desPLEX
Given to pregnant women & advertised to help with cramps; estrogen hormone
What system does the strengthening or weakening of synapses in LTP or LTD rely on?
Glutamate system
Neural cell adhesion molecule
Glycoprotein that is critical for neuronal development & synaptic plasticity in mature brains
What is the avenue that odorants take to go into the brain?
Go in through cranial nerve #1 to the frontal lobe / telencephalon
What is the avenue that taste information takes to go into the brain?
Go in through cranial nerves #7, 9, & 10 to areas further back in the brain
In what way does melatonin act as a synchronizer?
Goes all over the body to all the different types of cells so that each cell knows what time it is (night or day)
What color is represented by the medium wavelengths?
Green
How do the semicircular canals work?
Hair cells stick up in these canals into a gel-like fluid --> when you move in one direction, this gel sloshes back & forth & bends the hair cells so they deflect, thus opening up ion channels & causing the hair cells to send a signal saying that you moved in a certain direction
Muscle spindle organ
Has receptor endings extending from γ motor neurons in the spinal cord that wrap around the intrafusal muscle fiber; provide sensory feedback to the muscles by detecting excessive stretch in the muscle
Osmotic thirst
Has to do with tonicity; behavioral response where you drink because cells in the OVLT or lateral pre-optic area are too dehydrated
How do the otolith organs work?
Have hair cells that stick up into the space above them, where there are calcium crystals that put weight on the hair cells, thus allowing them to detect if they're being smushed or deflected so they know how the body is oriented with gravity
What is a downside of reflexes?
Have little control over these responses once they are triggered
Traditional sensory neurons
Have receptive fields that only receive information from a specific sensory area Ex: visual neurons that are activated only when certain areas of the visual field are located
Nocioceptors
Have receptors for sharp & dull pain; some travel faster than others, which explains why you can have a sharp pain first & then a dull pain later (or vice versa)
Onset insomnia
Have trouble falling asleep BUT once they get to sleep, they stay asleep
What is the value of emotional regulation?
Having the perception that your emotional response is under your control is healthier than believing that you cannot control your response
Explain how the evolution of cooked food sparked the growth of the human brain
Having to send fewer resources to the stomach allowed for increased resources to go to the brain
What is pitch measured in?
Hertz (Hz)
What are young neurons distinguished by? What is the result of this?
Higher membrane resistance - leads to different action potential firing patterns
Place cells
Hippocampal cells that become activated when rats are located in specific locations / places in a maze; light up for specific spatial locations in the world
What brain area is hit especially hard with the development of amyloid plaques? What does this lead to?
Hippocampus --> leads to memory loss
What does the posterior insula contain, which allows it to know where different sensations are coming from?
Homunculus of the entire visceral body
How are hormones released by the anterior pituitary?
Hormone release is triggered by releasing hormones in the hypothalamus, which then travel through the portal system to the pituitary gland
Prostaglandins
Hormone-like substances that influence sex-typical development in rats by producing increased masculinized sexual behavior & increasing dendritic spines on the medial pre-optic nucleus
What was left out of Pavlov's ideas of classical conditioning?
How an individual acquired behavior --> learning involves more than just simple conditioned responses
What do central pattern generators explain?
How humans can walk while talking, reading texts, or chewing gum
What is an important factor in decision making (especially for social mammals)?
How the presence of other individuals, either collaborators or competitors, influences our decision to make a specific response
What did lesions of the ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) lead to?
Hyperphagia (overeating) & obesity in lab rats
Direct mechanism through the hypothalamus
Hypothalamus has cell bodies that extend into the posterior pituitary gland, which can deposit neurotransmitters & hormones into the blood; essentially neuron directly releasing something through the pituitary gland into the blood (i.e. *direct brain to blood*)
Explain the feedback mechanism involved in CAH
Hypothalamus sends signals to the pituitary gland, which then sends signals to the adrenal gland --> the adrenal gland makes a bunch of different hormones & sends feedback to the hypothalamus & pituitary gland
Hebbian synapse theory of learning
Idea about modified neuronal circuits accompanying changes in behavior; precursor to subsequent theories of neuroplasticity
Cellular assembly theory of learning
Idea of several neurons firing together simultaneously during learning; precursor to subsequent neural network theories proposed in behavioral neuroscience
Classical conditioning / Pavlovian conditioning
Idea that the condition is changing the behavior / response; one of the 1st formats to frame learning & memory as a model
Give an example of how opponent-process theory might work
If a blue cell sends glutamate (excitatory) to the blue vs. yellow opponent process cell & the yellow cell sends GABA (inhibitory), the opponent process cell will weigh the glutamate vs. GABA --> if it gets lots of stimulation from the blue cell, it might fire, leading to you seeing blue; BUT if it doesn't have much stimulation because more input is coming from the GABAergic yellow cell, it might NOT fire, leading to you seeing yellow
Phantom leg syndrome
If a limb is amputated, you might still have "sensation" in this area (even though the limb is NOT there)
What is evidence for the differing functions of the posterior vs. anterior insula?
If a seizure began in the posterior insula, individuals would have an aura that was a very specific body response; BUT if the seizure began in the anterior insula, they would feel an emotion
Explain how the rats' reaction to the activity-stress research condition might be adaptive in a natural context
If food became scarce, movement to another area would likely help the animal to locate more plentiful food
What is a downside of habits?
If our brains rely on too many habitual responses, they begin to give up on valuable real-time processing of the environment
McGurk effect
If slightly mismatched auditory & visual cues are paired, people report hearing something more consistent with their visual input
What makes it so the Bruce effect does NOT occur?
If the female mouse's VNO is lesioned
According to the loudness idea of sound localization, how can you tell whether you are orienting in the correct direction?
If the loudness of the sound in both ears becomes more similar
Explain the representation of receptive fields in the homunculus / primary motor cortex
If there is a lot of sensation in a particular area, the receptive fields will be smaller & you can pack more neuronal input into that body part --> this leads to larger representation in the somatosensory cortex because each receptive field still needs a specific amount of room to process
Explain how combination birth control pills work
If you give estrogen & progesterone at the same time, then estrogen is signaling that the follicle has already been selected & progesterone is signaling that ovulation has already happened --> this tricks the system into NOT doing those things
What is happening on a cellular level, in terms of habituation in the aplysia?
If you have repeated stimulation in the sensory neuron, over time, there is a reduction in the amount of neurotransmitter (i.e. the # of quanta) released from the presynaptic sensory neuron --> this is because calcium channels at the end of the presynaptic sensory neuron do NOT open up as much as they normally do with repeated stimulation so fewer vesicles open up to release their contents
Explain how the brain can get double injured
If you hit something with the front of your head, your brain (which is floating in CSF) may move between hitting the front & back of the skull
Frequency theory
If you record from any of the hair cells in the organ of corti while playing a particular frequency, the cells will fire with that exact same frequency (i.e. input frequency = output frequency of an individual receptor)
What is an example of immunoenhancement from acute stress?
Immune cells (leukocytes) may redistribute from the blood to organs (such as the skin) that are possible access points for pathogens in order to more effectively handle the immunological challenge
What is the immune system response when stress is acute / present for short durations?
Immunoenhancement
What is the immune system response when the stress is chronic / prolonged?
Immunosuppression
What can altered levels of hormones accompanying stressful events lead to, in terms of memory?
Impairment & strengthening of the integrity of memory circuits --> cortisol travels to the hippocampus, which can have dramatic effects on memory & learning
What does damage to the interpositus nucleus lead to?
Impairs conditioned responses
What did Hubel & Wiesel do?
Implanted microelectrodes in the V1 of cats while exposing them to visual scenes & stimuli, which led to them discovering specialized types of V1 neurons; after not achieving many results using an ophthalmoscope to shine light in the back of the eye, they ended up accidentally recording activity while changing out the size of a light & a line of light moved across the eye, leading to their discovery regarding how the visual system works
Frontostriatal brain area
Implicated in self-regulatory behaviors; connects the frontal cortex to the striatum
Medial pre-optic area of the hypothalamus
Important in initiating traditional maternal behavior of caring for pups
CRH
Important mediator of the stress hormone; released from the hypothalamus & travels through the hypothalamic-pituitary portal system to eventually trigger the release of adrenocorticotropic hormone from the anterior pituitary gland & cortisol from the adrenal cortex
In animals that had been conditioned by LeDoux to have a conditioned fear response to a tone, what happened if the ears were removed? What about if the cochlear nucleus was lesioned? What about if the inferior colliculus or medial geniculate nucleus (MGN) was lesioned?
In ALL of these situations, the animals exhibited NO fear responses
What direction in the retina do horizontal cells & amacrine cells process information?
In a lateral direction
Where is the gustatory cortex located?
In an area of the parietal lobe that is very close to the face area of the somatosensory cortex
Terminal investment hypothesis
In older fathers, there may be an unconscious processing that this may be the last brood they will parent, while the younger fathers might focus on keeping themselves alive so they can have more offspring
What happened in past generations, in terms of caloric intake & caloric expenditure? What has happened in our contemporary society?
In past generations, when most people were more physically active throughout the day, caloric intake closely matched caloric expenditure --> BUT these finely tuned energy consumption / expenditure circuits have become confused in our contemporary society with excess food availability (especially high-fat & high-sugar products)
Where does movement begin?
In the brain --> the brain & spinal cord coordinate the many neural components that activate movement
Where is the arbor vitae located?
In the cerebellar forest
Where are the cell bodies for all the sensory modalities in the somatosensory system located?
In the dorsal root ganglia of the spinal cord
Where do olfactory sensory neurons synapse?
In the olfactory bulbs
Where are the most stem cells located for adults?
In the olfactory system
Anosmia
Inability to smell
Agusia
Inability to taste
Animal care & use committee
Includes university members, community members, veterinarians, etc.; the purpose is to ensure that the research is for the greater good of humanity & that the animal is not in any pain or discomfort that cannot otherwise be accounted for
What is characteristic of the transformation of an athlete from novice to expert?
Increased automaticity of movement, which requires less cortical input
What is the result of long-term ghrelin treatment?
Increased body weight & fat accumulation
What is the relationship between fat & the secretion of leptin?
Increased fat = increased secretion of leptin
What happens when diabetes patients begin taking insulin?
Increased levels of insulin in the blood lead to increased glucose absorption & body weight gain
What is the association between dopamine & aggression?
Increases aggression - drugs that antagonize dopamine have been associated with reduced aggression
In what way are superstitious behaviors adaptive in the animal kingdom?
Increases animals' attention toward cause & effect (contingencies) in their environment
What does AIS look like?
Individuals have male internal biological parts (testes) BUT since there are NO androgen receptors, there is NO external male characteristics
Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM)
Infallible memory for autobiographical
In what way is the motor system like a funnel?
Information can be coming down from the brain in many different ways from many different brain areas to try to control movement BUT the only way to make a muscle move is through the motor neuron in the ventral horn
Explain the pathway by which the amygdala pre-screens the environment
Information from all the sensory systems goes to the basal lateral amygdala & then goes out from the central medial amygdala to the medulla, basal forebrain, & hypothalamus
Explain how information from the left visual field vs. the right visual field enters the eye
Information from the left visual field will go into the nasal hemiretina of the close eye & the temporal hemiretina of the farther away eye and then ALL of this information will be processed in the right hemisphere of the brain; information from the right visual field will go into the nasal hemiretina of the close eye & the temporal hemiretina of the farther away eye and then ALL of this information will be processed in the left hemisphere of the brain
Declarative memories
Information that can be consciously recalled for further processing; associated with hippocampal activity
Reticulospinal tract
Information travels from the reticular formation in the central part of the brainstem
Tectospinal tract
Information travels from the tectum in the superior colliculus to the spinal cord
Vestibulospinal tract
Information travels from the vestibular nucleus to the spinal cord Ex: used if someone pushes you from the side so you can get back to being balanced & keep from falling
What happens in the mPFC if the predicted outcome occurs? How about if it does NOT occur?
Inhibited if the predicted outcome occurs & activated if the expected outcome fails to occur
Galanin
Inhibitory neurotransmitter that is widely expressed throughout the brain; involved in sleep-wake cycles, eating, learning, mood regulation, & protection of neurons from damage
What does the VLPO do if the circadian system says to go to sleep?
Inhibits the raphe nucleus, locus coeruleus, & tubero-mammillary nucleus, which leads to sleep
In terms of what can we think about the amygdala?
Inputs & outputs
What brain area is involved with inputs of emotional information into the cortex?
Insula
Insula
Integrates information about internal & external environments; associated with the interoceptive system that monitors internal homeostatic functions
How does the locus coeruleus play a role in managing impending stress?
Interacts with the amygdala to further fine-tune the stress response
What is the function of renin?
Interacts with the protein angiotensinogen to produce angiotensin I & then angiotensin II
Variations in sleep can be perceived as both an ______________ & an _____________ ___________ variable
Internal & experiential context
Free-running rhythms
Internal rhythms Ex: people who are blind exhibit these
What happens once sensory information arrives in the grey matter of the spinal cord from the dorsal root?
Interneurons connect the information to the appropriate α motor neurons in the ventral horn of the gray matter
How do the PFC & hippocampus play a role in managing impending stress?
Interpret the contextual aspects of the threat
Perception
Interpreting sensory information
Koniocellular layers
Interspersed throughout the LGN, falling below each parvocellular & magnocellular layer; associated with color perception
What did Joseph LeDoux do?
Investigated the fear response using Pavlovian / classical conditioning by pairing a sound with a brief electrical shock until the sound itself elicited a fear response --> he then mapped the brain circuitry of this response
Cingulate cortex / limbic lobe (5th lobe)
Involved in controlling visceral motor output (i.e. controlling your gut)
Limbic system
Involved in emotional resposnes
Superior colliculus
Involved in eye movements & visual orientation, in addition to multisensory integration
Midbrain's superior colliculus
Involved in orienting you to stimuli by focusing on what you need to look at; interprets information from multiple sources (ex: somatosensory, auditory, visual) to arrive at the most informed interpretation of a particular external event
What is the role of the cingulate cortex & PFC, in regards to emotional experiences?
Involved in top-down processing by modulating the expression of emotions based on the integration of information processed across the brain --> influence the intensity of emotional responses based on their appropriateness in specific emotional contexts
Radial arm maze
Involves 8 runway areas that radiate outward from a central area & have treats placed in them; the most efficient strategy is to go into all the arms one time until all the treats are retrieved (rather than repeatedly going into already-visited arms); tests BOTH memory for spatial locations & memory for recent events
Immunocytochemistry (i.e. immunohistochemistry)
Involves exposing extracted brain tissue to specific antibodies to visualize a certain substance of interest, such as brain proteins that are expressed when brain areas are active
Activity-stress research condition
Involves housing rats in cages, restricting their feeding to 1 hour per day, & giving them unlimited access to activity wheels
Bariatric surgery
Involves transecting portions of the stomach & small intestine so there is less volume in the stomach to receive food & reduces the surface area of the small intestine so NOT as many nutrients are being transported into the blood; treatment for people who are morbidly obese
AMPA receptor
Ionotropic receptor; when glutamate is released, it will open up a channel that will allow sodium influx into the cell
What level of tonicity does our body prefer to be at?
Isotonic
What happens after a single pairing of the tail shock & siphon touch?
It activates neurons that release serotonin, which subsequently increases levels of cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP) in the sensory neurons --> this leads to the production of protein kinase (PKA), which is an enzyme that facilitates synaptic transmission & behavioral sensitization
What happens when ACh is released into the neuromuscular junction?
It binds to receptors on the muscle, which will activate, causing the muscle fiber to contract & pull whatever the muscle is on --> contraction of a flexor will flex the body part, while contraction of an extensor will extend it
What can happen to the tympanic membrane if it is damaged?
It can regenerate almost perfectly
What is a problem with frequency theory?
It has trouble explaining higher pitched sounds --> there is an upper limit at about 200 Hz because neurons are limited in how fast they can fire due to the refractory period BUT we can hear fire frequencies than this
What happens to the length of the synapse surface area in the interpositus nucleus following conditioning?
It increases
What is a unique characteristic of the circumventricular organs? What does this allow these organs to do?
Lack of a blood brain barrier - allows these organs to sample & respond to changes in solutes & fluid levels in the brain
What is an explanation for parents forgetting their child in the backseat of a car?
Largely has to do with stressful circumstances that the parent encountered on that day --> when a person is stressed, brain areas (such as the basal ganglia involved in procedural memories) are less likely to be monitored by the hippocampus & PFC as a parent juggles various crises & responsibilities
Where does output of the Purkinje cells go to?
Lateral interpositus nucleus
Where in the brain does the touch information (puff of air) & the auditory information (tone) come together in Thompson's studies on bunnies?
Lateral interpositus nucleus of the cerebellum
What is the effect of overconsumption of high-fat foods?
Leads to higher thresholds for satiety & pleasure, resulting in further overeating & weight gain --> therefore, the sensitive feedback system can NO longer modulate the system, hurting our safeguards for maintaining healthy weight levels & energy balances
What would happen if you cut the axons going to the SCN?
Light information from the SCN would NOT be able to be passed on to any other parts of the brain
Opsins
Light-sensitive proteins; different opsins respond to different colors of light
Septal nuclei
Limbic structure involved in brain reward
Evaporation
Liquid to gas; net loss of heat
What POV regarding the way people think about learning & memory did Pavlov fall into?
Localizationalist
Suprachiasmatic nucleus
Located above the optic chiasm; controls circadian rhythms & sleep
Circumventricular organs
Located around the ventricles; organum vasculosum of the lamina terminalis (OVLT) & subfornical organ (SFO)
Apacrine glands
Located at the base of where a hair is embedded in the skin, mostly near the sex organs & in the armpits; make body odors by secreting things up onto the skin surface
Baroreceptors
Located in the blood vessels & act as stretch pressure receptors that measure the stretch across blood vessels; ones that are located in the heart initially detect low blood volume (hypovolemia) & alert the autonomic nervous system, leading people to develop urges to drink & consume salt to correct the decrease in blood pressure
Pineal gland
Located in the diencephalon right under the skin of the cerebral hemispheres; secretes melatonin into the bloodstream
Piriform cortex
Located in the frontal lobe between the insula & the temporal lobe; 1st place that smell hits for higher information processing
Cardiac muscle
Located in the heart; has elements of both smooth muscle & skeletal muscle
Entrohinal cortex
Located in the hippocampus; its connections with the olfactory system allows smell to tap into memories (i.e. "am I smelling something I should remember to be afraid of or that is rewarding?")
Ventrolateral pre-optic area (VLPO)
Located in the hypothalamus; contains a mechanism that balances between sleep & wakefulness
Primary motor cortex
Located in the pre-central gyrus; contains a map / representation of all the muscles that need to be innervated
Baso-lateral area of the amygdala
Located on the bottom & outside area; receives visual information, auditory information, somatosensory information, & olfactory information from sensory areas in the brain
What play a role in facilitating attentional shifts through the different stages of attention? What is a study showing this?
Locus coeruleus neurons, which are modulated by norepinephrine --> study found that when rats were placed in a novel environment, behavioral activation associated with the norepinephrine system was associated with synaptic plasticity
Microtubules
Long scaffolding proteins that travel long distances down axons to help provide structure to the neuronal axons & act as transportation routes so necessary vesicles & proteins can be delivered to the synapse
What is a cost to the thalamus to amygdala shortcut for threatening information?
Longer route activates higher circuits that allow the individual to exhibit a more informed voluntary action in response to the threat --> i.e. the shortcut can result in mistakes / errors
What did Leah Krubitzer do? What did she find?
Looked at a phylogenetic tree depicting the proportion & placement of various sensory cortical areas throughout the evolution of mammals --> found that the common ancestor's cortex appeared to be dominated by the specific sensory cortical areas (i.e. unisensory cortical areas) BUT as mammals evolved, the unisensory areas shrunk & the cortical association areas, including multisensory areas, increased
Where are many of the brain areas involved in hypovolemic thirst located? Why?
Low down in the brain near the blood-brain barrier - allows them to monitor blood hormones coming in & out
Hypotonic solution
Lower concentration of solutes outside of the cells than exists inside the cells; much less concentrated fluid
Amyloid plaques
Made of beta-amyloid protein, which clump together in a way they're not supposed to & gum up the works; found in between the neurons in the extracellular space
Hormone system / endocrine system
Made up of a number of glands that are distributed throughout the body; refers to the organs throughout our bodies that release hormones
Neurofibrillary tangles
Made up of tau protein; in Alzheimer's, there is a problem with the tau protein so they don't act properly, thus de-stabilizing the microtubules& gumming up the works with the tangles in the neuron
Kappa receptors
Make you feel bad / induce dysphoria when bound to, which indicates that something is NOT rewarding
Androgens
Male reproductive hormones
Wolffian duct
Male reproductive system precursor
Who has more apacrine glands: males or females?
Males
What sex has most aggression research been conducted in? Why?
Males - because the causal link between female testosterone production & aggression is less clear
Compare the number of gametes in males & females
Males have a large # of very small gametes, while females have a small # of very large gametes
Conspecific males
Males of the same species
What type of animals display the most complex & sophisticated emotional responses?
Mammals
What are positive emotions thought to involve?
Many of the same brain mechanisms as aversive emotions do, with additional activation of the brain's reward systems & neurochemicals like opiates & GABA
Why is it important to have independent verification of insomnia?
Many people claim to have it when they actually don't
Homunculus
Map of the somatosensory cortex; has differently proportioned chunks of the somatosensory cortex, in which the more sensitive regions have more representation, while the less sensitive regions have less representation
Somatotopic maps
Maps of correspondences between specific areas of the body & specific areas in the brain's somatosensory system
Hypothalamus
Master regulator for the endocrine system that is located on the ventral side of the brain
What happens if the nervous system detects excessive contraction in a muscle?
May activate the antagonist muscle
How can submissive strategies be adaptive in some cases?
May be a smart social approach that keeps an animal alive in some circumstances, particularly when aggression could lead to increased injury
Awareness
May be targeted at environmental events (external) or toward oneself (internal); associated with activation in the frontoparietal association areas
How is the mirror neuron system involved in the transformation of an athlete from novice to expert?
May contribute to learning from watching others OR to success in sports that require individuals to predict & work in tandem with another player's movements
What is a potential downside to separating the senses to investigate them (i.e unisensory processing)?
May limit our ability to thoroughly understand the interconnections between the brain & behavior
Q10
Measure of enzymatic activity; examines what happens to biochemical reactions in a cell when there is a 10 degree temperature shift up or down --> when the temperature increases by 10 degrees, the reaction rate will go 2-3x faster, & if the temperature decreases by 10 degrees, the reaction rate will go 2-3x slower
How do bitter, sweet, & umami tastes work?
Mediated by metabotropic receptors (i.e. have 2nd messenger systems, specifically g-protein coupled receptors, & a ligand, which is whatever the bitter, sweet, or umami chemical is)
What neurotransmitter functions as an excitatory molecule for the paraventricular nucleus?
Melanocortin
What likely entrains circadian rhythms in blind individuals?
Melatonin
In what way does melatonin act as a sleep facilitator?
Melatonin secretion leads to decreased wakefulness during scheduled sleep phases
Procedural memories
Memories of how to perform certain activities; do NOT represent conscious retrieval of stored memories & associated with hippocampal-independent memory circuits
Korsakoff's syndrome
Memory disorder in which individuals experience an atypical loss of short-term memories; documented in chronic alcoholic patients; disorder that happens to severe alcoholics who have a thiamine deficit (vitamin B1), which leads them to exhibit anterograde amnesia
Semantic memory
Memory for word meanings & concept-based knowledge
Amnesia
Memory loss
Memory engram
Memory traces in the brain
Method of loci
Memory-enhancing technique that requires the student to mentally tack items from a memory list to various sites in a familiar location so that the list can be recalled by mentally walking through the familiar site; brain must properly attend to information before it is committed to memory
Internal awareness
Mental processing that does NOT require the presence of external stimuli (ex: daydreaming, mind wandering, inner speech)
What likely drive the drug-seeking behavior of addicts?
Mesolimbic dopaminergic pathways / areas associated with *wanting* - addicts are often driven to obtain drugs that do NOT necessarily make them happy or lead to extended pleasurable experiences
Ob/ob mice
Mice that express a recessive gene that makes them deficient in leptin receptors, thus resulting in them becoming obese because they do NOT have the long-term satiety signals being given off by leptin from the fat cells
What is the intermediate region of the nucleus accumbens shell involved in?
Mixtures of appetitive & negative (aversive) responses
How is the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) involved in the recognition of unexpected outcomes?
Monitors response-outcomes associations; signals the unexpected non-occurrence of a predicted outcome
Explain negative emotions vs. positive emotions across species & cultures
More aversive / negative emotions (ex: fear, aggression) are clearly present in reptiles, birds, & mammals BUT positive emotions (ex: happiness) are more difficult to observe (even though research shows that they exist in non-human mammals)
Rewarding
More complex responses that may involve more long-term learning & anticipation in addition to positive emotions
What does the growth of cortical association areas allow for?
More opportunities for integrative analysis of environmental surroundings & therefore more advanced cognition because decisions to engage in certain responses could be influenced by multiple factors
Controlled-instrumental aggression
More purposeful type of aggression; more regulated by higher cortical systems
Is the human hand more or less sensitive than raccoons? Why?
More sensitive - because raccoons lack the sensitive Meissner's corpuscles
What happens if there are more membranes in the outer segment of a rod or cone?
More surface area for the photopigments, which makes the cell more sensitive to light
Autonomic system is BOTH __________ & ____________
Motor (sends information down to the gut) & sensory (receives information from the gut)
What is a core component of a majority of responses in our behavioral repertoire?
Movement
What can be a dangerous result of a hypotonic solution?
Movement of excessive water into the cells to establish solute equilibrium, resulting in excessive swelling of the cells
What does exercise focus on?
Movement repetition, intensity, & duration
Optimal actions
Movements / actions that minimize costs & maximize benefits
What are the contralateral fibers from the lateral corticospinal tract important for?
Moving distal limbs & digits
What would happen if there was damage to area V5 / medial temporal area?
Moving objects would look like still-frame pictures, rather than a seamless motion
Olfactory epithelim
Mucous membrane at the top of the nasal cavity; contains olfactory sensory neurons
Extrafusal fibers
Muscle cells that contract to shortern a muscle
Intrafusal fibers
Muscle cells that detect changes in muscle length
All movements require _____________ ______________
Muscle contraction
Fast twitch muscle fibers
Muscle fibers that contract at a fast rate and have great strength but very little endurance; allow us to have great bursts of energy BUT do NOT last very long Ex: sprinters are thought to have more of these
Slow twitch muscle fibers
Muscle fibers that contract at a slow rate and have great endurance Ex: long distance runners are thought to have more of these
Ciliary process
Muscles that allow the lens to change its shape so you can see things that are close or far away; holds the lens in place
Antagonistic muscles
Muscles that produce actions that are opposite of one another (ex: biceps & triceps)
Cataplexy
Muscular weakness of paralysis
Explain the dance of the male blue manakin
Must dance in a duel with another bird to win the sexual attention of a female
What happens to the NMDA receptor if the 2 conditions are met?
NMDA receptor opens up due to the magnesium particle that usually blocks it getting removed --> this allows sodium & calcium to come in
In animals that had been conditioned by LeDoux to have a conditioned fear response to a tone, what happened when the pathway from the MGN to the amygdala was damaged? What does this suggest?
NO fear response - suggests that this part of the circuit is very important for the fear response because somewhere along this pathway, a stimulus is recognized as aversive; if there is damage, information is NOT going from the amygdala to the brainstem, hypothalamus, etc. to cause the autonomic & hormonal responses / behavioral responses
What happens when the pendunculopontine tegmental nuclei is lesioned?
NO rapid eye movements or PGO spikes
What is a downside to working long-term shift work?
Negative health consequences (ex: obesity, diabetes, increased risk of accidents due to decreased alertness during the night because of increase melatonin levels)
What is a larger investment in the learning experience than tweaking of spines on existing dendrites?
Neurogenesis - i.e. the creation of new neurons that are situated within emerging memory / learning cellular networks
What is the technical classification of oxytocin & vasopressin? Why?
Neurohormones - because they are released by a neuron instead of an endocrine gland (BUT once released into the bloodstream, they travel to target organs just as other types of hormones do)
What is the knee jerk test assessing?
Neurological test to determine the efficiency of the *monosynaptic spinal reflex*
What results in delta waves?
Neurons in the neocortex & thalamus being firing in synchrony due to reduced activation from activating brainstem areas
What is a potential mechanism for sleep-immune system interactions?
Neurons that are responsive to immune chemicals (cytokines *interleukin 1* & *tumor necrosis factor*) are located in sleep-wake regulatory centers (brainstem, hippocampus, hypothalamus)
Procedural learning results in several forms of _________________ throughout the cerebellum
Neuroplasticity
Histamine
Neurotransmitter that comes from the hypothalamus; active when animals are alert / awake
Where are neurotransmitters released from & to? How about hormones?
Neurotransmitters are released from a neuron to a neuron, while hormones are released from an endocrine gland into the blood system, where it will find receptors on a target organ
If a molecule works in both the peripheral system & the brain, does it necessarily have the same function?
No
Is area V4 activated when people focus on black-and-white stimuli?
No
Is mesolimbic dopamine the sole neurochemical involved in the brain's reward circuits? What is some evidence for this? (2)
No - mesolimbic dopaminergic neurons are more reliably activated by predictive, attentional, & motivational factors (rather than the more pleasurable aspects of stimuli) - manipulations of mesolimbic dopamine often fails to modulate the degree of liking for a pleasurable stimulus
Is the substantia nigra considered part of the basal ganglia?
No (but it is nearby & communicates with the basal ganglia structures)
Are ultradian rhythms under the control of the SCN?
No - BUT they may be controlled by some other cells in the hypothalamus
Are emotions unique to humans?
No - Darwin proposed that animals experience emotions in a similar way to humans
Is there an aggression center in the brain?
No - aggression is related to complex emotional circuits that also tap into feeding behaviors, maternal behaviors, etc. depending on the context
Is PTSD associated with high cortisol?
No - associated with a cortisol deficit
Can the release of hormones from the anterior pituitary happen via an action potential from the hypothalamus? Why or why not?
No - because NO axons project from the anterior pituitary to the hypothalamus
Is pure autonomic failure disease a full support for the James-Lange theory? Why or why not?
No - because patients still have emotions
Does the "super-sensitivity" of raccoons' forepaws extend to the hind paws? Why or why not?
No - because the forepaw skin has 4x more sensory receptors than the hind paw skin
Is the radial arm maze a working memory task? Why or why not?
No - because working memory refers to the ability to keep information readily accessible while working on a problem (NOT merely being able to remember recent events)
Can classical conditioning only be used for good outcomes?
No - can be used for negative outcomes too
Do photons of light drive the visual system?
No - complex features drive it
Do we need external zeitgebers for our sleep cycle to work?
No - daily rest & activity cycles are regulated by internal mechanisms when the environmental triggers are removed
Is it possible to be completely in the absence of sound?
No - even if you put people in a 0 dB sound proof chamber, they will eventually begin to hear their own sounds (ex: heart beating, air molecules hitting the ear drum)
If we suppress / control emotions, are the experiences also not processed?
No - even when we suppress / control emotions, the experiences are still processed by the appropriate brain areas so we can learn from our experiences & make informed future decisions
Are action-outcome associations the same across different people?
No - even within the same person, different valuation systems may exist that confuse action-outcome calculations & ultimate response options Ex: action-outcome calculations regarding eating ice cream may differ if someone is on a diet because the rewarding taste of ice cream is offset by worries about weight gain
Do you need to lose consciousness to have a brain injury?
No - ex: some people can have a mild head injury (concussion) in which they do NOT lose consciousness at all
Did H.M.'s surgery affect his implicit / procedural memory? What is a study showing this?
No - found that H.M. improved on each subsequent trial of a challenging mirror-tracing motor task, despite NOT remembering the task / having completed it before
Did Clive have complete amnesia?
No - he retained a subset of his memories (e: the fact that Deborah of was his wife, that he was a musician, his ability to play the piano)
Did "S" have HSAM?
No - he was a mnemonist (i.e. a professional memory expert) who used memory aids to facilitate his ability to recall long lists of information, like digits & words
Is conditioned defeat common in females?
No - if it occurs, it is rarely seen after the 1st test following the defeat
Is there a cure for narcolepsy?
No - individually treat the patient's symptoms with various pharmaceuticals (ex: antidepressants, stimulants to counter muscle weakness, & hypnotic drugs to enhance nighttime sleep)
Is DHA self-generated?
No - it is derived from dietary sources (ex: fish like salmon)
Is consciousness more dependent on specific neural circuits?
No - it is more dependent on distributed neural circuits that travel beyond the stimulation site for healthy levels of consciousness
Does the size of the cortical area devoted to a certain body area relate to its size?
No - it relates to the body area's function Ex: area representing the hands & mouth require a greater area of motor cortex than the larger surface areas representing the legs & back, which suggests that the hand is one of the brain's most valued instruments for interacting with the world
Can the VMH be viewed as a simple satiety center?
No - later research (in which VMH-lesioned rats that were prevented from overeating had problems secreting insulin, which increases fat storage) showed that it plays a more indirect role in body weight
Are "old eggs" in females the only reason for a fetus's increased susceptibility to various genetic conditions?
No - recent research is showing that old sperm can also be problematic due to the increased likelihood for mutations while creating so many sperm each day (requires a large # of cell divisions)
If the lateral interpositus nucleus is offline due to a cold cryoprobe, does the animal simply NOT learn the conditioned response to the tone?
No - the animal learned the conditioned response to the tone BUT they couldn't express it because the output pathway to the eye did NOT work
Do we remain in only internal or external awareness?
No - the brain's default mode is to maintain vigilance as it systematically monitors both the internal & external surroundings, which involves switching from internal to external awareness about every 20 seconds
Are muscles directly attached to bones?
No - they are attached to tendons, which are directly attached to the bone
Do the organizational effects of sex hormones on the brain stop after the prenatal period?
No - they may extend into adolescence & perhaps even further
Do the dorsal striatum & ventral striatum systems occur at separate times?
No - they occur at the same time & help us to select what to do based on the stimuli that are coming in
Do the basal ganglia or cerebellum have any direct access down the spinal cord to get at the lower motor neurons / influence the final common pathway to the muscles?
No - they rely on getting information to other places in the brain
Can the cerebellum initiate movement on its own?
No - uses internal & external feedback to monitor & modify movements as they occur
Is behavior random with respect to time?
No - we behave differently at different times of the day, month, year, etc.
Do humans have the accessory olfactory system?
No - we only have remnants of it --> the VNO develops in human fetuses BUT then regresses over time
Do we see the world in specific details like lines & edges?
No - we see the world in scenes
Are your levels of fast vs. slow twitch muscle fibers set in stone?
No - you can develop more of them based on experience (ex: practicing for a marathon)
Do slow delta waves occur in the entire brain? What is the potential reason for this?
No, they occur in localized areas of the brain (as do sleep spindles) - may protect against prolonged durations of slow, synchronized waves throughout the brain, which could result in dangerously low levels of brain activity
Do certain areas of the tongue taste different things (ex: sour areas, sweet areas)?
No, this is a myth - we can taste ALL tastes on ALL parts of the tongue (though there may be some areas that have more of one kind of receptor concentrated there)
Is there only one type of papillae?
No- there are 3 basic types of papillae Ex: papillae called fungiform may have 1-5 taste cells, while another form may have hundreds of taste cells
In what group is the relationship between testosterone & aggression stronger: humans or non-human animals?
Non-human animals
What is some evidence in primates for the skin theory color of vision?
Non-human primates with trichromatic color vision have NO fur on their faces (so the color of the skin is visible), while those primates with dichromatic color vision have retained full facial hair
What is some evidence that implicates the cerebellum in various mental disorders?
Non-motor symptoms (ex: reduced pleasure, anxiety, repetition of responses, aggression) are also observed in psychiatric disorders, such as depression, autism, & OCD
What neurochemical is involved in alerting? Where does it come from?
Norepinephrine from the locus coeruleus
What is the mechanism behind the fact that moderate emotional arousal may facilitate memory formation?
Norepinephrine is implicated in consolidation of emotionally arousing memories
Are we consciously aware of the visual deficit associated with the blind spot? Why or why not?
Not usually - when one eye is still functional, the higher cortical areas can fill in the visual gaps left by the blind spot
What does the VTA project to? (2)
Nucleus accumbens & then to the cortex
Explain the pathway of taste information in the brain (3)
Nucleus of the solitary tract in the medulla --> taste area in the thalamus --> gustatory cortex
What are some downsides of overeating?
Obesity, depression symptoms, addiction symptoms, reduced physical activity
What are the largest # of genes that we have for?
Olfactory receptor cells
How is dopamine critical for reward learning & predicting the value of a situation?
Once dopamine does this, the opiates are going to report the change in internal state back to you (i.e. you felt good or bad) & then it will tell you the outcome of these systems
Rapid encoding of single or categorized items
Once memories have been established, this memory system is involved in the recognition of how subsequent life events fit into those established memory networks Ex: a loud noise outside in the street will be integrated into a threat memory system if you are a military veteran returning from hostile combat
How does the basal ganglia enable us to multitask?
Once motor memories are formed, we can perform a 2nd task Ex: can have a conversation while driving
Volley theory / cross-fiber theory
Once the frequency is high enough that an individual cell can not follow it, a committee / group of receptors begin to follow the frequency (i.e. input frequency = output of multiple receptors)
Explain how the Purkinje cells do a balancing act between the input to determine whether it will fire or NOT
One set of stimuli is coming from one place & another set from another place --> if they converge on a single Purkinje cell, you can get strengthening of synapses, weakening of input, etc.
What is a method to demonstrate how STM works in animals (i.e. to study the underlying mechanisms)?
One trial passive avoidance
Climbing fibers
Only 1 climbing fiber goes to one purkinje cell (1:1 ratio) & synapses very close to the cell bodies of the purkinje cells; excitatory, use *asparate* as their neurotransmitter
What is the caveat to when tissue plasminogen activator (TPA) can be used to treat strokes?
Only effective for ischemic stroke within the first 3 hours
What is a useful application of rodents' extremely sensitive sense of smell?
Operant conditioning can be used to train giant African pouch rats to detect the presence of trinitrotoluene (TNT) in land mines in Mozambique & Mycobacterium tuberculosis in human saliva --> this is more efficient than human lab assistants using visual screening techniques enhanced with chemical tests & microscopes
How are the neurons in the primary motor cortex involved in the transformation of an athlete from novice to expert?
Orchestrate movements toward a consistent goal or intended outcome of movement
Is vasopressin more influential in the male brain?
Originally, researchers thought this BUT research on prairie voles provided evidence for the importance of BOTH oxytocin & vasopressin in BOTH males & females
What is a problem with using gut responses to categorize emotions?
Other things like hunger & thirst also have whole-body physiological responses BUT these things would NOT be categorized as emotions
Consciousness
Our awareness of our internal & external worlds
What did papers published in the 1950s & 1960s say about movement?
Our bodies have evolved for the primary purpose of movement (i.e. moving to find food or to escape a threat)
Pinna
Outer / external ear that allows us to hear better by cupping out to catch sound waves; involved in sound localization
Exteroreception
Output; stimuli from the outside environment
Where is the genital ridge located? Why?
Outside of the dividing fetuses dividing body SO they don't divide & can wait for the fetus to be developmentally ready for them --> the goal is to reduce the chance of mutation that comes with every cell division
Compare the size of the receptive fields in parvocellular ganglion cells vs. magnocellular ganglion cells
Parvocellular ganglion cells have small receptive fields, while magnocellular ganglion cells have large receptive fields
How do steroid hormones work?
Pass through the cell membrane, where they bind to a receptor protein --> the hormone-receptor complex then enters the nucleus & stimulates protein production
What leads us to develop context frames?
Past experience
What is a problem with using L-DOPA as a treatment?
Patients become sensitized to it relatively quickly (within a year or so)
What is a telltale sign of consciousness?
Patients begin exhibiting communication
Narcolepsy
Patients experience uncontrollable bouts of sleep in their waking lives; condition where the patient falls asleep sporadically
Locked-in syndrome
Patients have a fully functioning brain that is essentially trapped in a body that cannot move or communicate in traditional ways
Which afferent pathways in the hippocampus appear to be specialized for associative learning? (2) Why?
Perforant pathway & Schaffer collateral pathway - LTP is contingent on the activation of the postsynaptic cell
What does the VNO require in order for it to work? How does this differ from the olfactory bulb?
Physical contact with the urine or other chemicals - differs from the olfactory bulb, which can be activated through volatile molecules traveling through the air
What does the SCN send information to?
Pineal gland
What is the 1st place that smell hits for higher information processing?
Piriform cortex
What is the target tissue of gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH)?
Pituitary gland
What do tip links have?
Places where there are ion channels
Superior temporal sulcus
Plays a role in audiovisual & facial integrative sensory processing; activated during vocalization & audiovisual discrepancies (like the McGurk effect)
Medial pre-optic nucleus (aka "sexually dimorphic nucleus")
Plays a role in regulating sexual behavior
What is the association between serotonin & aggression?
Plays an inhibitory role in aggression - high serotonin levels are associated with decreased aggressive behavior, while low levels are associated with increased aggressive behavior
Explain eating, resting, & watching TV, in terms of pleasure and/or reward
Pleasurable (but NOT rewarding)
Hedonia
Pleasure; immediate responses / outcome
What is the brain wave pattern found during REM sleep?
Pontogeniculooccipital (PGO) spikes
What did Walter Freeman do?
Popularized prefrontal lobotomies in the US
Overweight
Possessing excessive weight because of muscle, fluids, fat, or bone composition; BMI of 25-29
What brain area is associated with general attention processes?
Posterior parietal cortex
What releases oxytocin & vasopressin?
Posterior pituitary
Which side of the spinal cord does the discriminative touch pathway travel?
Posterior side
Localizationalists
Postulate that there is a particular place in the brain where learning occurs & that learning / memory can be localized to this one place
Why is the amygdala so fast?
Pre-screens information so you can make decisions about things before higher level processing in the cortical areas (i.e. allows you to make rapid decisions about what's happening in your environment)
Context frames
Prepackaged visual perceptual templates that we are likely to encounter; past experience leads us to develop them Ex: very likely for a person to be holding a dog BUT NOT for a dog to be holding a person
What might the hormones during pregnancy do?
Prepare the brain to care for the offspring
What is some neurobiological evidence for the link between testosterone & aggression?
Presence of testosterone in key brain areas involved in aggression (ex: orbitofrontal cortex, hypothalamus, amygdala)
Posterior insula
Primary processing for gut responses from the viscera / interoreceptors; basic information about pain, temperature, fatigue, itch, pressure, tension, etc.
What are the only types of mammals that are trichromats?
Primates
Explain the relationship between primates' intestinal sizes & their diets & brains?
Primates with smaller intestinal sizes relative to their body size generally have higher-quality diets & larger brain Ex: spider monkey & howler monkey have similar body sizes BUT the fruit-eating spider monkey has a smaller stomach & larger brain than the leaf-eating howler monkey
What is REM sleep important for the consolidation of?
Procedural memories
Explain how neuroplasticity in regards to procedural memories changes across the lifetime
Procedural memories formed during childhood can last a lifetime BUT by the time a person is 70 years old, it may be more difficult to learn new motor skills (i.e. form new procedural memories)
Top-down visual processing
Processing more integrated visual information based on context & expectations Ex: past experiences dictate our interpretation of a stimulus
Bottom-up visual processing
Processing specific visual information in increasing levels of complexity; analysis that begins with the sensory receptors and works up to the brain's integration of sensory information Ex: firing of ganglion cells
"Flash sonar" technique
Produce clicking sounds & then uses his sharpened auditory skills to be able to hear the ever-so-slight echoes of the clicks & interpret their location
Angiogenesis
Production of new blood vessels
What does the corpus luteum release?
Progesterone
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)
Programs & drives our response to the gut so we can mediate these gut feelings; high level area of the cortex that gets all of the information coming in & considers how we should feel about it
Thalamocortical neurons
Project from the thalamus to the cortex
What type of projections have been identified as playing a crucial role in the adaptive modifications that occur during echolocation, allowing bats to capture small moving prey?
Projections from the auditory midbrain area to the pontine nuclei in the upper brainstem
What did Dominik Bach & Raymond Dolan do?
Proposed a formal categorization of uncertainty so it could be systematically investigated
What did James Papez do?
Proposed an emotional brain circuit
What did John Winson do?
Proposed that theta rhythms, which are observed in the hippocampal activity of several species of animals during REM sleep, were critical for the processing of survival-related behavior
What are police officers assessing when using the walk-&-turn test to determine sobriety?
Proprioception
Corneal epithelial cells
Provide the cornea with nutrients & take away its waste products through the tear film
What did Donald Hebb do?
Published pioneering ideas about how neuronal circuits were established & strengthened during learning --> idea that convergent activity strengthens synapses
Galvanomic skin response (GSR)
Put 2 electrodes on people's palms & when they start to sweat, the fluid will reduce the resistance between the 2 electrodes, which you can measure; serves as a proxy for emotions
How have researchers examined whether the timing in our body is exogenous or endogenous?
Put animals in situations where there are NO environmental cues --> if you still get some type of cyclical behavior, it's probably an endogenous cue, while if you do NOT get the cyclical behavior, it's probably an environmental cue
What happens to REM sleep as sleep cycles solidify as children get older?
REM content of sleep continues to decrease --> by 6 years old, children spend about 25% of their sleep in REM (which is very close to adult levels of 20-25%)
What stage of sleep will you likely be in when you wake up?
REM sleep
What is the stress model?
Rats are placed in a cage with a cat (natural predator) positioned outside
What happened when NPY was administered to the cerebral ventricles in rats?
Rats showed a robust eating response
What is a theory for how REM sleep & SWS interact?
Real sleep may occur during SWS, which then causes a deficit --> this is then made up by REM sleep, which is the result of cleaning up all the stuff that was going on in SWS
Phase shifts
Realignment in circadian rhythms Ex: shift workers who work at night can potentially adapt over time so that their peak melatonin secretion occurs during the day (BUT this is difficult to do when people work irregular schedules, alternating between day & night shifts)
Insula
Receives lots of information coming in from our body / viscera; involved in sensory information coming in & is part of our cerebral cortex that allows us to process the state of our body
Suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)
Receives stimulation from light via tracts extending from the retina (i.e. retinohypothalamic tracts) & sends information to the pineal gland
Thermoreceptors
Receptor cells that tell you whether something is hot or cold; allow you to detect temperature in the world around you
What makes it virtually impossible to hang on to episodic memories in the exact form they were initially consolidated?
Reconsolidation process
What color is represented by the longer wavelengths?
Red
What is the most common type of colorblindness?
Red-green colorblindness
What is a problem with using alcohol or marijuana as an insomnia treatment?
Reduce REM sleep
What happens as the reappraisal process successfully reduces the emotional experience? What might the purpose of this be?
Reduced activation occurs in the medial prefrontal cortex & amygdala --> these areas may play a role in assessing the relevance of the emotional stimulus
What do lesions of the lateral septum, BNST, anterior hypothalamus, or medial amygdala result in? What does this suggest?
Reduced aggression - suggests that these area promote aggressive displays
In most mammalian species, what is the result of castration? What is an exception to this?
Reduced levels of aggression - one exception is that aggression levels remained unchanged when male prairie voles are castrated
What is habituation associated with?
Reduced levels of serotonin
Anything that _________ the stress response aids in _________ ___________
Reduces ; emotional resilience
What does damage to the occipital face area or the superior temporal facial recognition area cause?
Reduces the quality of visual information about parts of the face, thus eliminating the ability to recognize individual faces
Habituation
Reduction in responding to a repeated stimulus
Memory consolidation
Refers to a process that transforms new, unstable memories into more stable memories that are integrated into the brain's network of existing memories
Limbic system
Refers to a proposed circuit of specific brain areas involved in emotional processing; synonymous for anything that has to do with emotion in the brain
Obesity
Refers to having an excessive amount of fat; BMI of 30+
Motor system
Refers to movement & our ability to move our muscles/bodies around
Final common pathway
Refers to the pathway of the motor neurons in the ventral horn; these motor neurons must be activated to make a muscle move
Resilience
Refers to the psychological response of springing back after a stressful situation; also refers to an individual's ability to cope successfully with acute & chronic stressors
Cross fostering
Refers to the pups being raised by non-biological foster mothers
Blind spot
Refers to the small section of the retina in which the optic nerve exits the back of the eyeball & there are NO photoreceptors, making it so an individual can NOT see any information that falls on this blind spot unless the information is coming from the other eye
Tickling
Refers to vigorous whole-body play simulation that includes repeatedly "pinning" the animal as observed in natural rat play
Why might the distinction between psychological & physiological stressors NOT be meaningful?
Regardless of its source, stress results in a physiological response
Lateral interpositus nucleus of the cerebellum
Region in the deep portion of the middle of the cerebellum; where the learning of the connection between the air puff & the tone seems to be taking place
What is critical for the acquisition & memory of adaptive responses in changing real-world environments?
Reinforcement contingency
What do interneurons do to modulate the synapse on the postsynaptic side, in terms of sensitization? What is the result of this?
Release serotonin onto the axon of the sensory neuron, which leads to the potassium channels working more slowly --> this changes the shape of the action potential because the potassium channels (which lead to hyperpolarizaton) are opening up slower, thus causing a longer depolarization & the 2nd cell to get more neurotransmitter
Luteinizing hormone (LH)
Released from the pituitary gland with high frequency GnRH pulses from the hypothalamus; acts on the ovary, leading to ovulation
Follicle stimulating hormone (FSH)
Released from the pituitary gland with low frequency GnRH pulses from the hypothalamus; stimulates the follicles & decides which will be released in this round of the hormone cycle (ex: in humans 1 or 2 would be released, while in rats, up to 21 could be released)
What is required for success on the delayed matching-to-sample task?
Remembering the sample phase of the study --> if they are unsuccessful, they are assumed to have a memory deficit
Adrenalectomy
Removal of the adrenal glands (source of corticosteroids)
In Bremer's study, why did removing the forebrain cause the cats to go into a comatose state, while bisecting the spinal cord from the rest of the brain did NOT?
Removing the forebrain results in loss of most sensory information (except vision & olfaction), while bisecting the spinal cord from the rest of the brain means that only the somatosensory information from the body is lost
What did Antonio Damasio do?
Reported that individuals with frontal lobe damage experience reduced emotional responses to situations that are traditionally viewed as threatening or emotional --> somatic marker hypothesis
What is a study showing the specificity of the visual system in the cortex?
Researchers were not making much progress recording from the visual cortex in monkeys until one of the researchers waved at the monkeys, which caused the cells in the monkey's visual cortex to fire --> led them to discover that they were recording from cells that were only designed to fire to visual stimuli in the shape of a moving hand
Complex cells
Respond to bar-shape stimuli BUT are less selective about the location of the bar in the visual field; fire to lines of particular orientations, in particular places, & that are moving in a particular direction
Reinforcement-omission effect
Responses strengthen when an animal is NOT rewarded, perhaps because of frustration
Circadian rhythms
Responses, such as the timing of our sleep & wake cycles, with distinct daily rhythms; last for about 24 hours Ex: nocturnal animals Ex: higher rate of people coming into the ER with cardiac problems & women going into labor between 12-6am Ex: blood clots differently at different times of the day
Reconsolidating
Restructuring of memory
Voodoo death
Result of the person believing that they were condemned to death because of a voodoo curse, consumption of a taboo food, or some other form of condemnation
Melanopsin retinal ganglion cells
Retinal ganglion cells that use melanopsin, are scattered throughout the retina, & are very sensitive to light; act as a cue that tells the SCN whether or not light is present
Explain work, in terms of pleasure and/or reward
Rewarding (but NOT pleasurable)
Free running
Rhythm of behavior shown by an animal deprived of external cues about time of day
Ultradian rhythms
Rhythms with a period shorter than 24 hours Ex: heart beat, breathing, blinking, hormone release, nasal patency response
Compare rods & cones (3)
Rods - achromatic (can NOT detect color) - very sensitive to light - more concentrated in the periphery of the retina; completely absent in the fovea Cones - chromatic (can detect color) - less sensitive to light - more concentrated in the fovea
Explain the general pathway of visual information from the rods & cones onward
Rods & cones synapse on the *bipolar cells* which form synapses with the *ganglion cells* which have bundles of axons emerging from them that make up the *optic nerve* that exits through the back of the eyeball
Alpha fetoprotein
Role is to bind up estrogen & take it out of the system
What is the function of the medulla, basal forebrain, & hypothalamus, collectively?
Run the sympathetic nervous system & can cause the autonomic response without going up to the cortex to do higher-order processing
What is a possible explanation for the negative effects of the activity-stress research condition?
Running somehow becomes more reinforcing than eating
What is an experimental hypothesis related to electroconvulsive shocks?
STM is stored in the brain as electrical activity
What happens when cytokines interleukin 1 & tumor necrosis factor are blocked or disrupted?
SWS decreases
Why was Skinner controversial?
Said that ALL behavior was fully caused by external factors
Aplysia
Sea slug; very simple animal that was used by Eric Kandel to study learning & memory
What was the original thought regarding the VMH & LH?
Seen as a satiety & hunger center
Explain the sleep pattern that humans in pre-industrialized societies would follow
Segmented sleep pattern, in which they would have their 1st sleep for about 4 hours, wake up for a few hours, & then have their 2nd sleep for another 4 hours before the morning
Facilitating interneuron
Sends input from the skin receptors on the apylsia's tail that are stimulated by a weak shock; works to interfere with the habituation response of the circuit & allows it to have a much larger / enhanced response to the siphon tap
Locus coeruleus
Sends projections through the brain, around the corpus callosum, & into the cortex to deliver norepinephrine in its noradrenergic synapses; located in the roof of the pons
Meissner's corpuscles
Sensitive to light & touch; concentrated in sensitive skin areas (ex: lips, fingers)
What is a large proportion of the cortex dedicated to in the platypus?
Sensory functions of the bill
What is a large proportion of the cortex dedicated to in raccoons?
Sensory functions of the forepaw - creates "super-sensitivity" in this body part
Animals have specialized _____________ _____________ for each sensory ability
Sensory receptors
Tectorial membrane
Separates the scala vestibuli from the scala media; only attached on one side to the oval window, which allows it to move more freely
Cerebellar peduncles
Serve as a neural communication transit system to other brain areas, such as the cerebral cortex; provide opportunities for the cerebellum to play a role in cognitive functioning
Where is neuropeptide Y (NPY) located?
Several brain areas overlapping with areas associated with the limbic system
Explain how glomeruli work in the olfactory system
Several thousand sensory neurons synapse on just 1 kind of glomeruli as a result of a sorting so all of one odorant goes to a particular glomerulus --> this allows for a simplification / extraction of features
What have studies found happens to rats under the activity-stress research condition?
Severe health consequences - rats will literally run themselves to death, seen through stomach ulcers, hypertrophied or swollen adrenal glands, shriveled thymus glands, restricted eating, increased activity, & significant weight loss
What is a brain area that a Nissl stain showed sex differences in?
Sexually dimorphic nuclei (SDN) of the hypothalamus
Actogram
Shows the activity of a rodent in a cage with an activity wheel; allow you to see the animal's activity when it is awake vs. asleep
What do mu & kappa receptors act as?
Signals to give feedback about the outcome of an experience
What was the effect of TMS on patients in a vegetative state?
Simulated a local simple neural response
What is the biggest circadian rhythm we think about?
Sleep
What is important for consolidation? What is an example showing this?
Sleep - study found that during the sleep, the place cells are still active as animals rehearse what they learned with the maze
What is a potential function of sleep disruption, in terms of fevers?
Sleep disruption patterns may help maintain fevers
Learning & memory theory of sleep
Sleep is important for learning & memory because it allows us to consolidate memories from the hippocampus that we experienced that day & put them into the cerebral cortex / LTM
Cochlear implants
Small electronic device that can be used to restore some aspects of sound perception in many deaf individuals with impaired cochlear function
Sphincter
Small muscle that allows you top open/close the entrance to the stomach & small intestine
Taste buds
Small structures of soft tissue located on the tongue, soft palate, & areas of the throat; contain taste receptors that are specialized for detecting salty, sweet, sour, bitter, & umami (rich, meaty taste)
What sense may have been the most important for early mammals, driving the expansion of the mammalian brain?
Smell (olfaction)
How is smell involved in perception of flavor?
Smell interacts with taste to produce perceptions of varying flavors
What do athletes rely on the basal ganglia to execute?
Solidified motor memories ("muscle memories") that have been consolidated throughout years of practice (because once these movement memories are formed, they are resistant to interference & can be retrieved after long periods of time without training)
Explain the general somatosensory pathway
Somatosensory axons travel from the skin to the CNS by way of the dorsal root ganglia in the spinal nerves
What is some evidence that suggests that human memory systems may NOT be entirely unique?
Some birds have episodic-like memories Ex: scrub jays can recall where they have buried certain types of food & depending on the time elapsed from catching to collection, they will retrieve the most appropriate food source --> when only 4 hours have passed they will retrieve perishable worms BUT after 12 hours, they skip the rotten worms & retrieve peanuts
Stomach cues (for satiety)
Something in the stomach measures stretch; the more you stretch the stomach, you know it's time to stop eating
What did people originally think that LTM had to be based in? What is an example of this?
Something other than electrical activity Ex: thought that a chemical compound might hold memories SO fed some planaria (type of worm) the remains of planaria that had learned to run a maze --> found that this does NOT make the planaria run the maze any better
FTG neuron
Special kind of neuron in the brainstem that takes information from the brainstem all throughout the brain; uniquely capable of turning on/off the brain because of their long projections
FM-FM neurons
Specialized delay-tuned neurons that respond to the delay between the FM component of the signal sent by the bat & a higher FM component of the returning auditory signal
Photoreceptors
Specialized neurons that are sensitive to light
Young-Hemholtz trichromatic theory of color vision
Specialized receptor cells respond specifically to short, medium, & long wavelengths of light, ultimately informing our perception of all recognized colors; essentially 3 receptors that are maximally sensitive to the perception of blue, green, & red are mixed in different ways to produce all of the colors we can see
Alzheimer's
Specific form of dementia that is the most common type
According to Rene Descartes, what are simple behaviors characterized by?
Specific sensory stimulus leading to a specific motor response
Explain the path of tactile information arriving at various areas in the body
Spinal nerve in the dermatome --> ventral posterior nucleus --> primary somatosensory cortex, secondary somatosensory cortex, etc. All of this occurs via the dorsal column-medial leminiscus pathway
What re-emerges after 30 minutes in SWS, the first time?
Stage 2 sleep
Toward the morning, what is non-REM sleep characterized mostly by?
Stage 2 sleep, accompanied by multiple brief arousals & evidence of stage 1 appearing once again (which is preparing the body to enter a state of alert wakefulness again)
Somatic marker hypothesis
States that physiological emotional responses serve an important role in guiding the brain's decision to carry out a particular behavior, especially when making risky decisions; emphasizes the importance of physiological feedback in the expression of certain emotions that may be necessary to inhibit certain behaviors Ex: more likely to take risks gambling or commit a crime without the uneasy feeling in your stomach
What do the testes produce early in development?
Steroid hormones that are androgens, which maintain the Wolffian ducts & produce something to eliminate the Mlullerian ducts in males
What was the effect of TMS on minimally conscious patients?
Stimulated more complex neural responses that traveled to distant cortical regions in ipsilateral & contralateral hemispheres --> these responses correlated with recovered consciousness so TMS technique appears to be effective in determining the potential of recovery in patients
Aldosterone
Stimulates reabsorption of sodium & water; released by the adrenal cortex
Cross-modal stimuli
Stimuli from 2 senses
Can we detect pheremones?
Studies have found that before puberty, children can detect these odors BUT after puberty, 50% of people claim that they can no longer detect them (15% of which find them very offensive & 30% of which are extremely sensitive to them)
What is some supporting evidence for the association between neurogenesis & learning / memory?
Study found that behavioral training increases the proliferation & survival of newborn neurons, as well as increases the elimination of newborn neurons at a specific development phase --> essentially, experiences that increase neurogenesis in rodents also increase learning & memory
What is a study showing multisensory integration & cross-modal stimuli?
Study found that participants who smell an aroma while looking at a beautiful mountainous scene smelled a pleasant / fresh smell, while those who smell the SAME aroma while looking at an image of a city scene with smoke stacks emitting dark smoke smelled a toxic / pungent smell --> the visual scene contributed to the final perception / interpretation of the aroma
What is a study showing how the primary motor cortex is involved in a motor task performance?
Study found that rats trained in a motor task performance exhibit *increased synaptic complexity in the primary motor cortex* & a *modified cortical map representation* accompanying more precise performance in motor skills
What is a study showing the importance of facial skin color in judging people's health?
Study found that when asked to adjust an image of someone's face to make them appear healthier, subjects responded by making the face redder, which is consistent with increased oxygenated blood flow
Explain a study examining romantic relationships in AIS females
Study found that when presented with sexually arousing images, BOTH XX & XY AIS women responded with less amygdala activation than male subjects --> suggests that romantic relationships are influenced by more than sex characteristics
What study was used to determine the 8-hour sleep need? Why is this problematic?
Study of children & adolescents, which may NOT generalize to adults
What is a study showing that blind individuals have similar mirror neuron networks to sighted individuals?
Study suggested that sighted & congenitally blind subjects showed similar patterns of fMRI brain activation when they were exposed to auditory presentations of hand-executed actions (ex: the sound of scissors) & when they pantomimed that action via manipulation of a virtual tool
What is a study showing that maternal rats are vulnerable when environmental conditions are NOT optimal?
Study used a restricted / low resources cage condition (which is a model for poverty conditions) --> found disrupted quality of maternal care (distracted, slower at retrieving the pups, etc.) & that in a challenge task, they were very confused & couldn't figure out how to reach the pups
What was Pavlov doing when he uncovered the idea of classical conditioning?
Studying salivation in dogs (to examine digestion, originally) by implanting cannulas into the dogs' salivary glands to measure saliva production --> realized that the dogs would begin to salivate when workers in another room would rattle the lids of the garbage cans where the food was kept
Emotions
Subjective feelings that are influenced by activation of various parts of our CNS & PNS, which ultimately heightens our level of conscious awareness surrounding the internal & external circumstances of a particular event
Solutes
Substances dissolved in a liquid
What did Jerry Lettvin do?
Suggested that we may have specific neurons that contain our memories for specific people & concepts Ex: "grandmother cells" that contain the memory of one's grandmother - exist in only thousands of neurons, rather than requiring activation of ALL the billion cells in the medial temporal lobe Ex: cells in the hippocampus that respond to a single person, such as Luke Skywalker or Jennifer Aniston
Heroin
Super-form of morphine (i.e. more potent)
What brain area is involved in the McGurk effect?
Superior temporal sulcus
Tau protein
Supports microtubules by ensuring that they stay together going straight
Atonia
Suppressed muscle tone
Adrenalectomy
Surgical removal of the adrenal gland
Pure autonomic failure disease
Sympathetic nervous system in particular is NOT working; interoreception being affected leads to blunted emotions (i.e. lack of a gut feeling leads individuals to NOT be able to feel their emotions as strongly)
Anorexia nervosa
Symptoms include being at a significantly low body weight, having an exaggerated fear of gaining weight & an unrealistic perception of weight, & demonstrating persistent behavior that interferes with weight gain (such as excessive exercise)
Hermaphrodites
Technically refers to individuals who possess both male & female gonads BUT is more often used for those with ambiguous external genitalia
What type of summation is involved in whether a simple cell fires?
Temporal summation
What happens to aspects of the PNS related to growth, reproduction, digestion, & immune functions during the stress response? Why?
Temporarily compromised - this occurs so the body can direct enough energy toward carrying out life-saving functions
Explain a test for astigmatism
Test requires people to look at 2 parallel lines in different orientations starting from far away; as they walk closer, they have to say when they can tell that there is 2 separate lines instead of 1 --> astigmatism can make people see some line orientation pairs better than others due to how the light is focused
What did a study with the radial arm maze find?
That damage to the hippocampus significantly interferes with success on this task
What does the high density of vasopressin receptors in the ventral pallidum of monogamous species suggest?
That lifelong pair bonding is closely associated with the density of vasopressin receptors in reward areas of the brain
What does variation of cone densities & distributions across animals suggest? Example?
That specific cone / rod ratios have been selected for various habitats & lifestyles Ex: BOTH rats & squirrels are dichromats BUT the diurnal squirrel's retina contains about 86% cones, whereas the nocturnal rat retina contains only 1% cones
What does the presence of different types of spatial cells suggest?
That the rat brain is hard-wired for accessing spatial information (i.e. NOT a blank slate)
What did MacLean conclude regarding Kluver-Bucy syndrome?
That the temporal lobes played a critical role in emotional expression
What did researchers realize when they first began measuring hormones?
That there was a big difference in the hormones being regulated in males' vs. females' bodies, in that females' bodies had an ebb & flow of hormones while males' bodies had the same levels of circulating hormones at all times
But did Fritsch & Hitzig find as they stimulated areas more & more rostrally into the frontal lobe?
That they were able to get motor movement BUT needed to stimulate with more voltage
What is the key to success of the photoreceptors?
The *detection* of the presence of light, regardless of whether that detection results in a depolarization or hyperpolarization
Weber's law
The JND is a constant proportion of the initial stimulus; the principle that, to be perceived as different, two stimuli must differ by a constant minimum percentage (rather than a constant amount) Ex: for a subject to detect a JND in the loudness of low-intensity sounds, one sound must be 10% louder than the other sound
What is driving melatonin secretion & circadian rhythms?
The SCN
Emotional flexibility
The ability to both enhance & suppress emotions; emphasizes the importance of matching the emotional expression to situational demands
Color constancy
The ability to continue to perceive that an object is a specific color even under varying perceptual conditions (ex: light dimming)
Lucid dreaming
The ability to control what's happening in your dream; occurs during REM sleep & occurs more often with children
Proprioception
The ability to sense the position, orientation, & movement of one's own body; the ability to know exactly where your body is in space at any given time
What is the largest gene family in the vertebrate genome? How many of these are functional in humans
The about 1,000 genes that code for receptors of odorant molecules --> only about 300-400 of these receptors are functional in humans
How does the mesolimbic dopamine reward circuit play a role in eating?
The activation of "liking" reward circuits ensures that humans consume sweet, fatty, & salty foods
Tonicity
The amount of solute per unit of water; the amount of solutes in a solvent
What pre-screens the environment for emotionally arousing stimuli?
The amygdala
Compare the speed of the amygdala to that of the cortex
The amygdala is a very fast & immediate system, while the cortex takes much longer to respond to sensory information
What happens when one elephant has a gallon of blood taken out & another elephant does NOT?
The animal that lost blood will drink more water due to the hypovolemic thirst response
Dorsal striatum
The area of the caudate/putamen that receives inputs from the substantia nigra (& the globus pallidus area)
What do hair cells in the basilar membrane form synapses with?
The auditory nerve
What is a major difference between the auditory system pathway & the visual system pathway?
The auditory system has a clear cut pathway that auditory information must follow (i.e. NO parallel pathways), while the visual system has more choice (i.e. has parallel pathways)
What is the amygdala classified as part of?
The basal ganglia
How does serotonin increase synaptic excitability?
The binding of serotonin molecules to serotonin receptors of the sensory neuron blocks potassium flow via increased levels of PKA, which extends the action potential duration & allows increased influx of calcium into the synaptic terminal --> calcium then facilitates the expulsion of glutamate molecules from the synaptic vesicles into the synaptic cleft
What happens if the temperature increases in a chemical system?
The biochemical reaction rates also increase
What must happen to make a complex cell fire?
The body must ensure that all of the simple cell signals reach the complex cell at the same time because if this doesn't happen, the complex cell will NOT fire because it isn't summative
What happens if caloric intake stops?
The body will enter a state of starvation & physiological functions will begin to fail
Scala tympani
The bottom fluid-filled space of the cochlea
What is one of the first organs to feel the effects of food deprivation?
The brain
What is the major issue with Parkinson's disease?
The brain doesn't know which movement to initiate because there's no dopamine coming from rewarding behaviors
What happens when hypovolemia is detected?
The brain releases vasopressin
James-Lange theory of emotion
The different bodily reactions that occur in response to different stimuli lead to the experience of emotions (i.e. our behavior drives our emotions); bottom-up theory Stimulus --> response --> emotion
What happens when the elephant that had a gallon of blood taken out is offered a choice between water & an isotonic solution (9 grams of salt per liter of water)?
The elephant will drink exactly 1 gallon of the isotonic solution to replace the solution they lost
Oval window
The entry point for the sound into the cochlea
Cochlear nucleus
The first brain stem nucleus at which afferent auditory nerve fibers synapse; spans the border of the brainstem & the pons
Broadman's area #17
The first place in the visual cortex that receives visual information
What maintains the rods' depolarized state in the dark / hyperpolarized state in the presence of light?
The flow of sodium ions, which is controlled by cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP)
What happens in the probe trial of the dry land maze?
The food reward is completely removed --> found that maternal rats exhibit adaptive strategies / rational responses by checking out the original well, as well as the other ones
What is a potential problem when both ears are facing straight towards a sound?
The frequency can get too high to the point that the ears can't detect sound differences between them
Pitch
The frequency of sound waves (i.e. the change in the sound pressure variation per unit over time); the highness or lowness of a sound / tone
Frequency modulation (FM)
The frequency of the sound wave is varied
Homeostatic / repair & restore theory of sleep regulation
The function of sleep is to provide rest & recovery, in that sleep provides a time to replenish stores of energy in cells & clean up debris (breakdown products); once the body reaches a threshold, you need to repair & restore SO you get sleepy
What do the taste cells contact?
The gustatory sensory neurons
Where is the amygdala located?
The horn of the temporal lobe (i.e. way down toward the bottom of the temporal lobe)
Indirect mechanism through the hypothalamus
The hypothalamus can look at the circulating levels of hormones in the body & decide to adjust these levels by releasing its own precursor hormones into the blood; the anterior pituitary gland can then analyze the blood content of hormones & adjust its response by deciding what signal to send (i.e. *indirect brain to blood to target tissue, the pituitary gland*)
Time concept (sound localization)
The idea that sound waves hit the closest ear first, which then starts to report information milliseconds before the other ear; we have a circuit in our brainstem auditory nuclei that allow us to detect & measure these small differences & that only fires if a stimulus comes in at different times
Prosopagnosia
The inability to recognize faces; caused by damage to the fusiform face area
What are theta rhythms associated with in humans?
The initiation of voluntary memories Ex: recalling movements during the day to remember where you left your phone
Nasal hemiretina
The inside half of the retina; located by the nose on the eyes on either side
Loudness / amplitude
The intensity of sound waves; how loud or quiet the sound is
What is brightness determined by?
The intensity of the light stimulus --> amplitude
What happens to the intrafusal muscle spindle organ if the muscle is stretched?
The intrafusal muscle spindle organ is also stretched & can communicate this status via the afferent spinal root to the nervous system, which can then correct the situation by stimulating the antagonist muscle OR inhibiting the stretch
What happens at 6 weeks of development in females?
The lack of androgens: - suppresses the Wolffian ducts - stimulates the transformation of the Mullerian ducts into female internal & external genitalia
Cerebellum
The large structure located at the base of the skull that makes up 10% of the brain's total volume & contains 4x more neurons than the cerebral cortex; plays an essential role in movement coordination, balance, & muscle tone
Parvocellular layers
The layers located on the dorsal surface of the LGN; provide identifying details about the stimulus (i.e. "what")
What happens to the length of the different parts of the sleep cycle as the night progresses?
The length of the REM period increases (up to 30 minutes per period) & the amount of SWS decreases
What is a problem with the limbic system, in terms of understanding emotions?
The limbic system is clumped together to categorize all emotional content SO there is a lot going on in this area
Where are multisensory neurons especially abundant?
The midbrain's superior colliculus
Medullary pyramids
The midbrain, pons, & anterior medulla
Scala media
The middle space of the cochlea; contains fluid, in addition to the machinery that allows for hearing (organ of corti)
Optic chiasm
The midline structure in the brain where the visual field information from each eye "crosses over" to the appropriate side of the brain for processing; where information from the eyes can cross over to the other side of the brain
Difference threshold / just noticeable difference (JND)
The minimum amount that a stimulus must change for the subject to detect a difference, regardless of whether the stimulus was light, sound, pressure, or heat
Mass action
The more brain that was taken out of the animals, the worse they did on the maze (BUT they were still able to learn it, just more slowly)
Implicit / procedural memory
The motor memory that enables us to fine-tune the brain's circuitry underlying skilled performances; procedural (skills & habits)
Convection
The movement of heat between fluids Ex: when you take a breath in of cool air, it is then warmed up by your lungs / nasal cavity & then you exhale warm air that mixes with cool air in the room, which can heat up the room
Radiation
The movement of heat via electromagnetic radiation Ex: while sitting around a bonfire, you are warm on your front due to the radiant energy coming off the fire & hitting you, but you feel colder on your back because the energy is not hitting you
What happens as we experience normal physiological functions (ex: urinating, sweating) that are associated with fluid loss?
The movement of intracellular fluids to extracellular spaces triggers a series of actions that promote fluid consumption & other compensatory mechanisms to replace the lost fluids
Extensor
The muscle that opens the joint back up Ex: tricep
What is an exception to skeletal (striatal) muscles being voluntary?
The muscles allowing us to maintain our posture while engaging in various tasks are skeletal BUT often under involuntary control
Where are odorants inhaled into?
The nasal cavity
Osmosis
The net movement of fluid (ex: water) through a semi-permeable membrane into a region of higher solute concentration; the diffusion of water molecules
What happens during the 3rd week in the development of a mouse hippocampal neuron?
The neurons begin forming connections with local neural networks through filopedia, which seek out existing synaptic terminals on other neurons to incorporate an existing circuit into the neuron's infrastructure
Temporal hemiretina
The outside half of the retina; located by the temples on the eyes on either side
What is the target tissue of FSH?
The ovary
What is an exception to the idea that some animals (including humans) evolved to become diurnal & therefore needed more accurate visual assessments of their environment (through having additional cones)?
The owl monkey --> switched from being diurnal to nocturnal; have large eyes that allow more light to enter the eye to enhance visibility during darkness
Audition / hearing
The perception of sound produced by variations in sound waves
Brain death
The permanent loss of brainstem function
Conditioned defeat
The phenomenon in which if a previously defeated hamster is placed in a cage with a smaller, non-aggressive male hamster, it will continue to exhibit submissive displays & will experience similar physiological effects to those observed during the initial aggressive encounter leading to defeat
Specific hunger
The phenomenon in which if you maintain an animal on a diet that is deficient in one nutrient (ex: thymine) & then later give them a choice, they will preferentially eat the good that has thymine in it; this also happens in humans, such as with a pregnant woman craving foods with the nutrients she needs
Sensory-specific satiety
The phenomenon in which special LH cells (which play a role in initiating food intake, specifically) are temporarily quieted when the individual is full of one type of food substance BUT then are reactivated when a new, appealing food is presented
Photopsin
The photopigment in cones
Rhodopsin
The photopigment in rods
Induced ovulation
The physical act of sex / copulation causes the animals to ovulate; very rare - only occurs in about 6-8 animals in total
What is the hypothalamus intricately connected to?
The pituitary gland, which hangs off the hypothalamus
What is special about the platypus, in regards to touch?
The platypus has a very sensitive bill, which they use to explore their surroundings as they search for food or other resources
What happens at 6 weeks of development in males? (2)
The presence of androgens: - suppresses the Mullerian ducts - stimulates the transformation of the Wolffian ducts into internal & later external male genitalia
Sensitization
The presence of another noxious stimulus leads to increased arousal & a response to previously-habituated stimuli Ex: small shock will make you more vigilant about what's about to happen next
Memory consolidation
The process by which an unstable memory representation is converted into a stable & accessible memory; the process of moving information from STM to LTM
What is saturation determined by?
The purity of the light stimulus, represented by the precision of the wavelength bandwidth of the visual output
What explains the fact that when you stimulate one of the motor cortices, the other side of the body moves?
The pyramidal decussation & crossing over of motor information
What is the result of having a very high density of photoreceptor cells in the fovea?
The receptive fields are must more sensitive, in that they are activated more readily by smaller amounts of light --> each cell is responsible for a very small & specific part of the receptive field (unlike in the rest of the retina where each one is responsible for a larger area)
What happens if red & green are equally activated, according to opponent-process theory?
The red vs. green opponent process cell will not do anything (because the red & green signals cancel each other out), which will lead to you seeing yellow
Ventral posterior nucleus of the thalamus
The relay nucleus of the thalamus specialized for somatosensation
Negative reinforcer
The removal of negative or aversive stimuli (ex: chores, pain)
What are the ARAS & raphe nuclei part of?
The reticular formation
What hormones have been implicated by research with prairie voles in the formation of strong social & romantic bonds?
The role of posterior pituitary hormones *oxytocin & vasopressin*
What makes the cochlea more responsive to vibrations?
The round window
Vestibular system
The sensory system that responds to gravity and keeps people informed of their body's location in space
SRY
The sex-determining region of the Y gene; important for encoding a protein that initiates the male sexual differentiation process (i.e. the formation of the testes from the Wolffian ducts)
Multisensory integration
The simultaneous integration of multiple sensory systems
State-dependent learning
The state or place is important for learning & memory, in that you will be better at recalling information on a recall task if you're in the same situation as you were in when you learned the information Ex: if you train animals while they are intoxicated with morphine / barbiturates / alcohol / nicotine, they will perform better later if they're put back in that same state
What is one of the most influential mediators of psychoneuroimmunological functions?
The stress response
Behavioral neuroendocrinology
The study of the interaction between behaviors, the brain, & hormones, & how they influence behavior or psychological processes
What happens to rats that have been trained to be either confident or submissive if the centro medial side of the amygdala is damaged? What is the explanation for this?
The submissive / weak rat will NOT stop fighting (i.e. will fight as hard as it can) --> the explanation is that the emotional input from the basolateral side is NOT being processed & going out properly
Neuromuscular junction
The synapse formed when the axon terminal of a motor neuron positions itself in a section of the extrafusal muscle fiber called the motor end plate; cholinergic synapse (i.e. uses ACh)
Taste pore
The tiny hole at the top of the taste bud that allows taste information to activate receptor cells in the taste bud
Scala vestibuli
The top fluid-filled space of the cochlea
Conduction
The transfer of heat via solid surfaces (i.e. direct contact) Ex: when you sit in a cold chair for a while, it will warm up --> you have lost heat to the chair & it has gained heat through conduction
What are EEG waves characterized by?
Their shape & frequency, measured in Hertz (cycles per second)
What explains why lesions of the auditory cortex do NOT interfere with the LeDoux's conditioned fear response?
There are some shortcut processes directly from the thalamus to the amygdala, which initiate the fear response
Explain how every cell has its own circadian rhythm. How is melatonin involved?
There is a 24ish hour cycle occurring in which a cell makes mRNA that gets translated into "clock" proteins for most of the day until the cell has made enough protein & a feedback loop goes back to the nucleus, which turns off production; after the protein levels have reduced, another mechanism directs that there's not enough protein & then turns production back on --> melatonin works to synchronize all these clocks in different cell types so that they all go at one time & the body is one functional unit
What happens when a photon of light is absorbed by rhodopsin in the rods?
There is a change in the shape of retinal, which activates the transformation of a G-protein (transducin) to another form that activates cGMP phosphodiesterase, which works to reduce cGMP concentrations that maintain the open sodium channels --> this results in the closure of the sodium channels & hyperpolarization of the receptor In simpler terms, the rhodopsin molecule changes shape, which opens up channels across the membrane that allow ions to flow across the membrane & cause the cell to fire
Explain the biological reason for CAH
There is a feedback mechanism from the adrenal gland to the pituitary gland & hypothalamus that causes them to increase their signal & for more androgens to be made
In AIS, is there an issue with hormonal organization or activation?
There is a problem with the activating system that would have made her male
In animals that had been conditioned by LeDoux to have a conditioned fear response to a tone, what happened when the pathway / output to the cortex was damaged? What does this suggest?
There was still a fear response - suggests that the cortex part of the circuit is NOT related to the fear response (which still occurs even if the cortex is damaged)
What happens if you castrate a sexually experienced animal? How does the age of the animal play into this?
There will be a drastic decrease in the amount of circulating hormones & sexual behavior --> BUT if you castrate an older sexually experienced male, they will retain more sexual interest for longer because this is a behavior that they've done already
What happens if you selectively deprive animals of either REM sleep or SWS?
There will be a rebound effect in which they immediately "make up" this form of sleep
What happens if you give one of the fully castrated males an injection of testosterone?
There will be a temporary spike in sexual interest BUT then it will decrease again as the hormones drop off
How does psychosurgery differ from regular surgery?
There's nothing damaged about the areas being removed - just trying to modulate emotional output & change behavior
What do case studies show regarding prefrontal cortex damage prior to 2 years old?
These individuals exhibit impulsive & aggressive behavior in adulthood
Are taste cells neurons?
They are NOT technically neurons because they do NOT have all of the characteristics of a neuron; BUT they are still receptor cells & have a chemical neurotransmitter that allows them to communicate
What is a benefit of habits?
They are efficient
What is more important: anticipating a reward or actually receiving the reward?
They are equally important
What happens if the SDN is lesioned in females?
They do NOT cycle anymore
What happens to positive outcomes, in terms of reward pathways?
They get wired / mapped onto our dopamine circuits in a way that cue you to make decisions toward getting those rewarding things
What did early studies observing animal eating patterns find?
They had periods of eating & periods of NOT eating
What happened to female offspring of mothers who received desPLEX?
They received very high levels of circulating estrogen hormones, which led to them experiencing problems with cycling once they hit puberty
What happens when the kidneys detect hypovolemia?
They release the hormone renin into the circulatory system
What caused the 6 individuals to become "frozen" as if they had Parkinson's disease?
They thought they were taking heroin, but it actually was an analogue of the narcotic medicine Demerol (meperdine), which is a toxic substance
Once nutrients are taken out into the blood by the small intestine, what happens?
They travel through the blood to the interstitial space (extracellular space), after which they go into the cell
What happens if you castrate a male without any sexual experience?
They will likely lose sexual behavior even quicker because they never experienced it to begin with
What happens if you force animals with a PWS model on a particular eating schedule?
They will lose body weight
Why do antihistamines make you drowsy?
They work by blocking histamine receptors on the TMN neurons, leading to their decreased firing rates & an individual's reduced ability to stay awake
Operants
Things in the world around us that result in rewards that increase the probability that we will act a certain way --> if a behavior is punished, then it reduces the likelihood that it will be repeated & if a behavior is reward, it increases the likelihood that it will be repeated
Oral cues (for satiety)
Things that happen in your mouth; non-palatable foods will be eaten less, based on flavor
Hypovolemic thirst
Thirst provoked by low blood volume or loss of body fluid by bleeding, sweating, or diarrhea; osmotic pressure remains the same, but fluid is necessary
What happens to individuals with 5-α reductase deficiency at puberty?
This enzyme is NOT needed for male sexual development SO individuals begin developing male external genitalia & secondary sex characteristics
Why is it important for animals to be able to predict a reward in advance?
This increases the probability of actually obtaining the reward
What types of motor units are characteristic of muscles you have little fine control over (ex: back muscles)?
Those with greater numbers of innervated muscle fibers by a single axon
How were the 3 types of cones discovered?
Through behavioral experiments in the field of psychophysics in which they did sensory tests on people by showing them a color to see if they could see it, for example
How was dogs' attentiveness toward humans acquired?
Through living with humans for thousands of years (because wolves do NOT have this trait)
What is the key point of breaking down food by chewing?
To increase the surface area of the food so that the rest of the digestive system has more opportunities to work on it
What is the function of the vitreous humor & the aqueous humor, collectively?
To maintain a healthy internal environment than the eye
What is the ultimate goal of behavior?
To make the optimal choice that maximizes an animal's individual survival & the survival of its genetic code
What is the purpose of optimal actions?
To optimize survival, including behaviors associated with reproduction., health, & regulation of movement during stressful times
Where are deficits after a stroke usually localized?
To the place that was deprived of blood or oxygen / glucose --> severity of damage depends on how long blood flow was occluded
Where does information travel to in the corticospinal tract?
To the ventral side of the brain stem, where there is the *pyramidal decussation*
Timbre
Tone color; refers to how harmonics come around a single note to give it flavors / tones Ex: an "A" note on the piano & the cello is the same not BUT they have different harmonics going into them
Where are taste receptors ("taste buds") located?
Tongue, roof of mouth, back of the throat, top of the esophagus (i.e. NOT just the tongue)
What is the primary sensory portal of raccoons? What is their most prominent strength?
Touch - most prominent strength is the ability to discriminate between objects based on tactile cues
What was Helen Keller's most important sensory portal?
Touch - she could learn about objects in her environment by touching them
What is an example of courage being manipulated in cat-fearing rats so they fearlessly approach their natural predators?
Toxoplasma gondii parasite can only sexually reproduce in cat intestines SO it travels to the rat's brain to reduce the rat's fear of cats (likely by altering activity of the amygdala), thus making it more likely for the rat to approach the cat & for the parasite to arrive at the cat's intestines
Spinothalamic (anterolateral) pathway
Transmits information from axons mediating tactile pain & temperature sensation in the skin; very similar pathway as the dorsal column-medial leminiscal pathway
What experimental treatment was used on the 6 individuals who become "frozen" as if they had Parkinson's disease? How effective was it?
Transplantation of developing dopaminergic neurons from a fetus in their brains, with the goal of increasing the chances of the cells surviving & maturing into dopamine-producing cells in the adult host brain --> some patients had great improvements in their movement after the treatment BUT subsequent clinical trials demonstrated individual differences in the patients' recovery rates
Luteinizing hormone
Travels from the anterior pituitary to the gonads to influence hormone release
Corticorubro spinal tract
Travels from the cortex to the rubro (red nucleus in the mesencephalon / midbrain) before going to the spinal cord; allows information coming down from the cortex to be modulated by inputs coming into the midbrain, specifically the red nucleus
Prosocial behaviors
Trust, empathy, altruism, etc.
Eustachian tubes
Tubes that extend from the external ear to the back of the throat; function as a pressure equalizer between pressure on the inside & outside of the eardrum
Concordance study
Twin study that compares people with identical genomes (i.e. monozygotic twins) to those with shared genomes (i.e. dizygotic twins) or very unrelated genomes (adopted siblings); examines whether there is a correlation between the amount of genes someone shares with another person & the chances that they share a particular behavioral trait
What is an important variable that can influence decision making?
Uncertainty - in the real world optimal decisions may be less obvious because we cannot be certain of the outcomes of our actions
What is Huntington's disease characterized by?
Uncontrollable movement due to cell loss in the caudate / putamen, which makes patients lose the ability to inhibit the inhibitor
Sham rage
Uncontrolled displays of emotion
What type of control are cardiac muscle & smooth muscle generally said to be under? What recent research suggests that this might not be entirely true?
Under involuntary control BUT research on *biofeedback* suggests that people can be trained to control physiological responses that are typically viewed as involuntary (ex: blood pressure, relaxation of the internal anal sphincter)
What is a unique feature of light transduction in the rods?
Unlike most neurons, rods are *hyperpolarized* by light & remain in a depolarized state in the dark
Explain pharmocotherapy for insomnia treatment
Use benzodiazepines
Electroconvulsive shock
Used as a therapy for certain mental illnesses; put 2 electrodes on either side of the brain & pass current between them to reset all the electrical activity in the brain
Echolocation
Used by bats, who generate sounds & analyze the echoes of those sounds to detect the presence of small insects up to 10 m away; also used by whales, dolphins, & has been replicated by scientists who developed sonar used by the military to detect the location of underwater objects (ex: submarines)
How did the basal ganglia used to be viewed as? What has now changed?
Used to be viewed as a "go-through" system, creating a motor loop in which the basal ganglia structures modulate information from cortical areas & then send it back to the cortex for final movement execution; BUT now, we understand that it also processes information from several surrounding brain areas & monitors internal feedback from within the basal ganglia
TMS & high-intensity EEG
Used to determine the pervasiveness of activation across the brain
L-DOPA
Used to treat Parkinson's disease by increasing levels of dopamine in patients experiencing deficits in this neurotransmitter
Otolith organs
Utricle & saccule; one is on the x plane & the other is on the y plane
Orientation columns
V1 neurons that respond to lines of a particular orientation are grouped together in these specific orientation columns
Mesocortical system
VTA to the cortex
Mesolimbic system
VTA to the limbic system (including the nucleus accumbens); may help you determine what decision to make in terms of which stimuli is important to react to
What is a challenge to the homeostatic / repair & restore theory of sleep regulation?
Vast differences in sleep requirements among mammalian species, in which large animals do NOT necessarily require more sleep
Neurons in what area increase their activity during SWS?
Ventrolateral preoptic area (VLPO)
What is a benefit of induced ovulation?
Very efficient - won't waste time making an egg if there's NO chance for it to be fertilized
Reflexes
Very fast neural networks that are outside of the domain of the brain's cortex
According to the trichromatic theory of color vision, what happens when all colored lights are superimposed?
Viewers see white (which is different than what happens when you mix different paint colors)
What do PET scans of individuals with brain death show?
Virtually NO observable resting brain activity
Rods & cones
Visual photoreceptors that line the most peripheral layer of the retina
What does activation of specific areas of the motor cortex accompany?
Voluntary control of corresponding muscle groups in the body
Skeletal (striatal) muscle
Voluntary muscles; connected to bones & allows us to move our body / limbs
Termination insomnia
Wake up too early & can't go back to sleep
Who proposed the idea of homeostasis?
Walter Cannon
What did Linda Geddes & Nic Fleming do at their wedding?
Wanted to determine whether their "love hormones" (oxytocin) & those of their guests would increase during the wedding ceremony so took blood samples from the couple, family, & friends before & after the ceremony to measure oxytocin, vasopressin, cortisol, & testosterone
What did Simon LeVay do?
Wanted to examine whether the SDN in homosexual males resembled that of a heterosexual male or a heterosexual female --> did so by charting the postmortem size of the SDN in gay men, straight men, gay women, & straight women
Denaturing
Weakening the protein's internal bonds; can occur through cooking food OR exposing it to acidity / salt / drying
When did humans stop following the practice of segmented sleep?
When artificial lighting began to produce more opportunities to be active at night & parents began encouraging their children to sleep for a single bout
What can lead to athletes "choking" under pressure?
When athletes who have achieved high-level automaticity step back to think about the individual moves (thus involving the pre-frontal cortex), they introduce error into the highly trained movement machine
Why might people with high blood pressure be on a low salt diet?
When blood volume increases due to water running out of the cells & into the extracellular space, the blood vessels will expand, thus increasing blood pressure
Explain the difference between conditioned fear & fear in response to the environment for rats
When fear responses are observed in rats, the situational context typically influences the response BUT in the case of conditioned fear, contextual assessments are bypassed for a more immediate response
What is some evidence against generalized adaptation syndrome?
When given the opportunity to make varied responses to a stressor, animal models display specific coping styles (ex: a threatened animal may run, freeze, or attack)
What happens when the iris contracts? What happens when it relaxes?
When it contracts, it covers up the pupil so it looks constricted; when it relaxes, the pupil becomes larger & dilated
Why is it so difficult to make accurate diagnoses of disorders of consciousness?
When patients cannot communicate, it is very difficult to tell whether they are aware of their internal or external surroundings, & whether they are conscious, minimally conscious, or unconscious
Explain the classification of emotions as something that adds value to our lives / experience
When something good happens, we have a positive emotion, & when something bad happens, we have a negative emotion --> this helps us remember experience, can tinge our cognitive state, & shape our perceptions / the way we perceive the world
Explain the stretch receptors in the duodenum
When the duodenum reaches a particular level of stretch from food coming in, it will send a signal (cholecystokinin) back to the sphincter to close it
What is a critical step in decoding light?
When the image is projected onto the retina
Explain how hearing works at the inner ear
When the oval window gets a signal from the ossicles, it will begin vibrating, which will then lead the basilar membrane to vibrate at the frequency that it came in --> this vibration causes the organ of corti to move, which then leads to the tectorial membrane vibrating in a free-floating way at a different frequency than the basilar membrane underneath --> this causes "shearing" of the cilia (i.e. they are bent & displaced), which then leads the hair cells to send a signal to the brain
When is the loudness idea of sound localization especially helpful?
When the sound is a sustained sound --> can take the time to orient towards it correctly
What does the difference between severe TBI outcomes revolve around?
Whether you can get back to homeostasis or NOT --> if you can NOT get back to homeostasis, you may end up having pathology in the brain
What is a behavioral experiment showing that pheremones (& smells in general) can influence our behavior
White t-shirt experiment --> people can predict better than chance: - whether a male or female wore the shirt - which shirt they wore - if the t-shirt came from a family member - which t-shirt their newborn baby wore, even if the mother has not held the baby yet
Osmotic shock
Will occur if the body goes from being hypertonic to hypotonic too quickly Ex: if an athlete drinks just water after a marathon
Explain how women's ovulation cycles relate to the white t-shirt experiment
Women will rate the pleasantness of t-shirts in differing ways based on their ovulation --> when they are ovulating, they tend to rate the shirts of non-family members as more pleasant, while when they are not ovulating, they tend to rate the shirts of family members as more pleasant
Linda Buck
Won the Nobel Prize for figuring out how the olfactory receptor cells work & that there are 300+ receptors
Barbiturates
Work by increasing the functioning of GABA (inhibitory) in the brain & decreasing the functioning of the glutamate system (excitatory), resulting in overall inhibition in the brain that puts people to sleep
What did Richard Thompson do?
Worked with the nicitating membrane response on rabbits to examine the neurobiological basis of classical conditioning
How does caffeine work?
Works as an antagonist for adenosine --> blocks adenosine receptors, reducing the brain's sensitivity to neurochemical markers of drowsiness
Explain Fechner's general experiments
Would gradually increase a light / sound / heat & would ask subjects to report when they noticed a change in intensity
What are the sex chromosomes for females? For males?
XX for females; XY for males
Can movement errors occur with sophisticated Bayesian calculations?
Yes - especially when there are too many variables to accurately process OR a false belief about physical circumstances exists
Why is it important that the cornea is transparent?
You don't want blood vessels or anything else impeding your ability to see
What would happen if the optic nerve was severed in one eye?
You would be completely blind in that eye
What would happen if the optic tract was severed?
You would lose the entire left visual world (or the entire right visual world)
What would happen to your perception of the taste of a jellybean if olfaction was removed?
You would only be able to tell that the jellybean is sweet (NOT that the flavor is cherry, for example)
