| Biological Bases of Behavior | Definition |
| Neuropsychologists | Explore the relationships between the brain/nervous systems and behavior |
| Broca's Area | Left frontal lobe part controls language expression |
| expressive aphasia | loss of ability to speak |
| receptive aphasia | loss of ability to comprehend written or spoken language |
| Lesions | precise destruction of brain tissue |
| Wernicke's Area | Left temporal lobe that plays role in understanding language and making meaningful sentences |
| Corpus callosum | broad band of nervous tissue that connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres transmitting information from one side of the brain to the other |
| Central Nervous System | consists of your brain and spinal cord |
| Peripheral Nervous System | Portion of the nervous system outside the brain and spinal cord. It inlcudes all of the sensory and motor neurons, and subdivisions called the autonomic and somatic nervous |
| Somatic Nervous System | subdivision of Peripheral Nervous System that includes motor nevers that innervate skeletal (voluntary) muscle |
| Autonomic Nervous System | subdivision of Peripheral Nervous System that includes motor nerves that innervate smooth (involuntary) or heart muscle. |
| Sympathetic Nervous System | Subdivision of Autonomic Nervous System whose stimulation results in responses that help the body deal with stressful events; prepares the body for "fight or flight"; running from a terrifying object or situation |
| Parasympathetic Nervous System | Subdivision of Autonomic Nervous System whose stimulation calms the body following sympathetic stimulation by restoring normal body processes; causes bodily changes for maintenance or rest; calming down after running from a terrifying object or situation |
| Association Areas | Do not have specific sensory or motor functions, but are involved in higher mental functions, such as thinking, planning, and communicating |
| Contralaterality | control of one side of your body by the other side of your brain |
| Medulla Oblongata | Regulates heart rhythm, blood flow, breakthing rate, digestion, vomiting |
| Pons | Part of brainstem that includes portion of reticular activating system or reticular formation critical for arousal and wakefulness; sends information to and from medulla, cerebellum, and cerebral cortex |
| Cerebellum | Maintains balance |
| Thalamus | Relay "station" for sensory pathways carrying visual, auditory, taste, somatosensory information to/from appropriate areas of cerebral cortex; Some nuclei involved in emotion |
| Hypothalamus | Controls body temperature and heart rate via control of sympathetic and parasympathetic centers in the medulla; drives such as thirst, hunger, sexual desire and behaviors; emotional states such as rage; helps determine biological rhythms:menstrual cycle |
| Amygdala | Influences aggression and fear; someone scares you and your immediate reaction is to fling your arms in self defense the amygdala is at work |
| Hippocampus | Enables formation of new long-term memories |
| Cerebral Cortex | receives and processes sensory information and directs movement; center for higher order processes such as thinking, planning, and judgement |
| Excitatory | Neurotransmitters cause the neuron on the other side of the synapse to generate an action potential (to fire) |
| Inhibitory | Reducing or preventing neural impulses, (not likely to fire |
| Phenylketonuria (PKU) | Results in severe, irreversible brain damage unless a baby is fed a special diet low in phenylalanine within 30 days of birth; the infant lacks an enzyme to process this amino acid which can build up and posion cells of the nervous system |
| Huntington's Disease | dominant gene defect that invloves degeneration of the nervous system; symptoms involve forgetfulness, tremors, jerky motions, loss of the ability to talk, personality changes such as temper tantrums or inappropriate accusations, blindness or death |
| Plasticity | When one area of the brain is damaged, the brain can recognize to take over is function |
