Help
Options
Didn't know it?
click below
click below
Knew it?
click below
click below
Don't Know
Remaining cards (0)
Know
retry
shuffle
restart
0:00
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Psych Unit 3 Vocab
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Plasticity | Neural change, building new pathways |
| Neuron | The building blocks for our neural information systems |
| Glial cell | Supports, nourishes, and protects neurons |
| Threshold | The moment that triggers action potential |
| Refractory period | The time it takes neurons to fire again |
| All-or-none response | A neuron either fires or it doesn't, there's no difference in intensity |
| Resting potential | The electric potential between the inside and outside of a neuron |
| Depolarization | When a cell's charge becomes positive/less negative |
| Multiple Sclerosis | When the immune system attacks glial cells, myelin is damaged and stripped from the axon leading to loss of motor function and such |
| Reuptake | Excess neurotransmitters drifting away, being captured by enzymes, or being reabsorbed by the sending neuron |
| Excitatory neurotransmitters | One that excites the neurotransmitter, causing it to fire off another message |
| Inhibitory neurotransmitters | One that blocks the chemical message from being passed along any further |
| Reuptake inhibitors | A drug that inhibits reuptake |
| Acetylcholine | Enables muscle action, learning, and memory |
| Dopamine | Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion |
| Serotonin | Affects mood, hunger, sleep, and arousal |
| Norepinephrine | Helps control alertness and arousal |
| GABA (gamma-aminobutryic acid) | A major inhibitory neurotransmitter |
| Glutamate | A major excitatory neurotransmitter involved in memory |
| Endorphins | Neurotransmitters that influence the perception of pain or pleasure |
| Agonists | Molecules that increase a neurotransmitter's action |
| Antagonists | Molecules that decrease a neurotransmitter's action |
| Substance P | Regulates mood, anxiety, stress, pain, etc. |
| Myasthenia Gravis | Another disease that causes weakness in a person's muscles because of an error in how nerve signals are sent to muscles |
| Nervous system | The communicating network in our body |
| Central Nervous System (CNS) | The brain and the spinal cord |
| Peripheral Nervous System (PNS) | Responsible for gathering info and transmitting all of the CNS decisions to other body parts |
| Sensory neurons | Carry messages from tissues and sensory receptors |
| Motor neurons | Carry instructions to muscles and glands |
| Interneurons | Communicate between sensory and motor neurons |
| Somatic Nervous System | Enables voluntary control of skeletal muscles |
| Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) | Controls glands and internal organ muscles automatically |
| Sympathetic Nervous System | Arouses and expends energy, for example, raising your heartbeat in a stressful situation |
| Parasympathetic Nervous System | Conserves energy, for example, calming you down after watching a horror movie |
| Reflex | A simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus |
| Hormones | Chemical messengers |
| Adrenaline | This and noradrenaline get someone amped up and energized |
| Pituitary gland | Super important, it regulates growth and controls our endocrine glands |
| Hypothalamus | Controls the pituitary gland, also helps manage sleep, hunger, and body temperature among other things |
| Leptin | Regulates the balance between food intake and energy expenditure |
| Ghrelin | Hunger hormone, tells you when it's time to eat |
| Melatonin | Times circadian rhythms and sleep and shit |
| Oxytocin | Causes contraction of uterus during labor and stimulates ejection of milk into the ducts of breasts (also known as the horny hormone) |
| Electroencephalogram (EEG) | Like an amplified recording of electrical activity across the brain's surface |
| fMRI (functioning MRI) | An MRI that reveals bloodflow and therefore activity |
| Lesions | Tissue destruction |
| Brain stem | Oldest and innermost region of the brain (most survival functions) |
| Medulla | Base of the brainstem (heartbeat and breathing) |
| Thalamus | On top of the brainstem (controls the senses) |
| Reticular formation | A nerve network through the brainstem that plays a role in controlling arousal |
| Cerebellum | Extends from the brainstem's rear, enables nonverbal learning and skill memory |
| Limbic system | Between oldest and newest regions, connected with emotions and drives |
| Amygdala | Lima-bean sized neural clusters (aggression and food) |
| Hippocampus | Seahorse-shaped (processes memories) |
| Cerebral cortex | Ultimate control and info processing |
| Frontal lobes | Just behind the forehead, does speaking, muscle movement, plans, judgements, it's pretty important and develops slowly |
| Parietal lobes | Top of head and rear, receives sensory input for touch and body position |
| Occipital lobes | Back of head, receives information from the visual fields |
| Temporal lobes | Roughly above ears, includes auditory areas, gets information from the ear on the opposite side |
| Motor cortex | At the rear of the frontal lobes, controls voluntary movements |
| Sensory cortex | Receives and processes sensory information across the body, it's right behind the motor cortex |
| Cortex specialization | Different parts of the brain control different body parts |
| Prefrontal cortex | In the frontal lobe, thought of as the personality center, what makes us uniquely human |
| Broca's area | Brain center associate with the motor control of speech |
| Wernicke's area | All about comprehension of language |
| Aphasia | Can occur after a head injury, affects ability to express and understand spoken or written language |
| Neurogenesis | Brain growth, like plasticity |
| Corpus callosum | A band of nerves that connects the brain's two hemispheres |
| Hemispheric specialization/Lateralization | Tendency of some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or another |
| Consciousness | The individual awareness of one's unique thoughts and memories and shit |
| Attention | The concentration of awareness on something |
| Selective attention | Focusing on a particular input while suppressing irrelevant information |
| Inattention blindness | The failure to notice something fully-visible but unexpected because attention was engaged on another task |
| Change blindness | When there is a change in a visual stimulus but the observer does not notice it |
| Cocktail Party Effect | Focusing on one thing while filtering out other things |
| Blindsight | A neurological condition where someone can perceive the location of an object despite being cortically blind |
| Circadian rhythms | The physical, mental, and behavioral changes an organism experiences over a 24-hour cycle |
| Jet lag | Tiredness after a long flight, getting used to time change |
| REM sleep | A part of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement accompanied by low muscle tone throughout the body and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly |
| Hypnagogic sensations | The transitional state from wakefulness to sleep |
| EEG patterns (of each NREM stage) | Low-voltage fast EEG pattern of wakefulness gradually decreases to slower frequencies (N1 to N2 to N3 gets slower and slower) |
| Insomnia | A disorder where it's hard to fall asleep |
| Narcolepsy | A chronic neurological disorder that affects the brain's ability to control sleep-wake cycles |
| Sleep apnea | A sleep disorder marked by pauses in breathing 10 seconds or more during sleep and causes unrestful sleep |
| Sleepwalking | Walking around or sometimes performing other actions while sleeping |
| REM Sleep Behavior Disorder | Movement in your sleep (but like extreme sometimes) |
| Neural activation | The process by which neurons become active and generate electrical impulses or signals within the nervous system |
| REM Rebound | The tendency for REM sleep to increase following REM sleep deprivation |
| Consolidation theory | The idea that sleep plays a crucial role in the process of converting short-term memories into long-term memories by strengthening neural connections |
| Psychoactive drugs | Chemicals that change perceptions and moods |
| Tolerance | Needing larger quantities of a drug for the same effect |
| Addiction | Craving a drug, not being able to stop using it |
| Withdrawl | Adverse side effects when one tries to stop taking a drug |
| Depressants | Drugs that calm neural activity and slow body functions |
| Alcohol use disorder | Basically an addiction to alcohol |
| Opiates | Opium and its derivatives, temporarily lessen pain and anxiety, depressants |
| Stimulants | Drugs that excite neural activity and speed up body functions |
| Cocaine | A stimulant that's really powerful |
| Caffeine | A stimulant that's not super powerful but is used a lot |
| Hallucinogens | Drugs tha distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input |
| Marijuana/THC | Also known as weed, it's a mild hallucinogen |
| Endocrine System | Our "slow" chemical communication system that uses hormones |
Created by:
mejones
Popular Psychology sets