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Psych Unit 3 Vocab

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