biopsychology -1

the network of nerve cells and fibres which transmits nerve impulses between parts of the body.

the central nervous system, peripheral nervous system

it is separated into two hemispheres the cerebral cortex and provides consciousness awareness and involved in psychological processes

An extension of the brain and sends/transfers messages to the body

brain, spinal cord

somatic nervous system, autonomic nervous system

Controls the movement of muscles and receives information from the sensory receptors

plays an important role in homeostasis

sympathetic nervous system, parasympathetic nervous system

It is involved in the responses for flight or fight e.g. increases heart rate and blood pressure

It helps to return the body back to its normal resting state

it’s a network of glands across the body that secrete chemical messages called hormones

Is connected to the pituitary gland and is responsible for stimulating or controlling, is the release of hormones from the pituitary gland

It is referred to as the master gland as it controls the secretion of hormones from all the glands

ACTH, LH, FSH and oxytocin

Master gland that regulates many of the bodily functions, Produces hormones that control the release of hormones from other glands

When ACTH is released in response to stress, it stimulates the adrenaline gland to release cortisol, when oxytocin is released, it, stimulates contractions of the womb in childbirth and is important for mother infant bonding, when LH and FSH are released, it stimulates the ovaries to produce oestrogen and progesterone. In males, it stimulates the testes to produce testosterone.

oestrogen and progesterone

Production of eggs and female, sex, hormones

associated with increased sensitivity to social cues - progesterone, female, reproductive functions -oestrogen

testosterone

produce sperm and male sex hormones

Important for sex drive, sperm production, and muscle strength, the development of male characters (secondary characteristics)

a person enters a stressful/ dangerous situation. this is perceived by the somatic nervous system so let’s the sympathetic nervous system know this., The hypothalamus triggers activity in the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system (switching the body from the parasympathetic to sympathetic, fear causes the release in adrenaline and noradrenaline from the adrenal medulla is released into the bloodstream- this causes many psychological changes, Once the threat has passed, the body returns to the parasympathetic state of rest and digest

nerve cells that send messages all over the body to allow you to breathe and walk and more. They send both chemical and electrical signals

When a resting state there is no impulses firing as inside of the neuron is more negative than the outside. Stimulus increases the positive charge in the neuron and generates an action potential. This causes an impulse to travel down axon

motor, sensory, relay

They are located in the central nervous system and project there axons outside of the central nervous system to directly or indirectly control muscles, when the axon of the neuron fires, the muscles with which form synapses contracts. When the neuron is inhibited do muscles relax

they carry messages from sensory receptors, e.g. receptors for vision, taste, touch and more via the peripheral nervous system and central nervous system, They consider information from sensory receptors into the neural impulses

When the impulses reach the brain, they are translated into sensations, e.g. visual input, heat, pain, meaning, so that the organism can decide how to respond appropriately, They are found within the brain and the spinal cord only

The idea parts of the brain perform different functions

the brain works together as a whole

The idea of the brain is divided into two symmetric halves. some psychological and physical functions are dominated by particular halves. The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body.

Peterson 1988 used brain scans to demonstrate how wernicke area was active, drawing, listening tasks, and Broca during reading tasks. Suggesting that areas have different functions., Tulving 1994 revealed somatic, and episodic memory reside in different parts of the prefrontal cortex., now we have highly sophisticated and objective methods to measure activity in the brain, providing scientific evidence of localisation in the brain

Lashley 1950 suggests that higher cognitive functions involving lining are not localised but distributed in a more holistic way. They removed areas of the cortex between 10% to 50% in rats that were learning amaze. He found no areas seemed to be more important in the ability to learn the maze. this process of learning requires every part of the cortex not particular areas. Suggesting learning is too complicated to be localised and requires the whole brain.

The idea that two halfs of the brain functions are different and hemispheres have function specialisation

a think bundle of nerves which connects the two hemispheres of the brain. it alows the brain to be able to communicate with each other.

Sperry and Gazaniga

individuals that had under gone surgery where the corpus callosum and other tissues connecting the two hemispheres was cut in order to help people control seizures

Image/word is presented to the left visual field, all the right visual field. When info was presented to the hemisphere info was not transferred to the other day conducted many different experiment to test this.

describe what you see, tactile test, drawing task

A picture was showing to either the left or right visual field and participants had to describe what they saw

an object was placed in participants left or right hand, and they had to either describe what they thought, or select a similar object from a series of alternative objects

participants were presented with a picture in either the right or left visual field and they had to draw what they saw

This research highlights a number of key differences between the two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is dominated in speech and language. Where is the right hemisphere is dominated in terms of visual motor skill tasks.

It produced an impressive and sizable body of research. Main conclusion appears left hemisphere is more geared towards analytic and viable tasks. Where is the right is more adapt at performing spatial tasks and music. Write can only perform rudimentary words and phrases, but continues emotional and holistic content to Lang. This is a key understanding to our knowledge of brain processes.

there was a small sample size of 11 people who took part in the variables of the produce. They had a history of epileptic seizures. So the control group may have been inappropriate to people that didn’t have a history with epilepsy. Data was artificially produced as in real life, as corpus callosum can’t be understood by the restriction of two eyes as this doesn’t happen in real life. This suggests the research can’t be considered completely valid, Eva internally or externally. So we cannot confidently support the theory of hemispheric lateralisation from Split brain research

it processes, sensory information (from things like touch, heat, pressure, etc)

Unethical as there was no protection from harm or consent for the dogs., this research was affective as it helps to support the idea of brings different functions so the means of the research and evidence outweigh the ethical issues. We can also generalise the findings of mammal brains to humans as they are similar to one another.

first, discovered this by electrically stimulating the motor area of dogs. This resulted in contractions in different areas of the body, depending on where the probe was inserted.

Hitzig and Fritsch

Controls voluntary movement in the opposite side of the body damage to this area results in loss of control over fine movement

Robertson

Areas in the brain the prefrontal lobe is highly adaptable. E.g. Ray all readers have larger areas in somatosensory areas of the fingertips, compared to normal sighted people

our understanding of the brain has developed more since this study/experiments, so it is concluded that it lacks temporal validity

ehi sends information from write visual field cortex to left visual field cortex. damage to this area can produce blindness in parts of the right visual field of both eyes.

Analyses speech-based information. Damage may produce particularly hearing loss the more extensive damage the greater loss. Primary auditorium area is produce simple features of sound, e.g. tempo, volume and pitch

is located in the left frontal lobe and is thought to be involved in language production