Psychology- Psychobiology

Neurons are brains cells that are the basic unit of the nervous system

• 1. When at rest,the neuron is more negative than the outside
• 2. During signalling, AP travels down axon and continues until it reaches the terminal button
• 3. During an AP, Na+ into the cell while K+ rushes out of the cell-->the cell returning to resting state

• 1. Action potential causes the vesicle to bind to the cell membrane
• 2. Neural transmitters are released into the synaptic cleft
• 3. Neural transmitters bind to receptors located on dendrites of the next cell
• 4. Ion channels open to allow Na+ to enter the cell= small de-polarisation= graded potential
• 5. Accumulation of graded potential= action potential

Confuses the dopamine transporters, blocks transporters->Dopamine remains in the cleft for longer->over activation of dopamine receptors in the next cell

• - contain tracts carrying signals between the brain and the rest of the body
• - Regulates heartbeat, blood pressure and respiration
• - regulates vomiting, coughing, sneezing and swallowing reflexes

• - Is a region that runs through the brainstem.
• - Neurotransmitters are produced here and transferred to axons throughout the body.
• - Involved in actions such as awaking/sleeping cycle, and filtering incoming stimuli to discriminate irrelevant background stimuli

• - Regulates consciousness and attention
• - Contains neurons that are active during wake and inactive during sleep
• - damage= coma

• - motor control and correction
• - damage= lack of coordination, problems with balance and posture

• - Basic visual and auditory function
• - Detects movement and sound in environment- coordination of movement towards sound

- serves a variety of functions related to movement

• - regulation of motivational behaviour for survival
• - activates pituatary hormones
• - homeostasis- keeping vital processes within a fairly narrow range. blood temp, glucose levels, metabolism
• - also controls the autonomic nervous system

• - processes sensory information and transmit it to higher brain centres
• - highlights, dilter and de-emphasises these messages

• - serves basic life functions
• -sympathetic nervous system- activated in response to threats- flight or fight
• - parasympathetic nervous system- supports mundane/ routine activites, maintains energy

• - learning/memory
• - emotion/motivation

- important for reward, movement, judgement

(from the limbic system)–recognises fear and attaches emotional significance to events.It orchestrates a defence response.

• Hippocampus- episodic and somantic
• Basal ganglia- procedural memory
• Prefrontal cortex- STM

• CT- xray, structure only, uses brain damage
• MRI- Magnets/hydrogen, structure only, uses brain damage
• PET- Radioactive glucose, function only, use function during
• fMRI- oxygen, structure and function, uses during a task

• - folded to increase surface area: gyrus: filled, sulcus: empty bits
• - allows flexible construction of sequences voluntary movements
• - permits subtle discrimination among complex sensory patterns
• - makes possible symbolic thinking

frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal.

• - Responsible for movement, attention, memory, personality, social skills, planning
• - Primary area– responsible for motor function

• - Responsible for touch
• - Primary area– called the somanto sensory cortex– responsible for touch inputs from different areas of the body

- Responsible for vision

- Responsible for hearing

• left- language
• right- non linguistic functions
• corpus callosum- band of neural fibres connecting the left and right hemispheres