Introduction To Psychology Dr Hawkins PSY 301 Exam 1 Study Guide Chapter 1 Behaviorism 4 Humanistic Psychology 4 Biopsychosocial approach 6 Psychology perspectives table 7 Hindsight bias 10 Overconfidence 11 The scientific method 12 Research methods example the case study 16 17 Correlation and illusionary correlation 18 20 Chapter 2 The neuron 36 37 How it works Parts of neuron Neurotransmitters and functions 38 39 Divisions of the nervous system 41 Brainstem 46 Brain imaging techniques 46 47 Sensory cortex 54 Functions of the cortex 53 54 Chapter 3 The split brain 59 DNA and genes 67 68 Fraternal and identical twins 68 69 Personality traits and heredity 70 71 Evolutionary psychology 76 and human sexuality and natural selection Variations across cultures 83 Testosterone 90 Gender roles 91 Social learning theory 92 Gender schema theory 92 Chapter 4 Piaget s theory and stages of cognitive development 105 108 Stages of prenatal development 99 101 Teratogens Attachment and familiarity 111 112 Accommodation and assimilation Brain development pruning and maturation 102 Child rearing practices and parenting styles 114 115 Review the lecture power points A few questions from the videos J Black s guest lecturer slides on newborn development Study Guide for Dr Callaway s lectures on Chapters 2 and 3 Chapter 2 In the late 1800s neuroscientists were unsure if the nervous system was comprised of individual cells like most of the rest of the body Part of the difficulty in solving this dilemma was the inability of techniques used at that time to stain and make clear observations of neural tissue microscopically Using the Golgi stain the best available at the time it was impossible to separate visually which axons were attached to which cell bodies Many scientists at that time thought that neural tissue was a continuous flow through neural vessels similar to the way blood circulates Santiago Ramon y Cajal a Spanish physician and anatomist compared the visual image of slides of stained neural tissue to a dense forest where it was impossible to distinguish which branches were attached to which trunks He concluded that to differentiate between branches of different trees in a forest he would observe a young forest before the branches became dense and tangled In this way he would watch as the forest grew This comparison gave Cajal the idea to look at slides of stained neural tissue from embryos fetuses and infants rather than adult neural tissue He was able to easily see entire neurons before the neurons became too entangled to discriminate one neuron from the other That the nervous system is made of individual cells later labeled neurons became known as the Neuron Doctrine Cajal and Golgi inventor of the best neural tissue stain in those days jointly won a Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology in 1903 Santiago Ramon y Cajal became known as the Father of Scientist to many colleagues Some brain structures and associated major functions Medulla Maintains vegetative functions such as heartbeat and breathing Cerebellum Regulates motor coordination This structure is affected by ethanol ingestion causing the cerebellum not to function adequately Subsequently inebriated individuals stagger and have difficulty maintaining their balance and coordination Limbic system A group of subcortical areas involved in basic emotions Lobes of the cortex Parietal lobe Higher level somatic sensory and motor function Temporal lobe Hearing and language Occipital lobe Vision Prefrontal lobe Higher level complex reasoning controls impulsiveness and aggression Hypothalamus Involved in several drives such as hunger thirst and sleep Regulates body temperature Hippocampus Involved in memory consolidation It is NOT the memory center and does NOT store memories in the structure Thalamus Acts as a relay hub between the cortex and all other parts of the brain Methods used to study brain function Lesioning Advantages Can help eliminate the possibility of the structure being involved in a specific behavior if behavior remains the same before and after the lesioning Disadvantages Cannot ultimately determine the particular locus of a behavioral correlate because other brain areas and structures NOT lesioned cannot be eliminated as possible locations involved if those areas are not addressed If a particular behavior changes following lesioning it only means that a neuron or tract found in that structure was cut This structure may have only been the location of part of a neural pathway involved in the behavior PET scans positronic emission tomography Advantages This utilizes metabolic brain mapping which is the most accurate way to tract the location and activation intensity of neural pathways correlated with a particular behavior or disease state Disadvantages It is invasive because a radio labeled substance must be injected to monitor areas of metabolic activity It is expensive and unfortunately is used mostly in research CT scans Advantages It is not as expensive or invasive as PET It utilizes X rays to form a pictorial diagram of various planes of the structure being scanned It is accurate in the location of structures MRI magnetic resonance imaging and fMRI functional magnetic resonsnce imaging Advantages It is not as invasive but is expensive and requires much instrumentation Can be useful in tracking changes in brain structures across various treatments or conditions Disadvantages Does not actually capture an image of the brain but measures signals as they exit the outer surface of the head It is not good at locating a very specific location of a brain change The accuracy of finding the location producing the signal is only as good as the strength of the magnet used measured in Teslas and computer program used to obtain the results and the expertise of the investigator s interpretation EEG electroencephalogram Advantages Can identify very definite electrical waveforms which are correlated with different stages of sleep and arousal and also of various disease states such as narcolepsy and epilepsy Disadvantages Only measures gross electrical activity in the brain measured at the surface of the brain Is not good at determining the location of a specific activity or problem Neurotransmitters Neurotransmitters bind to receptors in the synapse and increase or decrease the threshold of electrical activity necessary for an action potential to occur Specific neurotransmitters can be either inhibitory or stimulatory depending on the
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