INTRO TO PSYCHOLOGY: Neurological and Biological CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

Foundations of Behavior Brain

- Forebrain
Single cell can stretch from spine to toe o Cerebrum
Messages travel in brain by means of electricity o Limbic system
Brain cell o Thalamus
o Hypothalamus
Neuroscience - Midbrain
- Deals with structure, functions of neurons o Reticular formation
- Nerves - Hindbrain
- Nervous tissue o Cerebellum
- Behavior and learning o Pons
o Medulla
Santiago Ramon y Cajal
- 1887 PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
- Nervous system made up of individual cells Somatic Nervous System
- Afferent
Nervous System - Efferent
-
- Network of cells Autonomic Nervous System
- Carry info to and from all parts of the body - Sympathetic Nervous System
- Central and peripheral nervous systems - Parasympathetic Nervous System

Neuron NEURON
- Special cell Structures and function
- Sends and receives messages
- Electric charge at rest
- Affected by neurotransmitter chemicals
- Synapse
o Gap that separates neurons from each
other

Types

Afferent
- Sensory STRUCTURES
- Message from senses to spinal cord Dendrites
- Branch looking ends
Efferent - Receive message from other neurons
- Motor
- From spinal cord to muscles and glands Soma
- Cell body
Interneurons - Holds nucleus
- Afferent neurons to efferent neurons - Keeps cell alive

Axon
- Sender
- Neural messages

Axon terminals
- Synaptic knobs
- End of axon
- Branches

Synaptic vesicle
- Saclike structures
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 - Inside axon terminals - Inhibitory neurotransmitter
- Chemicals - Regulate sleep
4. Glutamate
Myelin sheath - Excitatory neurotransmitter
- Insulate neuron - Learning, memory, nervous system
- Protect neuron development
- Speed up neural message 5. Norepinephrine
- Arousal and mood
NEURAL FUNCTION 6. Dopamine
Stimulus→ Response - Control of movement
1. Stimulus strikes receptor - Sensations of pleasure
2. Receptor stimulates dendrites (sensory 7. Endorphins
neuron) - Inhibitory neural regulators
3. Impulse crosses synaptic connection - Pain relief
a. Stimulates connector neuron (spinal
cord) Reuptake
4. Impulse passes synapse - Synaptic vesicles suck neurotransmitters back
a. To connector; to outgoing neuron up
5. Impulse passes along efferent fiber - Recycle chemical
a. To endbrush - Enzymes clear neurotransmitters (like
6. Effector responds acetylcholine)
a. Muscle/gland
Resting Potential SPINAL CORD
- No signal from neuron - Long bundle of neurons
- Sodium waiting to enter cell - Connected to the brain
- Neuron negatively charged
Action potential Outer section
- Neuron releasing signal - Look white
- Sodium enters cell, fires signal - Myelinated axons and nerves
- Neuron positively charged - Carry message to and from brain and body
Diffusion
- High to low concentration Inner section
- Gray
NEUROTRANSMITTERS - Cell bodies of neuron
- From synaptic vesicles - Fast, life-saving reflexes
- Go to receptor sites of other
cells/glands/muscles PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
- Chemical that cause reaction with receipt of - Nerves and neurons not in brain and spinal
other cells cord
- Allow brain and spinal cord to communicate
Agonists with sensory systems
- Chemical - Allow brain and spinal cord to control muscles
- Mimic/enhance effect of neurotransmitter and glands
- Receptor sites of close cell
- Increase/decrease activity SOMATIC NERVOUS SYSTEM
- voluntary
Antagonists - Senses and muscles of body
- Chemicals
- Block/reduce cell’s response Sensory pathway
- Nerves
TYPES OF NEUROTRANSMITTERS - Carry message
1. Acetylcholine - Senses to CNS
- Memory and muscle contraction
2. Serotonin Motor pathway
- Sleep, mood, appetite - CNS to voluntary of skeletal muscles of the
3. GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) body (SMS?)
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AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM facial recog
FOUR LOBES OF THE BRAIN
Sympathetic “fight-or-flight system”
- Stressful events
- Bodily arousal
- Dilated pupils
- Decrease salivation
- Increased heart rate
- Dilated bronchi
- Decrease digestive function

Parasympathetic
- Restore back to normal after arousal 1. Occipital
- Daily functions of organs and glands - Rear and bottom
- Constrict pupils - Sight
- Increase salivation
- Decrease heart rate 2. Parietal
- Constrict bronchi - Top and back
- Increase digestive function - Touch, taste, temperature
- Opposite basically
3. Temporal
THE BRAIN - Hearing
- Recognizing speech
Medulla - Wernicke’s area
- Heartbeat o Left temporal lobe
- Breathing o Understanding of speech
- Swallowing o damage to this area leads to
Wernicke’s aphasia
Pons o can’t understand others
- Bridge o can’t make sense of any word
- Above medulla
- Sleep, dreaming 4. Frontal
- Left-right body coordination - Higher mental processes
- Arousal - Decision making
- Fluent speaking
Reticular formation - Motor context
- Focus on specific date and ignore others o Control of movements
- Ability to be awake and attentive - Broca’s area
o Left frontal lobe
Cerebellum o Fluent speaking
- Lower part of brain o People with damaged Broca’s area
- Above spinal cord have Broca’s aphasia
- Coordination of: o Can’t use nor understand language
o Involuntary
o Rapid LIMBIC STRUCTURES
o Fine motor movements - Emotion
- Learning
LEFT HEMISPHERE RIGHT HEMISPHERE - Memory
Right hand left hand - Motivation
Spoken language non-verbal cures
Written language visual-spatial
Mathematical perception
calculations music and artistic
Logical thought process emotional thought
Analysis of detail, reading process as whole
pattern recog
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Thalamus
- Center of brain
- Takes info from lower part of brain
- Sorts out where to send from there
- all senses except smell
hypothalamus
- below thalamus
- right above pituitary gland
- motivational behavior
o sleep
o hunger
o thirst
o sex
hippocampus
- both temporal lobes
- long-term memories
- location of objects
amygdala
- next to hippocampus
- response to fear
Corpus callosum
- thick band
- neural fibers
- connect hemispheres of the brain
cingulate cortex
- right above corpus callosum
- frontal and parietal lobes
- emotional and cognitive processing
cortex
- outside covering of the brain
- tightly packed neurons
- full of wrinkles
- recognizable surface anatomy
EXPERIMENTING WITH THE BRAIN
Electroencephalograph
Brain-imaging techniques
1. computerized axial tomography
- deformities in shape and structure
- blood clots
- tumors etc
2. positron emission tomography
- active parts of brain
3. magnetic resonance imaging
- use radio waves
- make brain emit signals
- reveals shift in blood flow
- indicate brain activity
neurotoxicity and behavior
- toxic pollution
- developmental, cognitive and behavioral
effects
- chemical pollutants and endoctine disrupters
- affect:
o motivation
o aggression
o learning
o reproduction
- prenatal exposure
o cognitive deficits
o lower IQ
o poorer memory
o attention
o reading comprehension
- common pesticides
o developmental disabilities
o depression
- effects must be observed in naturalistic
context to gather apparent and accurate
results
biopsychological effects of toxins
- education and prevention!
- Toxic chemicals/endocrine disruptors are also
present in common household products
- Hindi lang sa industrial pollutants
- Must be educated within own social groups to
ensure effectiveness of movement to educate
- Need to feel acceptance and validation from
everyone else
- They may know pero for them to truly
embody it they must feel that it is okay and
doing so will be okay with everyone else
around them
GENETICS
- Influence of genetic blueprints (genotype) and
observed qualities (phenotypes)
- Genes are encoded in DNA
o Deoxyribonucleic Acid
- Probability of sharing characteristics among
relatedness or biological inheritance
- Children and parents= 50%
- Children and grandparents= 25%
- Development of organism depends of action
of heredity and environment
Development level= (heredity)(environment)(time)
HEREDITY
- Determines level of development
- In given environment at a period of time
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ENVIRONMENT
- Supplies stimuli
o Set off patterns of response
o Already prepared by maturation
- Provides situations
o Conductive to learning new patterns
o Altering old ones

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