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BIOPSYCHOLOGY, Nervous system, The process - Coggle Diagram
BIOPSYCHOLOGY
Localisation of function
Motor cortex
Located in the frontal lobe, in the precentral gyrus
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Somatosensory cortex
Processes sensory input from skin muscles and joints related to touch, using this information it produces sensations of touch pressure pain and temperature
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Visual cortex
Is responsible for vision, with different areas processing different visual information such as colour shape or movement
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Auditory cortex
Part of the brain that processes hearing, the volume, pitch and location of all sounds
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Wernicke's area
Responsible for attaching meaning to language, damage here leads to inability to understand language and while you can still produce words they have little meaning
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Broca's area
Part of the brain responsible for producing speech and writing words, though with damage to this area you can still understand things fine, just not articulate your thoughts into language
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Synaptic transmission
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Enzymes: can 'turn off' a neurotransmitter after they have stimulated a postsynaptic neuron which makes the neurotransmitter ineffective
Neurotransmitters
chemicals that diffuse across the synapse to the next neuron, once they've crossed the gap they bind to the post synaptic receptor sites the action potential then travels along the next neuron and the process continues
Excitation: this leads to the postsynaptic neuron becoming positively charged and more likely to fire
Inhibition: this leads to the postsynaptic neuron becoming negatively charged and less likely to fire
Neurons
Motor
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they are located in the CNS and project the axons outside of the CNS and directly or indirectly control muscles
when stimulated, the motoneuron releases neurotransmitter receptors on a muscle and trigger a response that leads to muscle movement
Sensory
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they convert information from sensory receptors into neural impulses that are passed onto the brain or spinal cord
Structure
Axon: how the impulse is carried along, coated in myelin sheath
Soma: cell body, contains a nucleus
Dendrites: at one end of the neuron and recieve signals from other neurons, connected to the cell body
Terminal buttons: reach out to communicate to the next neuron across the synapse, where NTs are stored
Relay
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they allow sensory and motor neurons to communicate with each other and they are found in the central nervous system
Brain study techniques
EEG
Evaluation
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Provides a real time recording of brain activity, no delay, allowing a researcher to more accurately observe the effect of a certain stimulus
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Gives a general overview of activity, cannot pinpoint the source of the activity meaning its not useful for localisation of function research
Superficial, the electrodes on the scalp only detect activity in the surface layer of the brain meaning that activity in deeper areas such as the hippocampus will not be recorded, this means valuable information could be missed
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ERP
Evaluation
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Reduces demand characteristics and any social desirability bias as the participants cannot consciously control their own brain activity and cannot censor results
Gives a continuous measurement in real time, more ability to observe the results of stimulus manipulation
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Only surface level activity is being recorded, no access to deeper regions such as hippocampus means you will be missing out of some information
Measures electrical activity similarly to an EEG, but is more specific
To be more specific, researchers run an EEG and an ERP at the same time, they use statistical averaging techniques to filter out regular brain activity in order to analyse only activity which is a result of the stimulus
fMRI
Evaluation
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Non- invasive as it doesn't require anything to be inserted into the body and does not expose a person to any harmful radiation, more ethical and safe
Objectivity- Because information is gained from a picture and not a self report technique or an observation, there is not room for bias to interfere, this means results are reliable
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Impractical- you must stay completely still during the scan meaning that it may not be efficient as sometimes results are ruined by movement, also may not be appropriate for some people due to loud noises and uncomfortable nature of the scanner, this means it is not an accessible technique
When a brain area is active it requires oxygenated blood, an fMRI looks at the energy released by haemoglobin to determine areas of neural activity when carrying out a task
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Post mortem
Evaluation
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Full access- because the brain is cut into small slices, this allows access to all, even the deepest regions of the brain unlike EEG and ERP. Researchers can access deeper areas like hippocampus and hypothalamus
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There is lack of control with post mortems as there are many variables which can affect the brain. Mainly, people who are examined have had something which requires drug treatment, this can alter the brain. Additionally, age of death cause, time between death and post mortem can all influence results observed. This reduces validity
Establishing cause and effect- there isn't a way to follow up and experiment on anything found as the person is dead. This means we cannot be certain that damage is due to a suspected cause or that is caused a certain behaviour ect... This causes problems when drawing conclusions from research
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Carried out after an individual is deceased, is usually someone who had a rare disorder or experienced unusual symptoms while living that need explaining
Nervous system
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A complex network of nerve cells that carry messages to and from the brain and spinal cord to the rest of the body
Functions
Autonomic nervous system: controlled automatically, makes involutary movements such as breathing and releasing hormones
Somatic nervous system: nerves that we consciously control causing voluntary actions, recieves information from the motor cortex
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Spinal cord: recieves and transmits information to and from the peripheral nervous system, responsible for reflex actions
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The process
an action potential reaches the terminal buttons and needs to be passed to the next neuron it must cross the synapse
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