Unit 2: Biological Bases of Behavior

• Autonomic Nervous System: Part of peripheral, controls involuntary actions such as the glands and the muscles of the internal organs.
• Sympathetic Nervous System: Arouses the body for stressful situations, one of the 2 systems of the autonomic nervous system.
• Parasympathetic Nervous System: the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving energy.
• Somatic Nervous system: the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body's skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system.
• Phineas Gage: railroad worker who survived a severe brain injury that dramatically changed his personality and behavior; case played a role in the development of the understanding of the localization of brain function
• Gene: A segment of chromosome that encodes the directions for the inherited psychical and mental characteristics of an organism

  (The words that make up the organisms instruction manual)
• Hormone: chemical messengers that are manufactured by the endocrine glands, travel through the bloodstream, and affect other tissues.
• Limbic System: the part of the brain involved in our behavioural and emotional responses

  doughnut-shaped neural system (including the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus) located below the cerebral hemispheres
• Homeostasis: a tendency to maintain a balanced or constant internal state; the regulation of any aspect of body chemistry, such as blood glucose, around a particular level
• Chromosomes: threadlike structures made of DNA molecules that contain genes.
• Endocrine system: the body's "slow" chemical communication system; a set of glands that secrete hormones into the blood stream
• Pituitary gland: the endocrine system's most influential gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, the pituitary regulates growth and controls other endocrine glands.
• Glial cells: cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons.
• Positron Emission Tomography (PET): a visual display of brain activity that detects where a radioactive form of glucose goes while the brain performs a given task. (PET)
• Electroencephalogram (EEG): A recording of the waves of electrical activity that sweep across the brain's surface. These waves are measured by electrodes placed on the scalp. (EEG)
• Behavioral genetics: the study of genetic and environmental influences on behaviors. By examining genetic influence, more information can be gleaned about how the environment operates to affect behavior.
• Natural selection: the principle that, among the range of inherited variation, those contributing to reproduction and survival will most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.
• Resting potential: the axon gets its energy from charged chemicals called ions. Has a slight negative charge. Only fire when enough energy to do so. (-)

  cant work because they have slight negative charge
• Action potential: when the cell becomes excited, it triggers, which reverses the charge and causes the electrical signal to race along the axon. (+)
• Midbrain: coordinates simple movements with sensory information.

  Serves important functions in motor movement, particularly movements of the eye, and in auditory and visual processing.
• Receptors: receive and transduce signals
• Identical twins: twins who develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms.
• All-or-none principle: once action potential is released it cannot go back. The axon either fires or doesn't, it cannot have a slight fire.
• Computed Tomography scan (CT): A series of X-ray photographs taken from different angles and combined by computer into a composite representation of a slice through the body. Also called CT scan.
• Dizigotic twins: twins who develop from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer that brothers and sisters, but they share a fetal environment. (Fraternal)
• fMRI scan: a technique for revealing blood flow and, therefore, brain activity by comparing successive MRI scans. Shows brain function
• Hindbrain: part of the brain on top of our spinal cord. Controls basic biological structures.
• Acetylcholine: a neurotransmitter involved in learning, memory and muscle movement
• Spinal cord: cable of nerves that connects brain to rest of the body.

  "Communications superhighway"
• Agonists: excite, makes the neuron fire, releases extra neurotransmitters
• Antagonists: inhibit, stops neural firing
• Neurons: a nerve cell; the basic building block of the nervous system
• Soma: cell body of a neuron, assesses messages before passing along
• Axon: long transmitter that extends from soma- sends message from dendrite to axon terminal
• Myelin sheath: protects and insulates axon and the electrical signal, speeds up the neural impulse
• Afferent neurons: also known as sensory neurons, act as a one way street that carries information from the body to the brain
• Efferent neurons: also known as motor neurons, act as a one way street that transports messages away from the brain to the body.
• Interneurons: act as the middleman to relay messages from sensory/motor neurons to other neurons
• Refractory period: the time following an action potential during which a new action potential cannot be initiated. Recharging.
• Action potential- order of action: dendrites, soma, axon, axon terminal