deck physio

• Psychopharmacology


  Focuses on the manipulation of neural activity and behavior with drugs
• Biological psychology is the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience, with a focus on how the brain functions
• Cognitive Neuroscience


  Focuses on the neural bases of cognitive processes like learning, memory, attention, and complex perceptual processes
• Neuroscience includes relevant information about behavior, anatomy, and chemistry
• Experiments


  Method used by scientists to study causation, involving independent and dependent variables, confounded variables, between-subjects and within-subjects designs
• The goal of biological psychology is to relate biology to issues of psychology, while neuroscience includes similar content with more emphasis on chemistry and anatomy
• Physiological Psychology


  Studies the neural mechanisms of behavior through direct manipulation of the brain in controlled experiments using surgical and electrical methods
• Comparative Psychology


  Studies evolutionary and genetic factors in behavior using comparative and functional approaches, including laboratory research and ethology
• Neuropsychology


  Studies the psychological effects of brain damage in human patients
• Focus on brain function

  • The activities of neurons and glia cells produce a wealth of behavior and experience
• Physiopsychology


  Studies the relation between physiological activity and psychological processes in human subjects
• The presence of confounded variables makes experiments difficult to interpret
• Divisions of Biological Psychology

  • Physiological Psychology
  • Psychopharmacology
  • Neuropsychology
  • Physiopsychology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Comparative Psychology
• Advantages of Human & Non-Human Subjects

  • Advantages of Human: Can follow instructions, can report subjective experiences, often less expensive, have a human brain
  • Advantages of Non-Human: Have simpler nervous systems, possible to use comparative, cross-species approach, fewer ethical constraints
• Quasi-Experimental


  Researchers examine subjects in real-world situations who have self-selected into specific conditions
• Descartes advocated a philosophy of physical matter and the human mind controlling human behavior
• Evolution does not proceed in a single line; humans have little reason to claim evolutionary supremacy
• Similarities among species do not necessarily mean they have common evolutionary origins; homologous and analogous structures
• Fitness, in the Darwinian sense, is the ability of an organism to survive and contribute its genes to the next generation
• Quasi-experimental research involves examining subjects in real-world situations who have self-selected into specific conditions
• Ethology


  The study of animal behavior in the wild
• Rapid evolutionary changes can be triggered by sudden changes in the environment or by adaptive genetic mutations
• Pure Research


  • Motivated primarily by the curiosity of the researcher; focuses on establishing building blocks or basic concepts that may provide information salient to many problems
• Darwin presented evidence to support his assertion that species evolve through fossil records, structural similarities among living species, and changes brought about by selective breeding
• Social dominance is observed in the males of many species
• Instinctive Behavior


  Behaviors that occur in all like members of a species, even when there seems to have been no opportunity for them to have been learned
• Experiments are difficult to interpret because it is impossible to tell how much of the effect on the dependent variable was caused by the independent variable and how much was caused by the confounded variable
• Applied Research


  • Motivated by an attempt to directly use the building blocks of basic research to answer specific questions; human and animal problems are specifically addressed
• Evolution is a tinkerer, not an architect; not all existing behaviors or structures are adaptive
• Natural selection favors heritable traits associated with high rates of survival and reproduction
• Fitness


  In the Darwinian sense, the ability of an organism to survive and contribute its genes to the next generation
• Biological Explanations of Behavior

  Physiological Explanation relates a behavior to the activity of the brain and other organs. Ontogenetic Explanation describes how a structure or behavior develops, including the influences of genes, nutrition, experiences, and their interactions. Evolutionary Explanation reconstructs the evolutionary history of a structure or behavior. Functional Explanation describes why a structure or behavior evolved as it did
• Two kinds of cells

  • Neurons
  • Glia
• Social Dominance


  Males of many species establish a stable hierarchy through combative encounters with other males
• Structures of an animal cell

  • Plasma Membrane
  • Nucleus
  • Mitochondrion
  • Ribosome
  • Proteins
  • Endoplasmic Reticulum
• Neurons convey messages to one another and to muscles and glands, varying enormously in size, shape, and functions. The adult human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons, on average
• Courtship Display


  Thought to promote the evolution of new species
• Glia, smaller than neurons, have many functions but do not convey information over great distances
• Components of neurons

  • Dendrites
  • Synaptic Receptors
  • Dendritic Spines
  • Cell Body or Soma
  • Axon
  • Myelin Sheath
  • Presynaptic Terminal
  • Afferent Axon
  • Efferent Axon
  • Interneuron or Intrinsic Neuron
• Schwann Cells


  Build myelin sheaths around certain neurons in the periphery of the body