pmt cards

• Nervous system

  The two main divisions are:

  Peripheral Nervous System - Parts of the nervous system not including the brain and spinal cord

  Central Nervous System (CNS) - The brain and spinal cord, receives information from the senses and controls the body's responses
• Somatic nervous system


  Part of the peripheral nervous system responsible for carrying sensory and motor information to and from the central nervous system
• Synaptic transmission


  The process by which a nerve impulse passes across the synaptic cleft from one neuron to another (from the presynaptic neuron to the postsynaptic neuron)
• Hormones

  The body's chemical messengers, they travel through the bloodstream and influence many different processes including mood, the stress response and bonding between mother and newborn baby
• Fight or flight response


  A sequence of activity within the body that is triggered when the body prepares itself for defending or attacking (fight) or running to safety (flight), involving changes in the nervous system and the secretion of hormones
• Tend and befriend response


  Occurs in females due to the presence of oxytocin, which tends to induce a nurturing response, unlike the effects of testosterone
• Axons


  Carry the electrical impulse down the length of a neuron, covered in a fatty layer called a myelin sheath
• Broca's research on the brain of a patient known as 'Tan' led to the association of language function with the left frontal lobe
• Maguire et al (2000)

  Driving a taxi increases brain plasticity, observed a significantly higher volume of grey matter in the posterior hippocampus of taxi drivers compared to the control group
• Split-brain research

  Sperry (1968) studied patients whose corpus callosum was severed, finding that they were unable to verbally identify objects shown to their left visual field, which is processed by the right hemisphere, as language is lateralised in the left hemisphere
• Brain plasticity

  Young people are more likely to recover from brain trauma due to rapid growth and formation of 15,000 synaptic connections between ages 2-3, increasing the brain's plasticity
• Wernicke's area


  Part of the brain that deals with language comprehension, located in the temporal lobe
• Electroencephalogram (EEG)


  A recording of brain activity, with small sensors attached to the scalp to pick up the electrical signals produced when brain cells send messages to each other
• Examples of infradian rhythms

  • Female menstrual cycle
  • Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
• Siffre's research in a cave found that his free-running circadian rhythm settled at about 25 hours, just above the usual 24 hours
• Endogenous pacemaker


  The suprachiasmatic nucleus, an internal biological clock that helps set our circadian rhythms by interacting with other parts of the body
• Examples of circadian rhythms


  • Sleep-wake cycle
• Suprachiasmatic nucleus


  A bundle of nerves within the hypothalamus that act as the body's internal clock, helping to regulate sleep-wake cycles
• Pros and cons of postmortem examination

  • Pro: Allows anatomical study of the brain that cannot be done on live subjects
  • Con: Subject is dead, so no follow-up studies or questions can be asked
• Autonomic nervous system


  The part of the nervous system that controls the brain's involuntary activities, and is self-regulating (autonomous), further divided into the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems