key words

• autonomic nervous system governs the brains involuntary activities (e.g. stree, heartbeat) and is self-regulating (i.e. autonomous) it is divided into the sympathetic branch (fight or flight) and the parasympathetic branch (rest and digest)
• brain is the part of the central nervous system that is responsible for coordinating sensation, intellectual and nervous activity
• central nervous system is comprised of the brain and the spinal cord, it receives information from the senses and controls the body's responses
• peripheral nervous system is the part of the nervous system that is outside the brain and spinal cord
• somatic nervous system is the part of the peripheral nervous system responsible for carrying sensory and motor information to and from the central nervous system
• the spinal cord is a bundle of nerve fibers enclosed within the spinal column and which connects nearly all parts of the body with the brain
• motor neurons from synapses w/ muscles and control their contractions
• neurotransmitters are chemical substances that play an important part in the workings of the nervous system by transmitting nerve impulses across a synapse
• relay neurons there neurons are the most common type of neuron in the CNS they allow sensory and motor neurons to communicate w/ eachother
• sensory neurons carry nerve impulses from sensory receptors to the spinal cord and the brain
• synapse is the conjunction of the end of the exon of 1 neuron and the dendrite or cell body of another
• synaptic transmission refers to the process by which a nerve impulse passes across the synaptic cleft from 1 neuron (the presynaptic neuron) to another (the post synaptic neuron)
• endocrine glands are special groups of cells within the endocrine system whose function is to produce and secrete hormones
• endocrine system is a network of glands throughout the body that manufacture and secrete chemical messengers known as hormones
• hormones are the body's chemical messengers they travel through the bloodstream, influencing many different processes including mood, the stress response and bonding between mother and newborn baby
• pituitary gland is the 'master gland' whose primary function is to influence the release of hormones from other glands
• fight or flight response is a sequence of activity within the body that is triggered when the body prepares itself for defending or attacking (fight) or running away to safety (flight), this activity involves change in the nervous system and the secretion of hormones that are necessary to sustain arousal
• HPA axis describes the sequence of bodily activity in response to stress that involves the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal cortex
• Broca's area is an area in the frontal lobe of the brain usually in the left hemisphere related to speech production
• Localisation of function refers to the belief that specific areas of the brain are associated w/ specific cognitive processes
• motor cortex is a region of the brain responsible for the generation of voluntary motor movements
• somatosensory cortex is a region of the brain that processes input from sensory receptors in the body that are sensitive to touch
• Wernicke's area is an area in the temporal lobe of the brain important in the comprehension of language
• hemispheric lateralisation refers to the fact that some mental processes in the brain are mainly specialised to either the left or right hemisphere
• split-brain research is research that studies people who have been subjected to the surgical separation of the 2 hemispheres of the brain as a result of severing the corpus callosum
• brain plasticity refers to the brain's ability to modify its own structure and function as a result of experience
• functional recovery refers to the recovery of abilities and mental processes that have been compromised as a result of brain injury or disease
• electroencephalogram (EEG) = a method of recording changes in the electrical activity of the brain using electrodes attached to the scalp
• event-related potential (ERP) is a technique that takes raw EEG data and uses it to investigate cognitive processing of a specific event, it achieves this by taking multiple readings and averaging them in order to filter out all brain activity that is not related to the appearance of the stimulus
• functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is a technique for measuring brain activity it works by detecting changes in blood oxygenation and flow that indicate increased neural activity
• post-mortem examinations are ways of examining the brains of people who have shown particular psychological abnormalities prior to their death in an attempt to establish the possible neurobiological cause for this behaviour
• circadian rhythms are a pattern of behaviour that occurs or recurs approximately every 24 hours and which is set and reset by environmental light levels
• sleep-wake cycle refers to alternating states of sleep and waking that are dependent on the 24 hour circadian rhythm
• infradian rhythms are rhythms that have a duration of over 24 hours and may be weekly, monthly or even annually
• ultradian rhythms are cycles that last less than 24 hours such as the cycle of sleep stages that occur throughout the night
• endogenous pacemakers are mechanisms within the body that govern the internal biological bodily rhythms
• exogenous zeitgeber is an environmental cue such as light that helps to regulate the biological clock in an organism