Neuroplasticity and Mental Health Quiz

Introduction to Psychology and Sociology

• Psychology & Sociology flashcards
• Covers topics from a variety of chapters

Neuropsychology

• Franz Gall (1758–1828): Phrenology (incorrect idea that brain traits are directly related to the size of specific brain areas)
• Pierre Flourens (1794–1867): Studied brain functions through extirpation (removing parts of the brain to observe the effects)
• William James (1842–1910): Father of American Psychology, Functionalism (how mental processes help people adapt)
• John Dewey (1859–1952): Functionalist psychologist
• Paul Broca (1824–1880): Broca's Area (speech production). Studied people with brain lesions
• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894): Measured the speed of nerve impulses
• Sir Charles Sherrington (1857–1952): Discovered synapses
• Sigmund Freud (1856–1939): Psychoanalytic perspective

Organization of the Human Nervous System

• Neurons:
  • Sensory (afferent): Receptors → spinal cord
  • Interneurons: Between other neurons (mainly CNS)
  • Motor (efferent): CNS → muscles & glands
• Reflex Arcs: Information relayed through spinal cord to the source of stimuli and brain
• Central Nervous System (CNS): Brain and spinal cord
• Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): Nervous tissue and fibers outside the CNS
  • Somatic: Voluntary control
  • Autonomic: Sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and digest)
• Functional Neuron Types:
  • Sensory (unipolar)
  • Motor (multipolar)
  • Interneuron (multipolar)

Organization of the Brain

• Hindbrain: Cerebellum, medulla oblongata, reticular formation
• Midbrain: Inferior and superior colliculi
• Forebrain: Thalamus, hypothalamus, basal ganglia, limbic system, cerebral cortex
• Methods of Study:
  • Electroencephalography (EEG)
  • Regional cerebral blood flow
• Meninges: Thick sheath of connective tissue protecting the brain. Keeps the brain anchored, and absorbs cerebrospinal fluid

Parts of the Forebrain

• Thalamus: Sensory relay station
• Hypothalamus: Homeostasis & endocrine system
• Basal Ganglia: Smooths movements & helps with postural stability
• Limbic System: Septal Nuclei (pleasure & addiction), Amygdala (fear & aggression), Hippocampus (emotion & memory)
• Cerebral Cortex: Four lobes (frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal)

Influences on Behavior

• Neurotransmitters: Chemical messengers:
  • Acetylcholine: Muscle movement, parasympathetic, CNS
  • Dopamine: Smooth muscle movement, posture
  • Endorphins & Enkephalins: Natural painkillers
  • Epinephrine & Norepinephrine: Wakefulness, "fight or flight", hormone vs. neurotransmitter
  • GABA, Glycine, Glutamate: Inhibitory neurotransmitters
  • Serotonin: Mood, sleep, eating, dreaming
• Other endocrine hormones: Cortisol (stress), testosterone (aggression), estrogen (behavior)

Brain Development

• Neurulation: Notochord stimulates ectoderm, creating neural tube, topped with neural crest cells
• Neural Tube: Becomes the CNS
• Neural Crest Cells: Spread to diverse regions, forming various tissues
• Reflexes: Present in infants, some disappear (rooting, moro, babinski)

Sensation vs. Perception

• Sensation: Sensory organs receive and transmit stimuli to the brain.
• Perception: Processing and interpreting sensory information.
• Sensory Receptors: Specialized tissues or cells that respond to stimuli.
• Sensory Ganglia: Collections of nerve cell bodies outside the central nervous system.
• Projection Areas: Brain areas where sensory information is analyzed.
• Absolute Threshold: Minimum stimulus energy to activate a sensory system.
• Threshold of Conscious Perception: Minimum stimulus energy to bring a signal into awareness.
• Difference Threshold: Minimum difference in stimulus between two events for them to be perceived as significantly different.
• Weber's Law: Just Noticeable Difference (JND) for a stimulus is proportional to the magnitude of the stimulus.
• Signal Detection Theory: Impact of non-sensory factors (e.g., experience, motivation) on stimulus perception. Referred to as Response Bias.
• Adaptation: Change in sensitivity to a stimulus

Vision

• Cornea: Gathers and filters incoming light.
• Iris: Controls pupil size
• Lens: Refracts light to focus it on the retina.
• Aqueous Humor: Provides nutrients and shape to the eye
• Retina: Rods (light/dark) and cones (color). Cones in fovea
• Retinal Disparity: Space between eyes allowing for binocular vision.
• Horizontal & Amacrine Cells: Integrates signals, edge enhancement.
• Processing: Parallel processing (color, form, and motion); Magnocellular (motion), Parvocellular (shape and detail)cells

Hearing and Vestibular Sense

• Outer Ear: Pinna, external auditory canal, tympanic membrane
• Middle Ear: Ossicles (malleus, incus, stapes)
• Inner Ear: Bony labyrinth (perilymph), membranous labyrinth (endolymph): Cochlea (sound), utricle & saccule (linear acceleration), semicircular canals (rotational acceleration).
• Projection Areas: Superior Olive (sound localization) and Inferior Colliculus (startle reflex)

Other Senses

• Smell: Olfactory chemoreceptors in olfactory epithelium detect volatile/aerosolized chemicals; Olfactory info bypasses the thalamus.
• Taste: Taste buds in papillae detect dissolved chemicals.
• Somatosensation: Pressure, vibration, pain, temperature.
• Two-Point Threshold: Minimum distance for stimuli to be felt as separate points on the skin.
• Physiological Zero: Normal skin temperature
• Nociceptors: Pain reception
• Kinesthetic Sense: Proprioception

Object Recognition

• Top-Down Processing: Recognition influenced by memories and expectations.
• Bottom-Up Processing: Recognition based on feature detection, independent of background knowledge.
• Gestalt Principles: Proximity, similarity, continuity, closure; governed by the law of Prägnanz

Learning and Memory

• Encoding: Process of getting information into memory; can be automatic or effortful.
• Sensory & Short Term Memory: Transient & neurotransmitter-based
• Working Memory: STM, attention & executive functions
• Long Term Memory: Elaborate rehearsal & increased connectivity.
• Explicit (Declarative) Memory: Consciously recalled memories
• Implicit (Nondeclarative) Memory: Acquired skills/conditioned responses
• Semantic Networks: Stores facts, Concepts linked by meaning
• Retrieval: Recognition stronger than recall; based on priming interconnected nodes
• Diseases: Alzheimer's, Korsakoff's, Agnosia.
• Interference: Retroactive (new memories) and proactive (old memories)
• Neuroplasticity: Brain's ability to reorganize and adapt by forming new connections throughout life
• Neural Circuits: Networks of interconnected neurons involved in memory (formation, retrieval, consolidation)
• Synaptic Pruning: Elimination of weaker connections for efficiency of neural communication

Cognition, Consciousness, and Language

• Attention: Selective attention; divided attention
• Hypnosis: Highly suggestible state
• Meditation: Quieting of the mind
• Consciousness: Different states or levels, corresponding to EEG wave types.
• Drugs Affecting States of Consciousness: Depressants, Stimulants, Opioid Narcotics, Hallucinogens
• Mesolimbic Pathway: Mediates drug addiction, central for dopamine reward circuits

Motivation, Emotion, and Stress

• Motivation: The driving force behind actions; Extrinsic (external reward) & Intrinsic (internal motivator)
• Instincts: Innate, fixed patterns of behaviors
• Arousal: State of alertness and stimulation
• Drive Reduction Theory: Motivated by internal tension to reduce it
• Maslow's Hierarchy: Basic needs (physiological, safety), intermediate needs (love, belonging), and upper needs (esteem, self-actualization)
• Opponent-Process Theory: Explains tolerance and withdrawal (drug use)
• Incentive Theory: Motivation as a desire for rewards and avoidance of punishments
• Expectancy-Value Theory: Motivation based on expectation of success and value

Emotion

• Emotions: States of mind or feelings that arise from various factors
• Three Component Model of Emotion: Cognitive (subjective experience), Physiological (bodily changes), Behavioral (facial expression, body language)
• Universal Emotions: Happiness, sadness, contempt, surprise, fear, disgust, and anger
• James-Lange Theory: Physiological reactions precede emotions
• Cannon-Bard Theory: Emotions and physiological arousal are simultaneous and independent
• Schacter-Singer Two-factor Theory: Physiology & interpretation of context lead to emotions
• Limbic System: Brain region responsible for instincts & mood

Stress

• Stress: Physiological and cognitive responses to challenges.
• Stress Appraisal: Primary (classify as benign, neutral, or threatening) and secondary (assess ability to cope)
• Stressors: Any event causing a stress response
• Distress: Negative stress with negative implications
• Eustress: Positive stress with potential for gain or growth
• General Adaptation Syndrome: Alarm (initial response), resistance (adaptation), and exhaustion (long-term exposure)

Self-Concept, Identity, and Personality

• Self-Concept: Sum of ways to describe oneself
• Identities: Group-based aspects of self-concept
• Self-Esteem: The discrepancy between perceived self and ideal or ought selves
• Self-Efficacy: Perceived competence in a situation
• Learned Helplessness: A state of hopelessness from repeated negative experience
• Locus of Control: Internal (self-control), external (outside influences)
• Freud's Psychosexual Stages: Stages of personality development based on the libido (sexual energy) or satisfaction & unresolved issues
• Erikson's Psychosocial Stages: Stages of personality development based on social interactions and conflicts (trust vs mistrust)
• Kohlberg's Moral Development Stages: Stages of moral reasoning
• Vygotsky's Theory, Imitation & Role Taking Focuses on development aspects through observing others

Social Structure and Demographics

• Social Stratification: A system of ranking social categories
• Social Institutions: Stable structures that dictate behavior.
• Gender, Ethnic, Sexual Social differences amongst groups.
• Social Movements: organized to promote or resist social change.
• Globalization: Integrating global economy.
• Urbanization: Process of population density increasing.
• Fertility Rate: Average number of children born to a woman during her lifetime
• Mortality Rate: Number of deaths per 1000 people per year
• Migration: Movement of people from one location to another
• Demographic Transition Model: Hypothesizes changes in birth/death rates as societies industrialize

Social Interaction

• Social Facilitation: Performance changes in the presence of others
• Deindividuation: Loss of self-awareness in groups
• Bystander Effect: Less likely to help in groups
• Peer Pressure: Social influence
• Social Loafing: Individual contributions reduced when in groups
• Groupthink: Group decisions without considering alternative viewpoints
• Cultural Lag: Symbolic culture changes slowly compared to material culture
• Language: A symbolic system for communication.
• Values: What is important to a culture
• Beliefs: Accuracies or Truths held within a culture
• Rituals: Ceremonial customs
• Norms: Societal rules for appropriate behavior
• Material Culture: Physical objects, tools, technology.

Social Cognition

• Social Perception: How humans interpret and form impressions of others.
• Social Capital: Resources available through social connections.
• Implicit Personality Theories: Assumptions of character traits based on an initial impression.
• Cognitive Biases: Primacy, recency, central traits, halo, just world, self-serving biases
• Attribution Theory: Why people behave the way they do; dispositional vs. situational, correspondent inference theory.
• Actor-observer Bias: Attributing own behavior to external factors, other's behavior to internal factors.
• Stereotypes: Generalizations about groups
• Self-fulfilling prophecy: Stereotypes lead to behaviors that confirm them
• Stereotype threat: Anxiety about confirming stereotypes
• Prejudice: Negative attitude toward a group
• Ethnocentrism: Judging other cultures by one's own standards
• Cultural relativism: Recognizing and understanding cultural differences
• Discrimination: Biased treatment of individuals due to group affiliation

Psychological Disorders

• Behavioral Approach: Conditioning plays a major role in disorders
• Biomedical Approach: Focuses on physiological factors and medical treatment.
• Biopsychosocial Approach: Considers biological, psychological, and social factors
• DSM-5: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th edition), categorizes disorders according to defined criteria
• Schizophrenia: Genetic factors, birth trauma, etc.
• Depression: Increased glucocorticoids, norepinephrine, serotonin
• Bipolar Disorders: Increased norepinephrine, serotonin
• Alzheimer's Disease: Genetic factors, brain atrophy, acetylcholine
• Parkinson's Disease: Bradykinesia, resting tremor, mask-like facies, gait abnormality, dopamine depletion

Epidemiology and Disparities

• Incidence: Number of new cases per population
• Prevalence: Total number of cases of a disease.
• Mortality Rate: Number of deaths caused by a disease
• Ethnic Migrants: Health implications for those emigrating and settling in industrialized countries
• Morbidity: Burden of disease
• Affordable Care Act: Attempts to increase health insurance coverage
• Medicare and Medicaid: Covers populations (based on age and financial need)