Psychoactive Drugs: chemical substances that alter thinking, perception, and memory. Stimulants: drugs that increase functioning of the nervous system. Caffein, cocaine. Depressant... Psychoactive Drugs: chemical substances that alter thinking, perception, and memory. Stimulants: drugs that increase functioning of the nervous system. Caffein, cocaine. Depressants: drugs that decrease the function of the nervous system. Alcohol. Hallucinogens: drugs that cause false sensory messages, altering the perception of reality. Marijuana. Opioids: synthetically created drugs that act like opiates when taken for pain. Heroin. Tolerance: diminished response to a drug. Addiction: a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking. Withdrawal: physical symptoms that can include nausea, pain, tremors, crankiness, high blood pressure, resulting from a lack of addictive drug in the body systems. The Brain Brain stem: lower part of the brain that connects to the spinal cord. Medulla: part of the hindbrain; “the deep inside region or marrow”. First large swelling at the top of the spinal cord, forming the lowest part of the brain. Responsible for life-sustaining functions such as breathing, swallowing, and heart rate. Reticular activating system: a network/bundle of neurons in the brainstem that controls sleep and wake states, attention, and responses to the world around us. Cerebellum: part of the hindbrain; “little brain”. Part of the lower brain located behind the pons. Controls and coordinates involuntary, rapid, fine motor movement, coordination of muscle movement, balance, and some forms of procedural learning. Coordinates voluntary movements that have to happen in rapid succession. Cerebral cortex: outer layer of the brain, considered the primary control and information processing center. Crucial in higher cognitive functions such as perception, memory, language, and decision making. Limbic system: a group of several brain structures located under the cortex. Located in the inner margin of the upper brain. Involved in learning, emotion, memory, and motivation. Includes: Thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and cingulate cortex. Pituitary gland: located in the brain that secretes human growth hormone and influences all other hormone-secreting glands. Known as “master gland”. Located directly above the brainstem, below the hypothalamus. Hippocampus: “seahorse”. Curved structure located within each temporal lobe responsible for the formation of long-term declarative memories. Amygdala: “almond”. Brain structure located near hippocampus responsible for fear responses and memory of fear. Information from senses goes to amygdala before the upper part of the brain stimulating quicker responses. Corpus callosum: “hard bodies”; tough, thick band of neurons that connects right & left cerebral hemispheres. Lobes of the cortex Occipital lobe: section of the brain located at the rear and bottom of each cerebral hemisphere containing visual centers of the brain. Visual info processing. Primary visual cortex: processes visual info from eyes. Visual association cortex: identified and makes sense of visual info. Temporal lobe: areas of cortex along the sides of the brain, starting just behind temples, containing neurons. Responsible for the sense of hearing and meaningful speech (auditory and linguistic processing). Primary auditory cortex: processes auditory information from ears. Auditory association cortex: identifies and makes sense of auditory information. An area involved in language in the left temporal lobe. Parietal lobe: sections of the brain located at the top and back of each cerebral hemisphere. Control association areas, which process and organize info. Containing centers for touch, taste, temperature sensations. Comprises somatosensory cortex (area of neurons running down the front of the parietal lobes). Frontal lobe: areas of cortex located in front and top of the brain (behind forehead). Responsible for higher mental processes/higher order thinking, decision making, executive function. Planning, personality, memory storage, impulse control, complex decision making and production of fluent speech. Split brain research: study of individuals who have undergone surgical procedure called corpus callosotomy, where the corpus callosum is severed, allowing researchers to examine how each hemisphere functions independently, typically done to treat severe epilepsy. Left hemisphere: specializes in language, speech, handwriting, calculation (math), sense of time, and rhythm, and thought analysis. Right hemisphere: specializes in processing involving perception, visualization, spatial perception, recognition of patterns, faces, emotions, melodies, expression of emotions, and comprehension of simple language. Broca’s area: speech production. Present in left frontal lobe of most people; allows for smooth and fluent speech. Broca’s Aphasia: condition resulting from damage to Broca’s area (usually in left frontal lobe). Wernicke's area: responsible for speech comprehension. Part of the left temporal lobe; involved in understanding the meaning of words. Wernicke’s aphasia: condition resulting from damage to Wernicke’s area (usually in the left temporal lobe). Brain plasticity: ability of the brain to rewire itself, modify, or create new connections throughout development and generally allows for functions of damaged part of the brain to be assumed by a different part of the brain. Sleep Consciousness: a person’s awareness of everything that is going on around them at any given moment inside their head. Thoughts, sensations, feelings; organize behavior. Circadian rhythm: a cycle of bodily rhythm that occurs over a 24-hour period. Sleep within this period. Sleep-wake cycle controlled by the brain. Interruptions to circadian rhythms. Stages of sleep and sleep waves. Beta waves: awake/alert. Alpha waves: awake/relaxed. Theta waves: early stages of sleep. Delta waves: deepest stage of sleep. NREM: any stages of sleep that do not include REM; lighter to deeper, more restful - people move more in NREM. N1: Light sleep: theta waves. Unaware of sleep. May experience hypnagogic images (hallucinations) or hypnic jerk. N2: Sleep spindles: theta waves. Aware of sleep. Body temp drops, slow HR, irregular breathing, drift further into sleep. Sleep spindles: brief burst of electrical activity that only lasts a second or two; theta waves still predominate. N3: deep sleep: delta waves. aka “slow wave sleep”; deepest stage of sleep. The body at the lowest level of functioning. Time at which growth occurs (GH released from the pituitary glands). Hypnagogic sensations: sensory experiences, like visual images or sounds, that occur during the transition period between wakefulness and sleep, most commonly experienced in the first stage of NREM sleep. REM sleep: beta waves. Sometimes referred to as paradoxical sleep; most dreams take place (90%). Body temp increases, eyes move rapidly, heart beats faster, psychologically active, voluntary muscles inhibited → moves very little in REM. If physical stress, you need more time in NREM, emotional stress = more time in REM. REM Rebound: increased REM sleep deprivation of REM sleep previous nights. Dream theories. Freud: dreams as unconscious wish fulfillment. Studied patient dreams to understand the unconscious mind. Manifest content: the dream itself. Latent content: the true, hidden meaning of a dream; things in your dream can symbolize certain things. Activation-synthesis hypothesis: dreams are a result of the same areas of the cortex interpreting, or attempting to piece together random signals from lower brain areas. Muscles inhibited, signals to areas of the cortex. Memories, experience. The pons in the brain stem sends random signals to the upper part of the brain during REM sleep. Random signals pass through the thalamus, which sends signals to the proper sensory areas of the cortex. Once in the cortex, association areas of the cortex respond to random activation of these cortical cells by synthesizing a story or dream, using bits and pieces of life experiences and memories. Activation information mode model (AIM): revised version of activation synthesis explanation of dreams - dreams have more meaning. Information that is accessed during waking hours can have an influence on the synthesis of dreams. Sleep theories Memory consolidation: the brain actively processes and strengthens recently acquired memories, transforming them from temporary to long-term storage, solidifying them for later recall. Restorative Theory: proposes that sleep is necessary for the physical health of the body and serves to replenish chemicals and repair cellular damage. Adaptive Theory: proposing that animals and humans evolved sleep patterns to avoid predators by sleeping when predators are most active. Sleep disorders Insomnia: inability to get to sleep, stay asleep, or get good quality of sleep. Steps to get sleep: Go to bed only when sleepy. Don't do anything in your bed but sleep. Don't try too hard to get sleep. Go to bed at the same time, get up at the same time. Narcolepsy: sleep disorder in which a person falls immediately into REM sleep during the day without warning. REM behavior disorder: mechanism that blocks the movement of voluntary muscles fails, allowing the person to thrash around and even get up and act out nightmares. Sleep apnea: disorder in which a person stops breathing for nearly half a minute or more. Continuous positive airway pressure device (CPAP). Gasping. Do not get restful sleep. SIDS. Somnambulism: sitting, walking, or performing complex behavior while asleep. Sensation Sensation: activation of special neuron receptor sites in sense organs (eyes, ears, nose, skin, taste buds) triggering conversion of various forms of outside stimuli into neural signals in the brain. Taking in information as raw data or meaningless pieces of information about the external world. Transduction: turning external stimuli into neural activity. Detecting information from the environment that meets the threshold. Transduction stimuli → neurochemical messages → procession (perception) in the brain. Absolute threshold: smallest amount of energy needed for a person to consciously detect a stimulus. Lowest level of stimulation that a person can consciously. 50% of the time it is present. Just-noticeable difference (Weber’s Law): the smallest difference between 2 stimuli that is detectable 50% of the time. Degree to which a stimulus needs to be different for the difference to be detected. Weber’s Law: whatever the difference between stimuli might be, it is always a constant. Sensory adaptation: the tendency of sensory receptor cells to become less responsive to a stimulus that is unchanging. Receptor cells no longer send signals to the brain. Sensory interaction: sensory systems constantly work together. Vestibular sense: movement and body position. Convey information about movement and body position; found in the inner ear, responsible for motion sickness. Kinesthetic sense: location of body parts in relation to each other. Processed by proprioceptors in skin, joints, muscles, and tendons. Skin sense: touch, pressure, temperature, pain. Is an organ - receives and transmits information from the outside world to the somatosensory cortex of the brain. Taste/Gustation: made possible largely through the role of taste buds (taste receptor cells). Called chemical sense because food molecules dissolve in saliva, which then fits into receptor sites. 5 basic tastes - sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami. Smell/Olfaction: chemical sense because substance molecules are suspended in the air, carried to nasal cavity, and fit into receptor sites, nose serves as a collection device, unique in that signals do not first travel to thalamus before going to the brain. Read more