Neuroscience Final Exam Study Guide PDF

### CONTENT FOR FIRST TWO-THIRDS OF FINAL EXAM This section will be similar to your previous exams - multiple choice, ordering, T/F, labeling, short answers. ### Cells of the nervous system - 4 types of neurons → unipolar, pseudounipolar, bipolar, multipolar - know how common these are and wher...

### CONTENT FOR FIRST TWO-THIRDS OF FINAL EXAM This section will be similar to your previous exams - multiple choice, ordering, T/F, labeling, short answers. ### Cells of the nervous system - 4 types of neurons → unipolar, pseudounipolar, bipolar, multipolar - know how common these are and where they are usually found. Do all vertebrates have these? - Supporting cells (glia) - how abundant are these? What are the 3 types? - Astrocytes - Most abundant, critical for blood-brain-barrier. - How do they communicate with each other? - Oligodendrocytes - Make up the myelin & support axons on neurons - How many neurons can each oligodendrocyte support? - What are Schwann cells? How are those cells and oligodendrocytes related? - Microglia - Least abundant glia - Smallest glia - Are the "immune cells" of the brain - "Eat" dead tissue in the brain ### Define afferent and efferent ### Enlargements in the spinal cord - Cervical - which part of the spinal cord is it found in? Which important outgoing nerves exit the spinal cord here? - Lumbar - which part of the spinal cord is it found in? Which important outgoing nerves exit the spinal cord here? ### Sexual neurodevelopment - embryonic development - how many layers does an embryo have before the neural tube forms? Which layer forms the nervous system? - HPG axis - hypothalamus - pituitary - gonad axis → known hormones involved and which region they are released from - HPA axis - hypothalamus - pituitary - adrenal axis → known hormones involved and which region they are released from - What behavioral output is the easiest to assess to study sex differences? - Organizational vs activational hormones - When does each kind of hormone "come online"? - How are these time points related to critical or sensitive periods? - (Define critical and sensitive periods) - How are the two time points related to each other? - What are some of the ways that these "normal" hormone cascades can be manipulated? - Females given testosterone OR estradiol at birth - Males having castrations (testes removal) on postnatal day 1 - Brain anatomy - what can be changed by hormones? - Sexually dimorphic nucleus of the preoptic area (SDN of POA) - larger in males than females ### Prenatal programming - What is the Dutch Hunger Winter? What happened to children born during the famine? What happened to children conceived during the famine? - Thrifty Phenotype Hypothesis - how does this hypothesis attempt to explain adult obesity and metabolic syndromes? - Epigenetics - know the definition and at least one example - Agouti gene - gene that determines fur/coat color in mice - Supplementing mom's diet with folic acid, vitamin B12, choline, betaine → more of her offspring have brown coats - Stress reactivity - maternal care (in the form of licking/grooming and arch-backed nursing) can change how stressed her offspring get when you make them anxious - "low" licking and grooming - the offspring have more corticosterone and a longer stress response. Daughters of these moms grow up to be "low" L&G moms too - "high" licking and grooming - offspring have less CORT and shorter stress response. Daughters of these moms grow up to be "high" L&G moms - Can you explain the fostering experiments? What happens when you take a female pup and put her with a mom who is a "high" groomer, even if she was born to a "low" groomer? - These studies show that mom's behavior can influence the hormone release, stress response AND later maternal behavior of her own offspring → and it's all because of changes in gene expression caused by her changes in licking and grooming ### Defining reward - how would you describe "reward" and why is it important that we have a part of our brain that responds in a way that feels "rewarding"? ### Brain regions associated with reward - Ventral tegmental area (VTA) - in midbrain; dopamine neurons that send axons to nucleus accumbens - Nucleus accumbens (NAcc) – in ventral striatum (forebrain) and is the "reward" region → stimulating this region or releasing a lot of dopamine in this region causes rewarding pleasurable feelings. This region contains medium spiny neurons ### Drugs of abuse - Stimulants - How do they work: increase dopamine release and block dopamine reuptake (think back to chemical signaling between neurons in first part of course) - How do they make a user feel: enhanced mood (euphoria), enhanced attention, low appetite. Can also cause paranoia in high doses. - Opioids - How do they work: inhibit GABA neurons in VTA. GABA neurons in VTA are usually like the brakes on the system slowing down or inhibiting dopamine release. These drugs turn off the GABA neurons (the brakes) and so the dopamine neurons release more dopamine (accelerate the system). - How do they make a user feel: relaxation, euphoria, analgesia (pain relief) ### Addiction - What behaviors comprise addiction? - Drug seeking - Chronic use - Relapse despite negative consequences - Negative emotional state when access to drug is blocked - Tolerance - know definition - Sensitization - know definition - Withdrawal - Symptoms when someone withdraws from opioids - Symptoms when someone withdraws from alcohol ### Prevention & treatment - What are some current ways to (try to) prevent addiction? - What are some current ways to treat addiction? How successful are they? ### CONTENT FOR LAST THIRD OF THE EXAM - Imaging the brain: CAT, MRI, fMRI → which one is good for what? - Lobes of the brain - Amygdala function - Hippocampal function - 6 basic human emotions – why do these 6 exist? What does each help us do as we communicate without words? - Possible essay questions: - How do human brains help us be part of communities and social structures? What is unique about them? - Opioids are very effective pain relief drugs. They are also very addictive drugs. Given what you know about the mechanism of action of opioids (i.e., binding to opioid receptors to increase endorphins and relieve pain but ALSO binding to GABA receptors in the VTA and releasing dopamine), what should pharmaceutical companies be searching for in new pain relief drugs that do not cause addiction? - Our genes and our environments interact to produce different phenotypes (traits) based on that interaction. If you are given an example (different than the one we've discussed in class), explain how the genotype and environment are interacting. Describe the graph itself - X-axis, Y-axis, general findings - and what that means about the genotypes and/or the environment. - Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a debilitating mental disorder that occurs following traumatic events. Though it is much more complex than fear conditioning in rodents, it has many of the same underlying brain mechanisms. When mental health professionals are helping patients work through their PTSD, what neural networks are they trying to activate? How might you do that with a patient in an office? (Be creative! As long as you are not doing exposure therapy, there is no wrong answer!) - Sex and gender are two distinct concepts that are often overlapped in people's minds. How would you describe the differences between sex and gender to help someone understand the distinction? What are some of the ways that gender-affirming care changes brain circuitry?