Biological School

The Nervous System: starts with an individual nerve cell called Neuron (a cell)

Nueroanatomy - neurotransmitter

• Cell Body - cell's life support center
• Dendrites - receive messages from other cells
• Axon - passes message away from the cell body to other neurons, muscles, or glands
• Myelin Sheath - covers axon of some neuron and helps spread neural impulses
• Neural Impulses - electrical signal travelling down axon
• Synapse - structure that permits a neuron to pass a chemical or electrical signal to another cell
• Resting Potential: slightly negative charge; reacts the threshold when enough neurotransmitters reach the dendrites
• Electrochemical Process: electrical inside neuron and chemical on the outside; the firing is called Action Potential
• All or None Response: idea that either the neuron fires or it does not- no part way firing; like a gun
• Neurotransmitter- chemical messenger released by terminal buttons through the synapse gaps
• 4 Types of Neurotransmitter:
1. Acetylcholine (ACH)- deals with motor movement and memory; lack of ACH has been linked to Alzheimer's Disease
2. Dopamine- deals with motor movement and alertness; lack of dopamine has been linked to Parkinson's Disease; too much has been linked to Schizophrenia
3. Serotonin- involved with mood control; lack of serotonin has been linked to clinical depression
4. Endorphins- involved in pain control; many of our most addictive drugs deal with endorphins
• Drugs can be...
• Agonists: make neurons fire
• Antagonists: stop neural firing
• 3 Types of Neurons:
1. Sensory (Afferent) Neurons: take information from the senses to the brain
2. Inter Neurons: take information to Sensory Neuron to other parts of the brain or to the Motor  Neurons
3. Motor (Efferent) Neurons: take information from the brain to the rest of the body

The Nervous System

• Central Nervous System: Brain and Spinal Cord
• Peripheral Nervous System: all nerves that are not encased in bone; everything but the brain and spinal cord; is divided into 2 categories:
1. Somatic Nervous System- controls voluntary muscle movement; use motor (efferent) neurons
2. Autonomic Nervous System- controls the autonomic functions of the body; divided into 2 categories:
1. Sympathetic Nervous System: Fight or Flight Response; automatically accelerates heart rate, breathing, dilates pupils, and slows down digestion
2. Parasympathetic Nervous System: automatically slows down the body after a stressful event; heart rate and breathing slow down, pupils constrict and digestion speeds up
• Reflexes: normally, sensory (afferent) neurons take information up through the spine to the brain; some reactions occur when sensory neurons reach just the spinal cord
• Lesions: cutting into the brain and looking for change
• Less Invasive Ways to study brain

Brain Structures
-some scientists divide the brain up into 3 parts: Hindbrain, Midbrain, Forebrain

• Hindbrain
1. Medulla Oblongata: heart rate, breathing, blood pressure
2. Pons: connects Hindbrain, Midbrain, and Forebrain together; involved in facial expressions
3. Cerebellum: located in the back of our head - means little brain; coordinates muscle movements; like tracking a target
• Midbrain - coordinates simple movements with sensory information; contains reticular formation; arousal and ability to focus attention
• Forebrain - Thalamus: receives sensory information and sends them to appropriate areas of the forebrain; like a switchboard; everything but smell

Limbic System: emotional control center of the brain, but plays a not so small role; made up of the hypothalamus, amygdala, and the hippocampus

• Hypothalamus: pea-sized in brain, but plays a not so small role; body temperature, hunger, thirst, and sexual arousal (libido)
• Hippocampus: involved in memory processing
• Amygdala: vital for our basic emotions

• Cerebral Cortex: top layer of our brain, contains wrinkles called fissures; fissures increase the surface area of our brain; laid out, it would be about the size of a large pizza
• Hemispheres: divided into left and right hemispheres
• contralateral controlled - left controls right side of the body, vice-versa
• lefties are better at spatial and creative tasks; righties are better at logic <-- (Brain Lateralization)
• Split-Brain Patients: Corpus Callosum attaches the hemispheres of the cerebral cortex; when removed, you have a split-brain patient --> you may die
• Cerebral Cortex:
• Frontal Lobe - abstract thought and emotional control
• Motor Cortex: sends signals to our body controlling muscles movement
• Broca's Area: responsible for controlling muscles that produce speech
• damage to the Broca's Area is called Broca's Aphasia: unable to make movements to talk
• Parietal Lobe -
• Sensory Cortex: receives incoming touch sensations from the rest of the body
• most parietal lobes are made up of Association Areas (are not associated with receiving sensory information or coordinating muscle movements)
• Occipital Lobe - deals with vision
• Visual Cortex: interprets messages from our eyes into images we can understand
• Temporal Lobe - process sensed by our ears
• Wernike's Area: interprets written and spoken speech
• Wernike's Aphasia: unable to understand language; syntax and grammar jumbled

Endocrine System:
- a system of glands that secrete hormones; similar to the nervous system, except hormones work a lot slower than neurotransmitters
The 5 Glands:

1. Thyroid glands: affects metabolism
2. Pituitary glands: secretes many different hormones
3. Adrenal glands: inner part is called the medulla, helps trigger the "fight or flight" response
4. Pancreas: regulates level of sugar in the blood
5. Ovary/Testis: secretes female sex hormones; secretes male sex hormones

Developmental Psychology:
- the study of YOU from birth to death; how we change physically, socially, and cognitively

• Nature: way you are born; Nurture: way you were raised
• Physical Development: focus on our physical changes over time
• Prenatal Development: conception begins with drop of egg and release of 200 million sperms -> sperm seeks eggs and attempts to penetrate egg's surface
• Zygote - first stage of prenatal development... lasts about 2 weeks and consists of rapid cell division; sperm penetrates egg -> fertilized egg is called zygote
• less than 1/2 of zygotes survive in the first 2 weeks
• 10 days after conception, zygote attaches itself to uterine wall
• outer part becomes placenta, which filters nutrients
• after two weeks develops into...
• Embryo - lasts as 6 weeks, heartbeat begins to beat and organs begin to develop
• by 9 weeks...
• Fetus - by 6 months, stomach and other organs have formed enough to survive outside of mother; at this time, baby can hear and recognize sounds and respond to light
• Teratogens: chemical agents that can harm prenatal environment, alcohol (FAS), other STDs cab harm baby, including HIV, Herpes, and Genital Warts
• Healthy Newborns... turn their heads toward voices, can see 8 - 12 inches from their faces, gaze longer at humanlike objects right from birth

Reflexes:
- inborn automatic responses: rooting, sucking, grasping, Babinski

• Rooting Reflex - baby's tendency to open their mouth to search for nipple

Maturation:
- physical growth, regardless of the environment; timing of growth is different, but the sequence is the same

• Puberty: period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing
• Primary Sexual Characteristics - body structures that make reproducing possible
• Ex: penis, testes, vagina, ovaries
• Secondary Sexual Characteristics - non-reproducing sexual characteristics
• Ex: wide hips, breast development, deep voice, body hair
• Landmarks for Puberty: menarche for girls; first ejaculation for boys (spermarche)
• Physical Milestone: menopause, time of natural cessation of menstruation; also refers to the biological changes a woman experiences as her ability to reproduce declines

Death, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's Stages of Death/Grief:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Social Development:
-up until about a year, infants do not mind strange people (maybe cause everyone is strange to them)

• at one year, infants develop stranger anxiety
• Stranger Anxiety: fear of strangers that infants commonly display, beginning by about 8 months of age
• Separation Anxiety: child separated from parent

Attachment:

• Harry Harlow and the monkeys
• showed that monkeys needed touch to form attachment

• Critical Periods: optimal period shortly after birth when an organism's exposure to certain stimuli produces proper development
• those deprived of touch have trouble forming attachment when they are older
• Mary Ainsworth's Strange Situation:
1. Secure - comfortable with people who take care of you when parents are gone
2. Avoidant - upset that parents abandoned you
3. Anxious/Ambivalent - excited to see at first then cold shoulder... vice versa
• Parenting Styles:
1. Authoritarian - parents are in charge
2. Permissive - kids are in charge, "laissez-faire"
3. Authoritative - Parents and kids compromise
• Erik Erikson: Neo-Freudian, worked with Anne Freud; thought our personality was influenced by our experiences with others
• Stages of Development:
1. Trust v.s. Mistrust - Can you trust caregiver?; development can carry on with child for the rest of their lives
2. Autonomy v.s. Shame/Doubt - Can you learn control or do you doubt yourself?; toddlers begin to control bodies (potty training), control temper tantrums, "NO"
3. Initiative v.s. Guild - Is curiosity encouraged or scolded?; "NO" --> "WHY", want to understand world and asks questions
4. Industrial v.s. Inferiority - Do we feel good or bad about our accomplishments?; school begins, evaluated by formal systems and peers, can lead to us feeling bad about ourselves for the rest of our lives... inferiority complex
5. Identity v.s. Role Conclusion - Who am I and what group do I fit in?; try out different roles
6. Intimacy v.s. Isolation - What are my priorities?; have to balance work and relationships
7. Generality v.s. Stagnation - Is everything going as planned?; look back upon life and see if it was meaningful or regretful
• Cognitive Development:
1. Jean Piaget - thought kids were stupid versions of adults; kids learn differently than adults
• Schemas: child's view of world through schemas (as do adults); ways we interpret the world around us; basically what you would picture in your head when you think of anything
• Assimilation: incorporating new experiences into existing schemas
• Accommodation: changing an existing schemas to adapt to new information

1. Sensorimotor - experience world through senses, do NOT have object permanence; from 0 - 2 years
2. Preoperational Stages - have object permanence, begins to use language to represent object and ideas, egocentric (cannot look at the world through anyone's eyes but their own); from 2 - 7 years
• Conservation: idea that a quantity remains the same despite the changes in appearance and is part of logical thinking
3. Concrete Operational Stage - can demonstrate the concept of conservation, learn to think logically
4. Formal Operational Stage - abstract reasoning, manipulate object in mid without seeing them, hypothesis testing, trial and error, metacognition, not every adult gets to this stage
• What would the world look like with no light?
• Picture God
• What way do you best learn?

• Types of Intelligence:
1. Crystallized Intelligence: accumulated knowledge which increases with age
2. Fluid Intelligence: ability to solve problems quickly and think abstractedly, peaks in the 20's and then decreases over time

Moral Development:

• Three Stages by Lawrence Kohlberg

1. Pre-Conventional Morality: morality based on rewards and punishments, reward = OK, punishment = something wrong
2. Conventional Morality: look at morality based on how others see you, if peers, or society, thinks it is wrong, so do you
3. Post-Conventional Morality: based on self-defined ethical principles, you own personal self of ethics