Psy 340 Midterm 2 Study Guide Psychobiology
Textbook Psychobiology Pinel
Below is the study guide for the material that our second midterm will cover.
Like last time, this is not meant to be a complete list of everything that might be on
the exam, but it should give you an idea of the most important areas worth focusing
your time on. Good luck studying and let me know if you have any questions.
Chapter 6: The Visual System
Retinal structure
- Rods vs. cones
- High vs. low-convergence
- Retinal ganglion cells and the “blind spot”
- The fovea (what is it and what is its function?)
Be able to describe the process by which rods turn a photon into an electrical neural
signal (see the diagram depicting this in the slides/textbook)
Understand what the retina-geniculate-striate pathway is
What is retinotopic organization and in which structures is it found?
Mach bands
- What are they?
- How do they benefit us?
- How does lateral inhibition produce them?
Understand the how each of the following cells work and what role they play in
helping our brains process visual stimuli:
- Circular on and off-center cells
- Simple cortical cells
- Complex cortical cells
Compare/contrast trichromatic vs. opponent-process theory
Be able to explain the retinex theory of color constancy
Ventral vs. dorsal pathway
- Where vs. what theory
- Control of behavior vs. conscious perception theory
Chapter 7
1. Organization of sensory systems
a. Receptor to association cortex
b. Which sensory system is the exception to this rule?
2. Fourier analysis
a. What is it?
b. How is it relevant to human perception?
3. Anatomy and organization of the cochlea
a. How are sounds transduced?
b. Tonotopic organization
4. What roles do each of the following play in sound localization?
a. Medial olive
b. Lateral olive
c. Superior colliculi
5. Function of anterior versus posterior auditory association cortices.
6. How do cochlear implants work?
a. Which parts of the auditory cortex’s organization do they take
advantage of?
b. Which types of hearing loss can they fix?
c. Which types can they not fix?
7. Be able to define dorsal roots and dermatomes
a. What is the practical effect of overlap between regions?
8. Functional difference between dorsal-column medial-lemniscus and
anterolateral somatosensory pathways.
9. Primary somatosensory cortex
a. Function
b. Organization
10. Functional difference between dorsal and ventral association somatosensory
cortices
11. Role of bimodal neurons in the somatosensory association cortex
12. Olfactory system
a. Chemotopic organization
b. Glomeruli
c. Functional role of limbic versus orbitofrontal cortex projections
13. Gustatory system
a. Taste receptors versus taste buds versus papillae
14. Anosmia versus ageusia
a. Common cause discussed in class (involves cribriform plate and
traumatic impact)
15. Selective attention
a. cocktail party phenomenon
16. Change blindness
Chapter 9
1. Ectoderm versus mesoderm versus endoderm
a. Neural tube formation
2. Neural proliferation
a. Ventricular zone
b. Tangential versus radial migration
c. Somal translocation
d. Glia-mediated migration
3. Axon and dendrite growth
a. Role of growth cones and filopodia
b. Sperry’s frog experiment
c. Chemoaffinity hypotheses
4. Necrosis versus apoptosis
5. Postnatal neural development
a. Synaptogenesis
b. Myelination
c. Dendritic branching
d. Cortical thinning
6. Prefrontal cortex development
a. Working memory
b. Planning
c. Inhibition
d. Social rules
e. How did Piaget’s observations of perseveration in infants
demonstrate that several of these abilities had not yet developed?
7. Critical versus sensitive periods
8. Role of deprivation in infant/toddler visual development
a. Competition for cortical “real estate”
b. Method of correcting for this after cataract removal
9. Neurogenesis and cortex reorganization
a. What are they?
b. Examples covered in ferrets, owls, rats and humans
10. Autism
a. Symptoms
b. Heterogeneity
c. Neural factors
11. Williams syndrome
a. Symptoms
b. Heterogeneity
c. How does it differ from autism?
Chapter 10
1. Epilepsy
a. Epileptic auras
b. Partial versus generalized seizures
c. Simple versus complex partial seizures
d. Tonic-clonic versus absence seizures
2. Parkinson’s disease
a. Symptoms
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
b. Role of dopamine and L-dopa
Huntington’s disease
a. Symptoms
b. Role of huntingtin protein
Multiple Sclerosis
a. Causes
i. Autoimmune effects
b. Symptoms
Alzheimer’s disease
a. Symptoms
b. Method of diagnosis
c. Causes
Neural degeneration
a. Anterograde versus retrograde
b. Transneuronal degeneration
Neural regeneration
a. How does it happen (and what can go wrong)?
b. Collateral sprouting
c. PNS vs CNS
Neural reorganization
a. Role of competition
b. Studies/observations in blind patients
c. Possible mechanisms
Role of cerebral edema and cognitive reserve in CNS damage recovery