This study guide is an outline of the material that we have covered in class. . You can use it to organize and guide your studying. Remember for the tests utilize the book and the class notes for studying.
The Visual System – Chapter 9
- Describe how transduction works in the visual system
- What are the sensory receptors in the visual system
- How do they convert wavelengths of light to neural impulses
- Where are they located in the eye
- What are the different types? And what are their different roles?
- Describe the fovea. What aspects of vision is it important for?
- What is meant by a “receptive field”
- What might a receptive field look like to a visual sensory receptor in the eye?
- Describe how the receptive field becomes more complex as we progress through the visual system from the eyes to the cerebral cortex
- Describe the nature of the crossing of visual information from the eye to the brain
- Identify and describe the major brain regions that make up the visual system that we discussed?
- Lateral Geniculate Nucleus
- Striate Cortex/V1 — retinopic organization, orientation selectivity
- Dorsal Stream regions –the “how” pathway
- Ventral stream regions –the “what” pathway
- Describe Hubel & Wiesel’s experiment that won them the Nobel prize.
- Describe Visual Agnosia.What is normal about vision and abnormal in this condition? What area(s) of the brain tend to be damaged in this condition?
- Describe Optic Ataxia.What is normal about vision and abnormal in this condition? What area(s) of the brain tend to be damaged in this condition?
Hearing, Language and Music –Chapter 10
- The soundwave is the medium of audition. Describe the important physical properties of a soundwave that are important for audition.
- Describe the physical properties that are important for language and music
- What are some of the ways Language and Music are treated as special by our auditory perceptual system?
- Describe the structure of the parts of the ear and explain each part’s role in audition
- The outer ear
- The middle ear
- The inner ear
- Describe transduction in the auditory system.
- What is the organ within the inner ear most responsible for transduction
- How does this organ work
- Oval window
- Functions of hair cells
- Basilar membrane
- Tonotopic representation
- Primary Auditory Cortex (A1)
- Tonotopic representation
- Lateralization within the Auditory system
- Language Processing: what are the major brain regions that are important for music that we discussed. What are their roles? What is the evidence?
- Broca’s vs. Wernicke’s area
- Broca’s vs. Wernicke’s aphasia
- Music Processing: how does music processing differ from that of language processing in the brain?
- Describe Amusia. What does this condition suggest about the way music perception is implemented in the brain?
Movement –Chapter 11
- Motor neurons innervate muscle fibers.
- What does this mean?
- For a body part to move or articulate in a very precise manner, what has to be true about the ratio of muscle fibers to neurons?
- Describe what is meant by the hierarchy of movement.
- How is movement hierarchical?
- Give an example.
- How does this hierarchy map on the way the different parts of the nervous system helps to carry out movement?
- Describe the anatomy of the motor system from the bottom up
- What is the role of the spinal cord in our automatic reflexes? Its role in voluntary movement
- Forebrain’s role in voluntary movement
- Brainstem?
- Motor Cortex?
- Somatosensory cortex?
- Premotor Cortex?
- Prefrontal Cortex?
- Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum?
- Describe the organization of the motor cortex and somatosensory cortex?
- The topographic organization of the body on the brain
- Parkinson’s Disease
- Symptoms
- Causes
- What area of the brain is affected?
- What does the nature of Parkinson’s tell us about the role of the subtantianigra/dopamine plays in movement?
Motivated Behavior and Emotion –Chapter 12
- What are examples of regulatory behaviors and non-regulatory behaviors?
- What is the role of the hypothalamus in motivated behavior? How does its function relate to that of the pituitary gland
- Describe the James-Lange Theory of Emotion and evidence in favor of this theory
- What is the role of the amygdala in emotional expression
- Describe Kluver-Bucy syndrome
- Describe patient S.M.
- What is the role of the orbitofrontal cortex in emotional/value-based decision making?
- What happens to an individual if they have damage to the orbitofrontal cortex?