1.1
the longstanding controversy over the relative contributions that genes and experience make to the development of psychological traits and behaviors. Today’s science views traits and behaviors as arising from the interaction of nature and nurture.
What is nature-nuture issue?
bundled axons that form neural cables connecting the central nervous system with muscles, glands, and sensory organs.
What is Nerves?
neurons that carry incoming information from the body’s tissues and sensory receptors to the brain and spinal cord.
What is sensory (afferent) neurons?
a simple, automatic response to a sensory stimulus, such as the knee-jerk reflex.
What is reflex?
the part of a neuron that contains the nucleus; the cell’s life-support center.
What is cell body?
the principle that the inherited traits enabling an organism to survive and reproduce in a particular environment will (in competition with other trait variations) most likely be passed on to succeeding generations.
What is natural selection?
the body’s speedy, electrochemical communication network, consisting of all the nerve cells of the peripheral and central nervous systems.
What is the nervous system?
neurons that carry outgoing information from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands.
What is motor (efferent) neurons?
the division of the autonomic nervous system that arouses the body, mobilizing its energy.
What is sympathetic nervous system?
a neuron’s often bushy, branching extensions that receive and integrate messages, conducting impulses toward the cell body.
What is dendrites?
the study of the relative power and limits of genetic and environmental influences on behavior.
What is behavior genetics?
made up of neurons, or nerve cells, that communicate via chemical messengers called neurotransmitters
What is nervous system? (simplified)
neurons within the brain and spinal cord; they communicate internally and process information between the sensory inputs and motor outputs.
What is interneurons?
the division of the autonomic nervous system that calms the body, conserving its energy.
What is parasympathetic nervous system?
the segmented neuron extension that passes messages through its branches to other neurons or to muscles or glands.
What is axon?
part 1: the biochemical units of heredity
part 2: the complete instructions for making an organism
1: what is genes?
2: what is genome?
the brain and spinal cord.
What is the central nervous system (CNS)?
the division of the peripheral nervous system that controls the body’s skeletal muscles. Also called the skeletal nervous system.
What is somatic nervous system?
Ascending neural fibers send up sensory information, and descending fibers send back motor-control information
What is spinal cord? (CNS)
a fatty tissue layer segmentally encasing the axons of some neurons; it enables vastly greater transmission speed as neural impulses hop from one node to the next.
What is myelin sheath?
The study of the molecular mechanisms by which environments can influence genetic expression (without a DNA change).
What is epigenetics?
the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body.
What is the peripheral nervous system (PNS)?
the part of the peripheral nervous system that controls the glands and the muscles of the internal organs (such as the heart). Its sympathetic division arouses; its parasympathetic division calms.
What is autonomic nervous system (ANS)?
keeps our bodies in a steady internal state called homeostasis.
What is sympathetic and parasympathetic systems?
cells in the nervous system that support, nourish, and protect neurons; they may also play a role in learning, thinking, and memory.
What is glial cells (glia)?