Neural Communication
These branching neuron structures receive incoming messages and carry them toward the cell body.
What are dendrites?
This neurotransmitter enables skeletal muscle action and also supports learning and memory.
What is acetylcholine (ACh)?
The brain and spinal cord together form this division of the nervous system.
What is the central nervous system (CNS)?
This brainstem structure helps regulate heartbeat and breathing.
What is the medulla?
These segments of DNA contain instructions for your cells.
What are genes?
This fatty covering insulates an axon and speeds neural impulses.
What is the myelin sheath?
This major inhibitory neurotransmitter makes a receiving neuron less likely to fire.
What is GABA?
As a student waits to give a speech, their heart races and digestion slows. This autonomic division is increasing its activity.
What is the sympathetic nervous system?
A dancer relies on this structure for balance and coordination of movement.
What is the cerebellum?
These twins develop when one fertilized egg splits into two embryos.
What are identical (monozygotic) twins?
After releasing a neurotransmitter, the sending neuron reabsorbs some of it through this process.
What is reuptake?
These natural neurotransmitters help reduce pain and can produce feelings of pleasure.
What are endorphins?
After the danger passes, this autonomic division slows the heartbeat and supports digestion.
What is the parasympathetic nervous system?
Damage to this structure can make it difficult to form new explicit memories of facts and events.
What is the hippocampus?
In an adoption study, similarities between children and their biological relatives provide evidence for this type of influence.
What is a genetic (hereditary) influence?
A neuron fires a full impulse once its threshold is reached; stronger stimulation does not make that individual impulse bigger. This principle explains why.
What is the all-or-none principle?
A drug blocks a neurotransmitter receptor and reduces that neurotransmitter's effect. This is the drug's functional classification.
What is an antagonist?
You pull your hand from a hot pan before consciously feeling pain. This CNS structure coordinates the rapid withdrawal reflex.
What is the spinal cord?
This structure regulates hunger, thirst, and body temperature and directs the pituitary gland.
What is the hypothalamus?
Environmental conditions can change gene expression without changing the DNA sequence. This field studies those changes.
What is epigenetics?
Put these three neuron parts in order for a typical message: axon terminals, dendrites, axon.
What are dendrites, then axon, then axon terminals?
Name the major excitatory neurotransmitter involved in memory, then the neurotransmitter associated with movement, reward, and motivation.
What are glutamate and dopamine, respectively?
This system sends hormones through the bloodstream, and then this gland releases epinephrine during a stress response.
What are the endocrine system and the adrenal gland (adrenal medulla), respectively?
This lobe of the brain is located in the back of the skull, and interprets visual information
What is the occipital lobe?
These bundles of DNA found in your cells' nucleus take two shapes, X and Y, although the Ys are only found in men
What are chromosomes?