Psychoactive Drugs
Drugs (such as alcohol, barbiturates, and opiates) that reduce neural activity and slow body functions.
What is a depressant?
The genetic transfer of characteristics from parents to offspring.
What is heredity?
"Morphine within"—natural, opiate-like neurotransmitters linked to pain control and to pleasure.
What is endorphins?
The principle that inherited traits that better enable 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 British naturalist is credited for the theory of natural selection.
What is Charles Darwin?
Drugs (such as caffeine, nicotine, and the more powerful cocaine, amphetamines, methamphetamine, and Ecstasy) that excite neural activity and speed up body functions.
What is a stimulant?
Develop from a single fertilized egg that splits in two, creating two genetically identical organisms.
What are identical (monozygotic) twins?
Affects mood, hunger, and arousal.
What is serotonin?
A random error in gene replication that leads to a change
What is a mutation?
An Austrian neurologist who proposed several explanations of why we dream and coined the concepts of manifest content and latent content.
What is Sigmund Freud?
Psychedelic ("mind-manifesting") drugs, such as LSD, that distort perceptions and evoke sensory images in the absence of sensory input.
What is a hallucinogen?
Develop from separate fertilized eggs. They are genetically no closer than ordinary brothers and sisters, but they share a prenatal environment.
What are fraternal (dizygotic) twins?
Enables muscle action, learning, and memory; an undersupply of this neurotransmitter is linked to depression
What is acetylcholine?
A culturally modeled guide for how to act in various situations.
What is a social script?
The French physician who discovered the part of the brain which affects speaking; this part of the brain is named after him.
What is Paul Broca?
A stimulating and highly addictive psychoactive drug in tobacco.
What is nicotine?
The study of environmental influences on gene expression that occur without a DNA change.
What is epigenetics?
Influences movement, learning, attention, and emotion; an oversupply of this neurotransmitter is linked to schizophrenia.
The complete instructions for making an organism, consisting of all the genetic material in that organism's chromosomes.
What is a genome?
The German investigator who discovered specialized brain language areas, specifically the area that affects cognitive understanding.
What is Carl Wernicke?
A powerful and addictive stimulant derived from the coca plant; produces temporarily increased alertness and euphoria.
What is cocaine?
The study of how the structure and function of genes interact with our environment to influence behavior.
What is molecular behavior genetics?
A major excitatory neurotransmitter; involved in memory.
What is glutamate?
Adaptive flexibility in responding to different environments.
What is fitness?
The early psychologist that coined the concept of a continuous "stream of consciousness," where each moment flowed into the next.
What is William James?