What is Neuroscience?
The study of the nervous system.
What is neuroscience? (p. 1)
A stepwise process of developing a research question and hypothesis, then answering it by performing tests what is this process called?
What is experimental design? (p. 2)
This type of study has no true randomness in group assignment, meaning you can establish correlation but not causation.
What is an observational study? (p. 4)
The year the most famous case study in neuroscience occurred.
What is 1848? (p. 5)
Contrary to popular belief, we use all of our brain, and most of it is active how often (e.g. none of the time, some of the time, most of the time, always).
What is most of the time? (p. 6)
These are the main active cellular units of the nervous system, highly sensitive to changes in their environment.
What are neurons? (p. 1)
In an experiment, this variable is the one being changed or manipulated.
What is the independent variable? (p. 2)
This highly detailed description of a single patient and their condition is useful for examining individuals with very rare conditions.
What is a case study? (pp. 4-5)
This patient had an iron spike driven through his head, largely damaging his frontal lobe.
Who is Phineas Gage? (p. 5)
If too many cells are active at the wrong times, this medical event can happen.
What is a seizure? (p. 6)
The greatest strength of the brain, defined as its ability to change and adapt to a wide variety of circumstances what is this process called?
What is flexibility? (p. 1)
In the example "Does studying more increase performance on exams?", the grade on the exam is this type of variable.
What is the dependent variable? (p. 3)
A weakness of case studies is that you cannot do this with the findings to the population at large, what is this called.
What is generalize? (p. 5)
Phineas Gage's brain injury led to a significant change in his personality due to damage to this specific brain region.
What is the frontal lobe? (p. 5)
Memories are most likely stored in these sites of close contact between neurons. What are these sites called?
What are synapses? (p. 6)
These chemicals are responsible for passing information between neurons.
What are neurotransmitters?
These extraneous variables can influence the outcome of an experiment if not properly controlled.
What are confounding variables? (p. 2)
Case studies are helpful for the development of these, which can later be tested experimentally.
What are hypotheses? (p. 5)
This patient had his left and right hippocampus surgically removed and could not create certain types of memory.
Who is Patient HM? (p. 5)
This feature of the brain describes its ability to change over time and for undamaged areas to carry out functions if critical areas are damaged.
What is plasticity? (p. 7)
This is the all-or-nothing electrical output response from neurons.
What is an action potential? (p. 1)
The strength of a well-designed experiment is that it establishes this.
What is causality? (p. 3)
This specific type of observational study compares an experimental group to a control group without manipulating the independent variable.
What is a quasi-experimental study? (p. 4)
The process of cell reproduction is halted in the majority of adult neurons, except in the olfactory epithelium and this brain structure which is responsible for learning and memory functions.
What is the hippocampus? (p. 6)
What is the anatomical feature where signaling pathways from the left brain cross over to communicate with the right side of the body, and vice versa.
What is contralateral organization? (p. 7)