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Biological Psychology and Neuroscience Flashcards

7 cards from real APA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.

Read the first 7 Biological Psychology and Neuroscience flashcards as text

  1. Which neurotransmitter is primarily associated with the regulation of mood, sleep, and appetite?

    Answer: Serotonin

    Serotonin (5-HT) plays a major role in regulating mood, sleep, and appetite, and its dysregulation is linked to depression and anxiety disorders.

  2. The blood-brain barrier primarily functions to:

    Answer: Protect the brain from harmful substances in the bloodstream

    The blood-brain barrier selectively restricts the passage of substances from the bloodstream into the brain, protecting neural tissue from toxins and pathogens.

  3. Action potentials in neurons follow the all-or-none principle, which means:

    Answer: A neuron fires at full strength once threshold is reached, or not at all

    The all-or-none principle states that a neuron either fires at full strength when threshold is reached or does not fire; stimulus intensity is coded by firing rate, not action potential magnitude.

  4. Which brain structure is most critically involved in the formation of new explicit (declarative) memories?

    Answer: Hippocampus

    The hippocampus is essential for consolidating new explicit memories, as demonstrated by patient H.M., who lost the ability to form new declarative memories after bilateral hippocampal removal.

  5. Myelin sheaths surrounding axons primarily serve to:

    Answer: Increase the speed of neural transmission

    Myelin sheaths insulate axons and enable saltatory conduction—the jumping of action potentials between nodes—dramatically increasing neural transmission speed.

  6. The process by which a neurotransmitter is transported back into the presynaptic neuron after release is called:

    Answer: Reuptake

    Reuptake is the primary mechanism by which neurotransmitters are removed from the synapse, with transporter proteins returning them to the presynaptic terminal for recycling.

  7. Which lobe of the cerebral cortex is primarily responsible for processing visual information?

    Answer: Occipital lobe

    The occipital lobe, located at the posterior (back) of the brain, contains the primary visual cortex (V1) and is dedicated to processing visual information.