- basic units of the nervous system

- transmit info. to other cells in a chemistry-to-electricity process

- send signals (action potentials) down their axons

- recieve incoming excitatory or inhibitory signals through their dendrites and cell body

- fire in an all-or-none response when combined incoming signals are strong enough to pass a threshhold. response triggers release of chemical messangers (neurotransmitters) across the tiny gap (synapse) separating a sending neuron from a recieving cell

- travel designated pathways in the brain

- affect particular behaviors and emotions, such as hunger, movement, and arousal

-Endorphins: natural opiates released in response to pain and excercise.

Central Nervous System (CNS): the brain (thinking, feeling and acting) and spinal cord (connects PNS to the brain)

--CNS interneurons communicate with PNS motor & sensory neurons--

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS): Somatic Nervous System (controls voluntary movement of skeletal muscles) and Autonomic Nervous System (controls the involuntary muscles and the glands)

--ANS: Sympathetic (arousal) and Parasympathetic (calms)

- Endocrine system glands secrete hormones, which affect the brain and other tissues.

- Stress or danger triggers the autonomic nervous system to activate the adrenal glands

- The pituitary gland influences other glands, including sex glands, to release hormones.

- Brainstem: controls autonomic survival functions

- Medulla: controls heartbeat and breathing

- Reticular Formation: controls arousal and attention

- Thalamus: the brain's sensory switchboard

- Cerebellum: processes sensory input and coordinates muscle movement

- linked to emotions, drives, and memory.

- Amygdala: involved in aggressive and fearful responses.

- Hypothalamus: monitors various bodily maintenance activities, contains reward centers and triggers the pituitary to influence other glands of the endocrine system

- Hippocampus: processes memories

- Frontal: enable speaking, muscle movement, planning, and judging

- Parietal: recieve sensory input

- Occipital: recieve input from visual fields

- Temporal: recieve input from the ears

- Cortex: association areas integrating info. related to learning, memory, thinking, etc.

- Motor: controls muscle movement

- Sensory: recieves sensory info.

 - Language integrates special cortex areas like Broca's area, Wernicke's area and the angular gyrus

- Corpus Collasum (large band of nerve fibers): connects the two brain hemispheres. If severed, split brain results

- Left Hem.: verbal processing

- Right Hem.: visual perception and recognition of emotions

- Conciousness: our awareness of ourselves and our environment

- Selective Attention: happens when we focus attention on specific stimuli.

- Circadian Rythm: 24hr cycle regulates daily schedule of alertness and sleepiness

STAGE 1: brief, near waking; hallucinations may occur

STAGE 2: bursts of rapid, rythmic brain-wake activity

STAGES 3 & 4: deep sleep

REM: Rapid Eye Movement - internal arousal, outward paralysis

Sleep Deprivation: fatigue, irritability; depressed immune system; impaired concentration; obesity, high blood pressure, memory impairment

Functions of Sleep: protection; maintainence; memory processing; growth and development

- Insomnia: recurring wakefulness

- Narcolepsy: sudden sleep

- Sleep Apnea: stopping of breathing while asleep

-Sleepwalking; Sleep talking; Night Terrors

- Freud's wish fulfillment theory

-Info. Processing: sleep-memory link

-Physiological Function: developing and preserving neural pathways

- Activation Sythesis theory: aking sense of neural static

- Cognitive Developmental perspective