PS263 Study Guide - Final Guide: Endoplasmic Reticulum, Cranial Nerve Nucleus, Red Nucleus
Document Summary
Biological psychology is the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience: deals with mostly brain activity. At microscopic level, there are 2 kinds of cells: the neurons and glia. Neurons, which convey messages to one another and to muscles and glands, vary in shape, size, and function: the glia, generally smaller than neurons, have many functions but do not convey information over great distances. A physiological explanation relates a behavior to the activity of the brain and other organs. It deals with the machinery of the body- for example, the chemical reactions that enable hormones to influence brain activity and the routes by which brain activity controls muscle contractions. An ontogenetic explanation describes how a structure/behavior develops. Evolutionary explanation reconstructs the evolutionary history of a structure or a behavior. A functional explanation describes why a structure or behavior evolved as it did. Within a small, isolated population, a gene can spread through genetic drift.
