Exam 3: Review Sheet BIOL 2340 Introductory Neuroscience
● Note that the exam will be through Respondus Lockdown. If you have not already downloaded and
installed this program on your computer, please follow the directions on blackboard and make sure
you do that ASAP!
● Beyond what is here, look in the slides for notes about “things that could be on the test” and be sure to
review online blackboard textbook quizzes for examples of multiple choice questions that could
reappear on the exam.
● Anything that has been covered in the readings or the lectures has the potential to show up on the
exam. However, studying this review sheet will substantially help prepare you for the exam.
● Making the most out of this review:
o Treat this review sheet like a practice exam.
o Assume that on the exam, every question will be a short answer or essay question, and “test”
yourself, by seeing if you can write the answer below, without looking at your notes. You
should repeat this process of “testing yourself” regularly, at a minimum once after each
lecture to see what you recall well, and what you need to review.
o Some students keep a completely filled out version of the review sheet as a “key” to grade their
practice test. That would be fine to do at home, but the best way to use the review sheet is to
fill it out from scratch every night after class without looking at your notes.
o You will not be able to use your notes, or the review sheet during the exam.
o The exams will be a combination of multiple choice, labeling, matching, short answer and at
least one essay question.
o The exams will be 80-90% from lecture, and about 10-20% from the book material. Don’t
forget to study online quizzes for additional practice.
● Tip: Avoid using lists to answer questions. Write in complete sentences and finish your thought.
Emotions & Stress
● Are emotions a product of nature or nuture? Give two examples to support your answer.
Emotions are a product of nature and are evolutionary adaptive due to the reason that they are
innate and culturally universal. Emotions are innate in that they are biologically determined and
present very early in life. Newborns are born with the instinct that allows them to imitate facial
expressions. Emotions are adaptive and culturally universal in that they are based upon meaning and
subjective experience. Human beings make characteristic and universal facial expressions to positive
and negative stimuli. Emotions are innate to all humans (Ex: Congenitally blind athletes generate the
same facial expressions as those that can see, for instance, they demonstrate guilt or shame
expressions in the corners of their mouth if they have lost a match).
● Who is Paul Eckman? What did he study? What did he contribute to the field? (hint: there is a video
link in the slides and on Blackboard).
Paul Eckman is a psychologist who studied human behavior and emotions and how they are
culturally universal. He studied an isolated population in Paupa New Guinea by showing them images
of certain emotions and asking them to identify them. He found that there are six universal emotions.
Paul Eckman’s work demonstrated that emotions indicate preparation for certain physiological
activities. Eckman generated the facial acting coding system, a manual that indicates the numerous
ways in which human facial muscles are utilized for emotions.
, ● How do emotions affect other cognitive processes? (hint: there are a few slides about memory and
PTSD)
Emotions are tied to memory in that they are interpreted by the amygdala and stored or encoded by the
hippocampus. For instance, PTSD patients suffer particular situations of trauma, and any time that they
think about a certain traumatic event or memory, a similar emotional response that occurred in the
traumatic situation is triggered and the person feels the same emotions. Reliving certain scenes or feeling
emotions from trauma once again can be very painful for PTSD patients in that triggering the same
feeling may lead to a panic attack that can be very distractive.
In patients with PTSD:
-Their hippocampus is significantly reduced
-The amygdala and mid Anterior Cingulate Cortex become hyperactive (overstimulated)
-The prefrontal cortex becomes hypoactive (decreased activity)
● What are the three components of emotion?
1. Subjective: Identifies what the emotion is and how strong it is. (How sad are you?) The subjective
component of emotion also addresses valence (is it a good emotion/bad emotion?). The
circumplex map of emotion identifies valence by a negative and positive spectrum of arousal/lack
of arousal and positive/negative emotions.
2. Physiological: Autonomic nervous system activation and its role in emotion, neurochemical
responses associated with emotions (DA, NE and 5-HT), various hormones related to the HPA axis.
Different theories posit a different relationship between physiological state and emotional
experience (ex: James-Lange Theory and Cannon-Bard Theory)
-Dopamine is released down the mesolimbic pathway anytime we see something that we like
-Norepinephrine is involved in the activation of fight/flight response
-Serotonin is highly activated in depression, hunger, and sexual behavior.
3. Cognitive: Labelling the emotion and attributing it to its source. For instance, a person
experiences fear because a bear approaches him/her
● What are the three theories on emotions we discussed in class and who is associated with each? (this
would be good material for a matching type of question).
1. James-Lange Theory: Emotion can be identified physiologically. For instance, if the heart is
pounding, person is sweating, trembling, and running away, that person is experiencing the
emotion of fear. The physiological symptoms occur before the emotional fear response. We
observe our heart racing after a threat and then feel afraid.
-Our awareness of our specific bodily response to emotion-arousing stimuli,
2. Cannon-Bard Theory: Indicate that the physiological symptoms and emotional fear response
occur at the same time. As the brain interprets fear in the amygdala, a person also experiences
heart pounding, trembling, sweating, etc. at the same time. For example, a bear is in front of
someone, and as a result, that person experiences heart pounding, trembling, running away while
at the same time formulating a thought based on the context of the situation: “That is a scary
bear, I’m afraid of it.” Finally, the person experiences the emotion of fear. Our heart races as we
experience fear
-Bodily response + simultaneous subjective experience
3. Schachter & Singer Two Factor Theory: A person feels the physiological symptoms and makes a
cognitive interpretation about them first, the person labels the emotion as fear. General arousal +
a conscious cognitive label.Arousal could be labeled as fear or excitement, depending on the
context.
