| Glossary |
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Associative Long-Term Potentiation: When weakly firing neurons
are strenghtened by stronger neuron firing.
Biochemistry: The study of the chemical
processes in living organisms. It deals with the structures and
functions of cellular components such as proteins, carbohydrates,
lipids, nucleic acids and other biomolecules.
Classical Conditioning: Learning to pair a response that can already be activated to a different stimulus. Cognition: The mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and
understanding through thought, experience, and the senses--resulting in
a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition.
Drug: A substance from the outside environment that alters normal biochemical functions in an organism. Drug Effectiveness: The scope and intensity of
effects resulting from administering a drug.
Electromagnetic
radiation / spectrum: A kind of radiation including visible
light, radio waves, gamma rays, and X-rays, in which electric and
magnetic fields vary simultaneously / The range of wavelengths or
frequencies over which electromagnetic radiation extends.
Eugenics: Meaning "well born," eugenics was introduced in the 1880s by Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin and the father of modern statistics. Galton pioneered the use of pedigrees, twin studies, and statistical correlation for the purpose of using that knowledge to improve "the breed of man." Eugenics is the theory that humans can influence our own evolution, through selective breeding, or genetic enhancement. Usually, the word "eugenics" has a highly negative connotation (for good reason), implying government sponsorship of breeding programs and forced sterilization of "undesirables". Hebb Rule: The idea that weak neurons that fire at the same time as stronger neurons will gain strength. Instrumental Learning: (Operant Conditioning) It involves pairing a response and a stimulus using reinforcing or punishing stimuli. Memory Trace: A
permanent (but not unchangeable) biochemical change in the nervous
system in response to an external stimuli; an engram.
Neuron: The basic functional unit of the nervous
system; it is a type of cell that transmits signals to and from the
brain.
Perception:
The ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through
the senses; a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting
something; a mental impression; the neurophysiological processes,
including memory, by which an organism becomes aware of an interprets
external stimuli.
Perceptual
Learning: Learning to recognize stimuli that have
already been experienced.
Pharmacokinetics:
To study of how drugs are
taken, and how drugs move through the body.
Pharmacology: The study of how substances from the
outside environment alter normal biochemical functions in an organism.
Phoneme:
The smallest perceptually distinct unit of sound in a specified
language that distinguishes one word from another.
Photoreceptor: A
structure in a living organism, esp. a sensory cell or sense organ,
that responds to light falling on it.
Ritual - A set of actions preformed mainly for
their symbolic value. A religion or community often prescribes a ritual
as part of their tradition.
Route of
Administration: The means by which a
drug enters the body.
Sensation:
A physical feeling or perception resulting from something that
happens to or comes into contact with the body.
Sensitization:
When repeated administration of
a drug results in increasing effects at the same dose.
Social Learning Theory: Learning from your environment through association, reinforcement, and modeling. Stimulus-Response Learning: Learning to perform a certain behavior in the presence of a specific stimulus. Synapse: A
junction between two neurons, consisting of a small gap across which
impulses pass by diffusion of neurotransmitters.
Tolerance: When repeated administration of drugs
results in diminishing effects at the same dose.
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