“MIDTERM #3” SPECIFIC QUESTIONS FOR

BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR

A. True or False:

1. ( T / F ) Pacinian corpuscles are most sensitive to vibrations.

2. ( T / F ) Light depolarizes rod photoreceptors.

3. ( T / F ) There is a higher density of rods than cones in the fovea.

4. ( T / F ) Every alpha motor neuron terminates onto a single muscle fiber.

5. ( T / F ) The biceps and triceps muscles are synergists of each other.

6. ( T / F ) Alpha motor neurons are located in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord.

7. ( T / F ) The somatosensory homunculus is an example of a topographic map.

8. ( T / F ) Patients with prosopagnosia can not recognize visual motion.

9. (T/F) A False Memory is one that only partially corresponds to veridical experience.

10. (T/F) Consolidation is the phenomenon that memories get weaker with time from initial
encoding.

1
B. Multiple Choice:

1. Which of the following type of stimulation will elicit a maximal firing rate in a cell with an ON-
center, OFF-surround receptive field?
A. Stimulating only the periphery of the cell’s receptive field
B. Stimulating the whole receptive field
C. Stimulating only the center of the receptive field
D. No stimulation, all cell fires maximally with no stimulus

2. Which one of the following body parts is represented by the largest chunk of primary sensory
cortex?
A. Leg
B. Thumb
C. Neck
D. Elbow

3. Which sensory receptors carry stretch information from the muscles?

A. Alpha motor neurons
B. Extrafusal muscle fibers
C. Amacrine cells
D. Muscle spindles

4. What neurotransmitter do alpha motoneurons release to initiate movement?

A. Dopamine
B. Acetylcholine
C. Glutamate
D. GABA

5. Which of the following attributes of a visual stimulus are the responses of V1 cells NOT
selective for?
A. Orientation
B. Location in visual space
C. Edges
D. Geometric shape

6. Visual acuity is high near the fovea but drops off rapidly in the periphery. What is NOT a
corresponding neural basis for this?
A. There is a higher density of cone receptors near the fovea than in the periphery in the
retina.

2
 B. In each visual area, neurons have smaller receptive field sizes near the fovea
compared to in the periphery.
C. In each visual area in the brain, the receptive field structures of neurons near the
fovea are more
complex compared to those in the periphery.
D. More cortical tissue in V1 is devoted to the fovea than to the periphery.

7. What are the brain areas damaged in patients who confabulated information?

A. The hippocampus
B. The prefrontal cortex
C. The medial orbitofrontal cortex only
D. The basal forebrain and medial orbitofrontal cortex

3
C. Fill in the Blank

1. ____________________ is the transformation of information from the physical world (i.e.,

light, sound, etc.) into chemical or electrical cues used by the brain.

3. This type of photoreceptor is the primary transducers of light in dim environments: ________.

4. ____________________ cells receive their inputs from rods and cones and project to retinal
ganglion cells.

5. A ____________________ is the physical space in which a stimulus will alter a neuron’s

firing rate.

6. ____________________ muscles control all voluntary movements.

7. ___________________ are a type of proprioceptive sensory receptors located within a

muscle to detect changes in the length or stretching of the muscle.

8. _____________ motor neurons adjust the length of muscle spindle fibers.

D. Shorter answer (answer in 1-2 complete sentences)

1. Describe one possible treatment for spinal cord injury being used today. How does it take
advantage of our understanding of the motor system?

4
2. Define tonotopic organization and name one region in the auditory system that exhibits this
feature.

3. What are the major differences between fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles?

4. What happens to the receptive fields of neurons in the somatosensory cortex if two fingers
are fused together? This is an example of what principle of the nervous system discussed in
class?

5. Describe the experiments that defined the role of vasopressin in male prairie vole pair-bond
formation. Describe the task that was used and be sure to include the effects of vasopressin,
vasopressin antagonists, oxytocin and oxytocin antagonists.

5
E. Short answer

1. Describe the response of a rod to light (depolarizing? hyperpolarizing?) and the type of
potential that rods transmit. Draw the pathway from the photoreceptors to the thalamus.

2. Pick and describe two key principles in the organization of sensory systems (i.e.,
transduction, sensory encoding, neural pathways, receptive fields or topographic maps). For
each of those principles, elaborate on a specific example of how it is implemented in a sensory
system of your choice. The two principles can come from the same modality or different
modalities.

3. Describe a center-surround receptive field. Give a specific example of a type of neuron with
this kind of receptive field. Why is this useful?

4. Compare and contrast the visual receptive field of a cell in the LGN and a cell in area V1.
Explain how we think that V1 cell’s receptive field is “constructed” from the visual receptive
fields of the LGN cells.

5. Name on feature that is equivalent between the somatosensory system, the visual system
and the motor system.