Neuroscience Jeopardy

These branching extensions of a neuron receive most of its incoming signals from other cells.

What are dendrites?

This fatty insulating layer wraps many axons and is made by oligodendrocytes in the central nervous system.

What is myelin?

These star-shaped glial cells help maintain the blood-brain barrier and regulate extracellular potassium.

What are astrocytes?

This cone-shaped region where the axon leaves the cell body is where action potentials are typically triggered.

What is the axon hillock?

Using Golgi's silver stain, this Spanish scientist argued that neurons are discrete cells, the heart of the neuron doctrine.

Who was Santiago Ramón y Cajal?

This ion rushes into the neuron through voltage-gated channels during the rising phase of an action potential.

What is sodium?

This ATP-driven membrane pump moves three ions out of the cell for every two it brings in.

What is the sodium-potassium pump?

Reaching this membrane potential, often around -55 millivolts, triggers an all-or-none action potential.

What is the threshold?

This form of conduction lets impulses leap from one node of Ranvier to the next along myelinated axons.

What is saltatory conduction?

Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley worked out the ionic basis of the action potential using the giant axon of this animal.

What is the squid?

Loss of neurons releasing this neurotransmitter in the substantia nigra causes the motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease.

What is dopamine?

This is the main inhibitory neurotransmitter in the adult brain.

What is GABA?

Released at every vertebrate neuromuscular junction, this was the first neurotransmitter ever identified.

What is acetylcholine?

Prozac and other SSRIs block the reuptake of this neurotransmitter.

What is serotonin?

This most abundant excitatory neurotransmitter acts on NMDA and AMPA receptors.

What is glutamate?

This structure at the back of the brain, whose name means little brain, coordinates balance and fine motor control.

What is the cerebellum?

This thick band of axons connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres.

What is the corpus callosum?

This small structure controls the pituitary gland and regulates hunger, thirst and body temperature.

What is the hypothalamus?

Damage to this region of the left frontal lobe produces halting, effortful speech with relatively spared comprehension.

What is Broca's area?

This ridge of cortex just behind the central sulcus houses the primary somatosensory cortex.

What is the postcentral gyrus?

These retinal photoreceptors handle color vision and work best in bright light.

What are cones?

This spiral-shaped structure of the inner ear converts sound vibrations into neural signals.

What is the cochlea?

Sensory signals from every sense except smell pass through this relay structure on their way to the cortex.

What is the thalamus?

These neurons carry commands from the brainstem and spinal cord directly to skeletal muscle fibers.

What are lower motor neurons?

This sense of the body's position in space relies on receptors in muscles, tendons and joints.

What is proprioception?

This Russian physiologist's dogs learned to salivate at a sound that predicted food.

Who was Ivan Pavlov?

Riding a bicycle relies on this kind of implicit memory for skills and habits.

What is procedural memory?

This almond-shaped structure in the temporal lobe is essential for learning to fear a tone paired with a shock.

What is the amygdala?

This lasting strengthening of synapses after high-frequency stimulation is a leading cellular model of memory.

What is long-term potentiation?

Eric Kandel shared a Nobel Prize for work on the cellular basis of memory in this sea slug.

What is Aplysia?