Psychopharmacology Exam Practice Tests
Course Introduction
Psychopharmacology is the scientific study of how drugs influence the brain, behavior, and mental processes. This course explores the mechanisms of action, therapeutic uses, side effects, and potential for abuse of various classes of drugs used in the treatment of psychological disorders. Special emphasis is placed on understanding neurotransmitter systems, drug interactions, and the biological basis of mood, cognition, and emotion. Students will also examine the clinical, ethical, and social implications of psychotropic drug use, enabling them to critically evaluate the role of medications in mental health care.
Recommended Textbook
Biological Psychology 12th Edition by
James W. Kalat
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15 Chapters
1794 Verified Questions
1794 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Nerve Cells and Nerve Impulses
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120 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) According to the all-or-none law,____.
A)all neurons produce an action potential at the same time or none at all
B)all of the extracellular sodium enters the axon, or none at all
C)once an axon reaches threshold, the amplitude and velocity of an action potential are nearly equal each time
D)neurons are either active all the time or not at all
Answer: C
Q2) As compared to dendrites,axons usually ____.
A)form the information-receiving pole of the neuron
B)are shorter in length
C)are covered with myelin
D)taper in diameter toward their periphery
Answer: C
Q3) Under which conditions would the sodium-potassium pump likely be far less effective in creating a concentration gradient?
A)if dendrites were generally longer than axons
B)if the glia-to-neuron ratio were higher
C)if selective permeability of the membrane did not exist
D)if it were an active transport system that required energy
Answer: C
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Chapter 2: Synapses
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Sample Questions
Q1) Releasing hormones are synthesized in the ____ and released in the ____.
A)anterior pituitary; bloodstream
B)hypothalamus; anterior pituitary
C)hypothalamus; posterior pituitary
D)posterior pituitary; hypothalamus
Answer: B
Q2) Spatial summation is the result of synaptic inputs from different locations arriving at the same time.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Metabotropic synapses use a large variety of transmitters.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) Only sensory neurons are found in a reflex arc.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 3: Anatomy and Research Methods
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the primary target area in the cortex for information regarding muscle-stretch and joint receptors?
A)primary somatosensory cortex
B)occipital lobe
C)central sulcus
D)precentral gyrus
Answer: A
Q2) Which lobe seems to be especially involved in the comprehension of spoken language in humans?
A)occipital
B)parietal
C)frontal
D)temporal
Answer: D
Q3) Many cells in association areas of the brain respond to more than one sensory modality.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Genetics, evolution, development, and Plasticity
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Sample Questions
Q1) An autosomal gene is a gene ____.
A)on the X chromosome
B)on the Y chromosome
C)on any chromosome other than the X or Y chromosome
D)that shows no evidence of crossing over
Q2) What is TRUE about altruistic behavior?
A)It is evident in every animal species.
B)It can be completely explained in terms of genetic contributions.
C)It is difficult to explain from an evolutionary/genetic point of view.
D)It has a genetic component only in humans.
Q3) Group selection as an explanation for altruistic behavior would argue that ____.
A)individuals are more likely to reproduce when stress is low
B)individuals pick their groups based on how altruistic they are
C)cooperative groups thrive better than do uncooperative groups
D)society benefits as a whole when individuals help each other
Q4) Describe Lamarckian evolution and the evidence for or against it.
Q5) Synaptogenesis is a process that begins before birth and continues throughout life.
A)True B)False
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Chapter 5: Vision
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Sample Questions
Q1) The primary visual cortex sends its information ____.
A)to the lateral geniculate nucleus
B)to area V1
C)to area V2
D)back to the retina
Q2) Peripheral vision mainly depends upon ____.
A)the fovea
B)cones
C)rods
D)just a few receptors
Q3) In the visual system,the ____ and ____ constantly feed information back and forth.
A)thalamus; cortex
B)thalamus; inferior geniculate
C)inferior colliculus; thalamus
D)thalamus; lateral colliculus
Q4) Describe the trichromatic,opponent-process,and retinex theories of color vision.
Q5) The retinex theory accounts for the principle of color constancy.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 6: Other Sensory Systems
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Sample Questions
Q1) An acceleration of the head at any angle causes ____.
A)the jelly-like substance in one of the semicircular canals to move to another canal
B)the jelly-like substance in one of the semicircular canals to push against hair cells
C)fluid to spill out from the otolith organs into the semicircular canals
D)hair cells to become stiff and straight
Q2) Taste and smell axons converge onto many of the same cells in an area called the
A)frontal cortex
B)striate cortex
C)insular cortex
D)endopiriform cortex
Q3) Describe how the auditory cortex parallels the visual cortex.
Q4) Perception of a low tone is to ____ as perception of a high tone is to ____.
A)volley principle; frequency theory
B)frequency theory; place theory
C)place theory; volley principle
D)gate theory; frequency theory
Q5) Describe the basic mechanisms of taste receptors.
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Chapter 7: Movement
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Sample Questions
Q1) A sudden stretch of a muscle excites a feedback system that opposes the stretch.This message starts in the ____.
A)dorsal root ganglion
B)cerebellum
C)Pacinian corpuscles
D)muscle spindles
Q2) The prefrontal cortex plans movements according to their probable outcomes.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A Golgi tendon organ responds to ____.
A)increases in muscle tension
B)decreases in muscle tension
C)increases in muscle spindles
D)decreases in muscle spindles
Q4) People with posterior parietal damage ____.
A)can see an object, but are unable to describe it
B)have good hand-eye coordination only if they close one eye
C)have difficulty accurately locating and approaching a sound
D)will not step over an obstacle, although they can accurately describe it
Q5) Briefly describe the cellular organization of the cerebellum.
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Chapter 8: Wakefulness and Sleep
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Sample Questions
Q1) After isolating a neuron from the rest of the brain,you find that it has a moderately stable circadian rhythm.The most likely home of this neuron is in the ____.
A)optic nerve
B)MPOA
C)SCN
D)pineal gland
Q2) Orexin,produced by neurons in the hypothalamus,appears to be necessary for ____.
A)getting to sleep
B)waking up
C)raising body temperature
D)staying awake
Q3) What does cataplexy involve?
A)dreamlike experiences that the person has trouble distinguishing from reality
B)an attack of muscle weakness while awake
C)a lack of inhibition of movement during REM sleep
D)repeated involuntary movement of the legs or arms during sleep
Q4) Sleep apnea is characterized by sleep attacks during wakefulness.
A)True
B)False
Page 10
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Chapter 9: Internal Regulation
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Sample Questions
Q1) A common misconception is that eating turkey increases the body's supply of ____,which enables the brain to make chemicals that make you sleepy.
A)lactase
B)tryptophan
C)lacrose
D)sucrose
Q2) In sham-feeding,animals are ____.
A)allowed to chew but not swallow
B)allowed to chew and swallow, but the food never enters the stomach
C)only allowed to eat a mixture devoid of nutrients
D)only allowed to eat an artificial substance
Q3) Damage to the ventromedial hypothalamus leads to eating ____.
A)the same, but drinking less than normal amounts
B)the same large amount each meal, regardless of the taste
C)less
D)normal-sized meals, but eating them more frequently
Q4) Anorexia is a problem stemming from a lack of appetite.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Describe how bulimia nervosa resembles drug addiction.
Page 11
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Chapter 10: Reproductive Behaviors
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Sample Questions
Q1) What causes the primitive gonads to develop into masculine structures?
A)the X chromosome
B)the sex region Y (SRY) gene
C)the sexually dimorphic nucleus
D)Müllerian inhibiting hormone
Q2) In castrated male rats,the medial preoptic area ____.
A)does not have as much dopamine as other rats
B)has normal levels of dopamine released in the presence of a receptive female
C)has as much dopamine as normal rats, but the presence of a receptive female does not evoke much release of it
D)releases the same level of dopamine, but not testosterone, as a normal rat
Q3) Which of the following best illustrates the organizing effects of sex hormones?
A)increased heart rate during exercise
B)determination of genetic sex
C)masculinization of the brain
D)nest building
Q4) In humans,testosterone produces its organizing effects on the hypothalamus by itself.
A)True
B)False
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Emotional Behaviors
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Sample Questions
Q1) Why do individuals with prefrontal cortex damage often make bad decisions?
A)They can't understand complexly worded questions.
B)They don't anticipate the unpleasantness of likely outcomes.
C)They conform readily to whatever other people are doing.
D)They can't predict the consequences of one decision or another.
Q2) It is possible to predict (with moderate accuracy)people's political attitudes toward the use of the military,the death penalty,and so forth by monitoring which of the following?
A)differences in fMRI response between the left and right hemispheres
B)size of the hippocampus
C)amygdala responses to a sudden loud noise
D)fluctuations in testosterone levels between morning and evening
Q3) Individuals who manage to succeed and thrive despite many difficulties may best be described as ____.
A)being resilient
B)immune to stress
C)having autonomic failure
D)having a suppressed HPA axis
Q4) Briefly describe the role of the HPA axis and the autonomic nervous system (ANS)in the stress response.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: The Biology of Learning and Memory
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Sample Questions
Q1) In studies of eyelid conditioning in rabbits,Thompson and his colleagues have demonstrated that learning for this conditioned response takes place in the ____.
A)red nucleus of the midbrain
B)temporal lobe of the cerebral cortex
C)lateral interpositus nucleus of the cerebellum
D)ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus
Q2) It is believed that Hebbian synapses may be critical for ____.
A)associative learning
B)reflexes
C)loudness perception
D)color vision
Q3) A rat with hippocampal damage has difficulty with the Morris water maze because it ____.
A)loses its motivation to find the platform
B)cannot remember how to swim
C)has difficulty remembering where the platform is from trial to trial
D)develops a water phobia
Q4) What is the primary cause of Korsakoff's syndrome and what is one of its most distinctive symptoms?
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Chapter 13: Cognitive Functions
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Sample Questions
Q1) People with right-hemisphere damage have particular trouble with tasks that require
A)understanding sentences with a complex grammatical structure
B)spatial processing
C)control of the right hand
D)memory of recent events
Q2) After men who reported being passionately in love received a nasal spray of oxytocin,they rated ____.
A)all women as more attractive
B)all women as less attractive
C)their partners but not other women as less attractive
D)their partners but not other women as more attractive
Q3) Someone with Broca's aphasia is least likely to use ____.
A)prepositions and conjunctions
B)adjectives and adverbs
C)nouns
D)verbs
Q4) Most people use only one hemisphere for most tasks.
A)True
B)False
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Psychological Disorders
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Sample Questions
Q1) Hallucinations,delusions,and grossly disorganized behavior are classified as which kind of symptoms?
A)positive symptoms
B)neutral symptoms
C)negative symptoms
D)ambiguous symptoms
Q2) Which autism treatment is most widely used?
A)the use of first generation antipsychotics
B)increase action potential velocity
C)dietary modifications such as elimination of sugar or food dyes
D)the use of chelation to remove heavy metals from the blood
Q3) What are the key symptoms of autism spectrum disorders?
Q4) The amino acid,glycine,provides a possible co-treatment for schizophrenia because it ____.
A)can be chemically converted into dopamine
B)increases the effectiveness of glutamate
C)decreases the effectiveness of glutamate
D)increases the growth and division of glia cells
Q5) Describe the difference between positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia and give some examples of each.
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Chapter 15: Appendix A: Brief, basic Chemistry
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Sample Questions
Q1) Discuss the four biological explanations of behavior.
Q2) The activities of a social worker are most likely to overlap with those of a(n)____.
A)clinical psychologist
B)neurologist
C)psychiatrist
D)occupational therapist
Q3) The mind-body problem refers to how the mind controls the body.
A)True
B)False
Q4) To propose that consciousness is a fundamental property essentially means that ____.
A)we know it to be the fundamental unit of life
B)we know it to be transient, and occurring at random times
C)we have given up on explaining it
D)we have a better understanding of how it occurs in the brain
Q5) Research scientists are free to do as they wish when conducting research with animals.
A)True
B)False
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