Explain Two Effects of the Environment on Physiological Processes Essay

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EXPLAIN TWO EFFECTS OF THE ENVIRONMENT ON PHYSIOLOGICAL PROCESSES:
Certain effect of the environment can affect physiological processes such as hormones, neurotransmitters and the brain. The two effect of the environment on physiological processes that will be discussed are the enrichment of certain environments on brain plasticity and the observation of experiences actions on the activation of mirror neurons.

The first effect of environment on physiological processes that will be discussed is brain plasticity. Brain plasticity is the brain’s ability to rearrange its connections with its neurons, that is, the changes that occur in the structure of the brain as a result of learning or experience (exposure to different environments). The …show more content…
Mirror neurons activate during social learning, observational learning, learning through observation and imitation. Mirror neurons make us feel as though we are performing an action by just observing it – we experience an inner imitation of the action.

A supporting study for mirror neurons is Simon et al. (2006). This consisted of studying the anterior cingulate cortex of awake human subjects. Certain neurons that typically fire in response to pain also fired when the person saw someone else in pain. The study shows that the same neurons fire in response to pain for a variety of human subjects, which reinforced how the environment affects physiological processes similarly across most humans.

In conclusion the two discussed effects on the environment on physiological processes are: enrichment on brain plasticity and observation of experienced actions on the activation of mirror neurons. The interactions occur when the enriched environments affect the neural connections in the brain by reorganizing the neural connections related to functions that are required in the enriched environment/condition.

EXPLAIN HOW ONE OR MORE NEUROTRANSMITTERS AFFECT HUMAN BEHAVIOUR:
One of the most important discoveries that have influenced psychology is the role of neurotransmitters in
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