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BIOL 347 General Physiology Laboratory, Midterm, Wednesday February 28, 2018 ­p; Prof. Stark, All questions are short answer. 50 points total

1. The same neurotransmitter is used at the sympathetic and parasympathetic ganglia. What is this transmitter?

acetylcholine

2. Metropolol is a beta-1 adrenergic receptor blocker (beta blocker). Give one reason why it might decrease high blood pressure (hypertension).

it decreases heart rate, and it decreases contractility of heart muscle

3. What information would the Web of Science (Science Citation Index) give you that would not be available by looking at the references at the ends of the papers you are reading?

it would lead you to related work done after that paper was published

4. Textbook drawings showing recording of synaptic potentials show a cone-shaped item stabbed into the postsynaptic cell. Why did this electrode look like this?

electrophysiologists use glass micropipettes pulled to a sharp point from capillary glass as microelectrodes

5. In the old days, if you wanted to resubmit a manuscript to a different journal, it was a nuisance to retype all the references in a different format. Why is that no longer an issue for the tech-savvy scientist or secretary anymore?

reference databases like Endnote dovetail with your word processor

6. From one peak to the next, we obtain T2-T1 (plethysmograph reading). How do we calculate the pulse rate from that?

60/(T2-T1)

7. Using the fluorescence of GFP (green fluorescent protein) in the Drosophila eye AND/OR the fluorescence of paper as an example, relate the wavelengths for excitation and emission.

shorter wavelength excites, then some energy is lost, that's why the emission is at a longer wavelength

8. "The average of 1,2,3,4,& 5 is different from the average of 6,7,8,9, & 10, but the average of 1,2,3,4& 10 might not be significantly different from the average 6,7,8,9 & 20." What does that seemingly ridiculous statement mean? (In other words, how would you use Excel to test whether that contention is true?)

do a t-test (maybe p is not less than 5%)

9. In the Purkinje shift demonstration (the one with the alternating blue and red lights), ANSWER EITHER (1) Why was the blue light brighter when you looked away from it?
(2) Why did the blue light appear white when you looked away from it? OR (3) Why was the red light unnoticeable when you looked away from it?

(1) rods are more sensitive than cones, and off-foveal vision is rod vision (2) rods are for black and white, not color, vision, and off-foveal vision is rod vision (3) rods are not sensitive to red, and off-foveal vision is rod vision

10. When I set the monochromator at 365 nm and shined that light on an index card, it looked blue. Explain.

fluorescence

11. A subject has normal hearing. In the Rinne test, what should happen after the subject can no longer hear the tone when the tuning fork had been pressed up to the mastoid bone and is then moved so that the prongs are near the auditory canal?

(s)he will hear it

12. You could tell that one tuning fork had a higher pitch than the other. How did you know that they differed in frequency by only a few Hz.

just a few beats per second

13. When you looked outside vs. at the fluorescent lights in the light box through a variable wavelength interference filter, things looked quite different. What does that tell you about the fluorescent lights?

"white" is not an even spectrum, it has "lines"

14. Why can't you immediately taste a sugar cube placed on your dry tongue?

must be dissolved to be tasted by gustatory receptors

15. You are driving down the road when you see something that makes you let up on the gas pedal and slam on the brake. What is the fastest time you can expect for this reaction?

if you base your answer on the average visual reaction time in our experiment, it would be maybe a little less than half a second

16. What allowed me to conclude that some strains of Drosophila did have positive phototaxis to UV light while others were blind?

sighted flies were attracted to the light while blind mutants were 50:50 in the arena

17. What do you expect would have happened if a taster put the PTC test strip in his or her mouth while holding the nose shut. Justify your answer.

still taste terrible b/c it is taste (not olfaction)

18. A diagram showing that different places in the basilar membrane moved in response to different types of stimuli explained (what aspect of human hearing?).

frequency discrimination

You were piling neutral density filters on top of a blue dot to make it seem the same brightness as the UV dot. What was that supposed to tell you about YOUR eye?

how much UV your lens absorbs

20. How do the ligaments AND lens respond to ciliary muscle contraction AND relaxation?

contract-slacken/rounder (near vision) and relax-taught/flat respectively (far vision)

21. If you could read the bottom line on the eye chart, how do we refer to your acuity?

20/15

22. Dr. Beatty showed a picture of pigment on the inside of the cornea that also could clog drainage of aqueous humor and lead to what condition that could cause blindness?

glaucoma from pressure build-up when the aqueous humor does not drain, ganglion cells die

23. When shining a light into one eye, the other pupil should constrict. Why didn't this work correctly for Dr. Beatty?

he put drops into his eye that prevented his pupil from constricting

24. State one of the two brain abnormalities that might first be diagnosed by an optometrist. Also, for the abnormality you choose, what does the optometrist observe?

brain tumor, swollen optic nerve head; pituitary tumor, double temporal visual field loss (because of pressure on the contralateral nasal retinal projections at the optic chiasm)

25. "Blue (short wavelength) cones, that mediate blue-yellow vision, contribute very little to high acuity vision." Describe how ONE of our two demonstrations showed this.

difficulty reading through a blue filter, difficulty seeing small blue and yellow dots from a distance

26. "The blind spot is at about 18 degrees on the temporal visual field." For which eye would it be to the right of your point of fixation?

right

27. If you shake a flashlight from the side on your eyelid, ANSWER EITHER (1) What is this phenomenon called? OR (2) What do you see?

the Purkinje tree, the blood vessels in front of the retina

28. What OR where is the polarizing filter in your eye?

macular pigments, lutein and zeaxanthin, in front of foveal cones

29. Instead of synthesizing new GLUT4 when it is needed, the cell houses GLUT4 in vesicles. Why is this a useful strategy?

deployment can be immediate

30. In addition to reducing inflammation, why would a silver dressing be useful on a wound.

they are antimicrobial

31. GLUT4 is in muscle and fat. In contrast, say something about glucose transporters (1) in the brain OR (2) in the pancreatic beta cell.

brain basal level, not insulin dependent, GLUT1 and GLUT3
beta cell high Km means only triggered at high glucose, GLUT 2

32. "Our experiment on the effects of glucagon and insulin on blood glucose levels worked for all 10 mice." What do I mean "worked?"

level went up after glucagon and down after insulin

33. Genevieve Hilliard, a graduate student in Prof Shornick's immunology lab, was studying the effect of Manuka honey on wound healing. Why did they enlist the collaboration with Prof Sell in the Biomedical Engineering (BME) Department?

he fashioned a scaffold to sustain delivery

34. Why should you never recap a syringe needle?

risk of a needle stick injury

35. What is the harm in having too much insulin in the bloodstream?

too much insulin can lead to such extreme hypoglycemia that it is called insulin shock caused by low glucose availability in the brain (combined with the brain's glucose uptake not being insulin dependent plus the brain's heavy reliance on glucose)

36. Prof. Shornick's diabetic mice were a model of what type of diabetes? Justify your answer.

type II, associated with obesity, in this case disruption of leptin signaling

37. One of the solutions had EDTA and another had sodium pyrophosphate at pH 6.4. State what ONE of these was intended to do.

EDTA would take away (chelate) the calcium, sodium pyrophosphate at slightly acid pH soluabilzes myosin

38. The action potential is carried on the sarcolemma by sodium channels. For either (1) the T(transverse)-tubules or (2) the sarcoplasmic reticulum, what channels are important?

calcium (for both)

39. We applied a mild electrical shock to Joel's forearm and got a twitch. What did we then do to get tetany?

increased the frequency

40. What do Saccadic eye movements do?

rotate both eyes so that image of interest falls on the fovea

41. Explain rigor mortis.

when ATP runs out, myosin stays bound to the actin

42. I Xeroxed a page from the Rubaiyat and a paragraph from Voyage of the Beagle. For the latter, I enlarged the paragraph. Why?

the poem's eye movements would be less extended than the paragraph's

43. Co-transport with sodium and a sodium-potassium pump are involved in glucose uptake across the intestinal epithelium. What else?

a facilitated transporter for glucose GLUT2

44. Enteropepsidase is on the brush border. What does it do to activate secretions from the pancreas?

breaks a fragment off trypsinogen to make trypsin

45. There are two significant delays in the myotactic reflex in addition to the time it takes the nerves to conduct. Name one of these sources of delay.

one synapse, one neuromuscular junction plus the time it takes between the muscule cell spike and contraction

46. In the Jendrassic maneuver ANSWER EITHER (1) What was done? OR (2) What was supposed to happen?

knee-jerk reflex was tested during isometric contraction of arms, (How could you have known the answer? So I accept any change) distraction actually increases reflex

47. Name BOTH of the tendons you struck to elicit reflex contraction of the calf and thigh muscles

achilles, patellar

48. The record on the screen goes for 1 minute while the total record is 10 minutes. Other than scrolling, how can you see your whole record on the screen at one glance?

compress with the two mountain peak icon

49. Why did you use the plethysmograph in the reflex experiments?

to show when the stimulus occurred

50. You recorded the electrical activity of striated muscles. Give me the name or the abbreviation of what this recording is called.

electromyogram (EMG)

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this page was last revised 2/23/2018