Central Nervous System and Human Behaviour Flashcards
What is the central nervous system made up of?
Brain
Spinal Cord
What does the central nervous system do?
Collects, processes and responds to information from the environment.
Coordinates the working organs and cells in the body.
How is the spinal cord connected to the brain?
Via the brainstem
What does the spinal cord do?
Controls reflex actions (e.g. pulling hand from a hot plate).
Passes messages to and from the brain.
What connects the two hemispheres of the brain?
Corpus Callosum
What does contralateral mean?
Left hemisphere controls right side of the body and vice versa.
What are the inner parts of the brain called?
Thalamus
Hypothalamus
Limbic System
Cerebellum
Corpus Callosum
What protects the inner parts of the brain?
Cerebral Cortex
What are the roles of the Thalamus?
It is the brain’s relay system.
It receives information from the senses and passes to the appropriate areas of the cerebral cortex for higher level processing.
Acts as a gate or filter of information and has a role in sleep, wakefulness and OCD.
What are the roles of the Hypothalamus?
Controls motivational behaviours (e.g. hunger, thirst and sex).
Key role in the body’s stress response through ‘fight or flight’.
Maintains balance in many bodily functions (e.g. temperature).
Regulates the activity of the endocrine system (hormones) via the pituitary glands.
What is the primary role of the Cerebellum?
To coordinate posture, balance and movement.
What is the Corpus Callosum?
It is a bunch of nerve fibres that connects the two hemispheres of the brain.
What is lateralisation?
The hemispheres of the brain are almost structurally identical but they have different functions (e.g. left hemisphere is associated with language).
What is localisation?
Certain areas of the brain are responsible for specific functions and behaviours (e.g. language functions are localised to specific areas within the left hemisphere).
How many lobes is the cerebral cortex divided into?
4
What are the main functions of the frontal lobe?
Planning & decision making
Contains the motor cortex which controls voluntary movements on the opposite side of the body.
Left frontal lobe includes the Broca’s area responsible for speech.
What are the main functions of the parietal lobe?
Sensory information from the skin (touch, temperature, pressure).
Contains the somatosensory cortex which is related to sensitivity of touch.
What are the main functions of the temporal lobe?
Contains the auditory cortex which deals with sound information coming from the opposite ear.
Left temporal lobe contains Wernickes area which is responsible for understanding language and producing fluent speech.
What are the main functions of the occipital lobe?
Contains the primary visual cortex - everything we see to the right of our field of vision is processed by the left visual cortex and vice versa.
