Cerebral Cortex

Question 1

What does the frontal lobe contain (3)?

Answer 1

Motor areas, pre-frontal cortex (executive function), and Broca’s area (left hemisphere; language production)

Question 2

What does the parietal lobe contain (3)?

Answer 2

Sensory areas, spatial awareness, and Wernicke’s area (Left hemisphere; language comprehension)

Question 3

What does the temporal lobe contain (3)?

Answer 3

Sensory areas, Wernicke’s area, and hippocampus (memory)

Question 4

What does the occipital lobe contain (1)?

Answer 4

Visual centers

Question 5

Describe the general scheme of a functional hierarchy for sensory information and what each step means in consciousness.

Answer 5

Sensory information first travels to the primary sensory cortex. This is the beginning of conscious awareness (Ex. sound).
This information is then parsed to modality specific association cortices. Here the more complex aspects of sensation begin to take shape (Ex. phonemes).
Finally, sensory information ends up in multimodal association areas. This represents the meaning of sensory information (Ex. words).

Question 6

What components of language is the left hemisphere involved with?

Answer 6

Reception and production of the content of language

Question 7

What components of language is the right hemisphere involved with?

Answer 7

Prosody. The musical or rhythmic aspects of speech.

Question 8

What anatomical areas and brodmann’s areas are involved in Wernicke’s area?

Answer 8

Supramarginal and angular gyri

BA = 41, 42, and 22

Question 9

What anatomical areas and brodmann’s areas are involved in Broca’s area?

Answer 9

Par triangularis and pars opercularis of the inferior frontal gyrus.
BA = 44 and 45

Question 10

What anatomical areas of the right hemisphere deal with prosody and which specific portion of prosody?

Answer 10

Production of prosody is managed by the right inferior frontal gyrus.
Comprehension of prosody is managed by the posterior temporoparietal region.

Question 11

How would a lesion of the right inferior frontal gyrus manifest?

Answer 11

Motor aprosody - inability to convey authority or anger

Question 12

How would a lesion of the right posterior temporoparietal region manifest?

Answer 12

Sensory aprosody - inability to comprehend emotional content of language

Question 13

Describe the function of the right parietal lobe and how damage to this area would occur and manifest.

Answer 13

The right parietal lobe governs spatial attention. Essentially is something interesting (tight butthole) or uninteresting (loose butthole).
Damage to this region can be caused by occlusion of the right PCA or MCA, and would result in hemi-neglect. Meaning neglect of the left visual world.

Question 14

What is praxis?

Answer 14

Performance of skilled motor task

Question 15

What is apraxia?

Answer 15

Loss of previously learned skill or purposeful movement. Difficulty translating a verbal command to motor process.

Note: This is not associated with motor/sensory dysfunction, paresis/incoordination, comprehension deficits, or loss of motivation.

Question 16

What are general causes of apraxia?

Answer 16

Disease of the left parietal lobe or severing of the connection between the parietal lobe and the motor areas in the frontal lobes.

Question 17

What is agnosia?

Answer 17

Deficit in the recognition of a well perceived object. However, vision is complete and normal.

Note: typically only one modality is affected and patient’s will use another modality to confer meaning or identity.

Question 18

What are potential causes of agnosia deficits?

Answer 18

Damage to areas storing information about visual representation.
Damage to the link between visual systems and language/memory.

Question 19

What is motion blindness?

Answer 19

Movement of objects appears frozen, but visual fields, depth, color, and reading are all intact. Patients tend to judge distance by audition.

Question 20

What causes color blindness?

Answer 20

Damage unilaterally to the occipitotemporal lobe or ventral visual stream.

Question 21

What causes prosopagnosia and what are its manifestations?

Answer 21

Infarcts of the occipitotemporal region unilaterally or bilaterally. This manifests with the inability to recognize faces.

Question 22

Where are the three major locations grey matter is found?

Answer 22

Cerebral cortex, basal nuclei, and diencephalon

Question 23

What is the cortex responsible for (3)?

Answer 23

conscious perception, volitional movement, and abstract thought

Question 24

What are the different types of cortex (3) and how many layers do they have?

Answer 24

Archicortex = 3 layers = hippocampus
Paleocortex = 3+ layers = olfactory cortex
Neocortex = 6 layers = cortex

Question 25

Describe the two types of neurons found in the neocortex, their function, and how they may be dispersed differently.

Answer 25

There are granule cells and pyramidal cells in the neocortex. Both are organized into separate layers. Pyramidal cells are glutamatergic and provide the major output of the cerebral cortex. Granule cells are GABAergic and receive the most of the input to the cortex.

Pyramidal cell layer will be thicker in the frontal lobe and motor areas. Granule cell layers will be thicker in the parietal lobe and sensory areas.