Cerebral Cortex Flashcards

1
Q

What part of the neural tube forms the brain

A

Rostal part of the neural tube

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2
Q

What part of the neural tube forms the spinal cord?

A

Caudal part

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3
Q

What become the Forebrain?

What does this develop into?

A

Prosencephalon becomes the forebrain

It develops into the Telencephalon and Diencephalon @ 7 weeks

which go onto form the 2 cerebral hemispheres

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4
Q

what becomes the midbrain?

A

Mesencephalon

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5
Q

what becomes the hindbrain?

A

Rhombencephalon

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6
Q

What are the 4 lobes of the Cerebral cortex?

A
  • Frontal
  • Parietal
  • Occipital
  • Temporal
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7
Q

What can happen at the poles?

A

Contusion a.k.a bruising

on frontal, temporal, occipital lobes

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8
Q

which lobe does not have a pole?

A

Parietal

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9
Q

What are the parts of the Forebrain?

A
  • Cerebral hemisphere
  • Olfactory bulb
  • Diencephalon
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10
Q

what are the parts of the Cerebral Hemisphere?

A
  • Cerebral cortex
  • Basal Ganglia
  • Various small nuclei
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11
Q

What are the parts of the Diencephalon

A
  • Thalamus
  • Subthalamus
  • Hypothalamus
  • Epithalamuc (a.k.a Pineal gland)
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12
Q

Is brain shrinkage a normal process?

A

Yes with ageing it is

  • @ 70 - 5% lost
  • @80 - 10% lost
  • @90 - 20% lost
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13
Q

Cortex

A

Outer layer of gray matter - 1-4mm thickness

Controls all of cognition

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14
Q

What is the gateway to the Cortex?

What doesn’t go through here?

A

The Thalamus

Only Olfaction (sense of smell) doesn’t go through here, it goes direct to the cortex

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15
Q

Result of Cortical Damage to

Primary Somatosensory Cortex:

A
  • somatosensory anaesthesia (loss of touch).
  • Pain remains intact (= parieto-insular supplementary area)
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16
Q

Result of cortical damage to

Supplementary somatosensory areas

Superior Parietal Lobe:

A
  • contralateral somatosensory agnosia
  • (inability to recognise common objects by palpation alone: = touch and proprioception)
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17
Q

Result of cortical damage to

Supplementary somatosensory areas

Inferior Parietal Lobule:

A

in the dominant hemisphere

  • (Left) concerned especially with language (alexia).

Damage of non-dominant hemisphere

  • = bizarre disturbances of “body image”
  • known as somatosensory disregard:
  • eg patients ignore parts of their body, believing they belong to someone else (contralateral to lesion) in spite of the fact that the body part is not anaesthetic to any stimulus
18
Q

What is critical for memory?

where does this sit?

A

Hippocampus

Sits in the temporal lobe

This degenerates in Alzheimer’s pts

19
Q

Homunculus

Degree of innervation is proportional to the organ size representation

A

larger the innervation the larger the organ size on the homunculus

20
Q

Cortical Connections

Ascending Connections:

A

Somatosensory from the thalamus:

  • (inputs from spinal cord via VPL, and trigeminal via VPM)

Auditory:

  • from the thalamus (inputs from the cochlea via the medial geniculate nucleus)

Visual:

  • from the thalamus (inputs from the retina via the lateral geniculate nucleus)

Smell

  • (direct into the olfactory cortex) and Taste (via VPM)

Complex information from the cerebellum and basal ganglia via the thalamus

21
Q

Corical connections

Descending Connections

A
  • Motor to the spinal cord (corticospinal tract)
  • Motor to the brainstem motor nuclei (cortico-bulbar tract)
  • To the motor control centres (targeted to the basal ganglia and cerebellum)
  • To the limbic system
22
Q

Cortical connections

Connections within the cerebral cortex

A

On same side:

  • association fibres connecting different brain regions

On opposite sides:

  • commissures including the corpus callosum
23
Q

Where does the visual cortex lie?

A

In the OCCIPITAL LOBE

24
Q

Primary sensory and motor areas on the medial surface

picture

A
25
Q

What sulcus lies on the Medial surface?

A

Calcarine sulcus

26
Q

what does

1) a lesion in primary cortex/retina
2) damage in secondary area

cause?

A

Lesion in primary cortex/retina = blindness

damage in secondary area = visaul defects NOT blindness

27
Q

What are the two main streams in higher-order visual processing?

A
  • Dorsal pathway
  • Ventral Pathway
28
Q

Ventral pathway

A

the WHAT bit

  • analysis of form & colour

Damage to this area leads to:

  • difficulty seeing colours
  • reading newspapers (due to different font sizes)
29
Q

Dorsal Pathway

A

the WHERE

  • analysis of motion and spatial relations

Damage to this area leads to:

  • trouble identifying moving objects
  • BUT can identify them when stationary
30
Q

Facial recognition centre

A

Damage to this can lead to one not being able to recognise faces which can be very devastating to friends and family etc

Propagnosia = face blindness

31
Q

Effects of Lesions

Retina and primary visual cortex?

Supplementary areas?

A

Retina and primary visual cortex:

  • Blindness

Supplementary areas:

  • Visual agnosia - inability to recognise everyday objects
  • Visual disregard - lesion of non-dominant inferior parietal lobule contralateral hemifield can be seen but is ignored by patient (cf. somatosensory disregard)

Facial recognition - left & right hemisphere

32
Q

Visual neglect

A

Damage on the non-dominant hemisphere

  • neglect on one side of the field, usually the left
33
Q

Neuroanatomy of Language 1

A
  1. Sounds processed in mid brain. Spoken language sent to Wernicke’s area in left hemisphere.
  2. Written language processed in visual area; sent to angular gyrus in left hemisphere. Changed to sound; sent to Wernicke’s.
  3. Wernicke’s area extracts meaning from language from any source. Thoughts encoded into crude linguistic outline then sent to Broca’s area in left hemisphere where refined into grammatical form.
  4. Broca’s then signals to motor cortex to make speech.
  5. Blood flow studies confirm anatomical conclusions from studies of Stroke and brain damage.
  6. Low frequencies sent to Wernicke’s. High frequencies giving emotional information go to right hemisphere.
34
Q

Damage right hemisphere

A

loss of ability to interpret emotional content.

35
Q

Damage Broca’s area

A

know what to say but can’t do it with grammar

36
Q

Damage Wernicke’s area

A

perfect grammar but meaningless.

Same effects seen with sign language.

37
Q

Commissural fibres

A

connect the hemispheres/cross over from one side to the other

Corpus callosum: connects hemispheres.

“Split brain” produces 2 halves.

Visual information to Right non-dominant hemisphere gets no verbal response. So can’t name objects or read words presented in left visual field.

Tumour of splenium produces alexia without agraphia - speak and write but cannot read - separation visual processing in right hemisphere from language in left dominant (e.g. of a disconnection syndrome).

38
Q

Association fibres

superior longitudanal fasciculus

inf long fascic

arcuate fascic

A

Superior longitudanal fasciculus: connects frontal and occipital (arcuate frontal to temporal)

Inf. long. fascic: occip to temp for visual recognition

Arcuate fasciculus: Wernicke’s area to Broca’s area

39
Q

What can a tumour on the corpus callosum prevent?

A

Can prevent information transfer from one side to another

40
Q

Cortical lesions

  • Focal cerebral lesions
  • Bilateral cortical degeneration
  • left parietal
  • right parietal
  • left temporal
  • occipital
    • single
    • bilateral
A

Focal cerebral lesions:

  • epilepsy; sensory and/or motor deficits; & psychological deficits. Left frontal lobe lesion produces “Jacksonian seizures”, contralateral hemiplegia, aphasia (alexia & agraphia)

Bilateral cortical degeneration:

  • Alzheimer’s degeneration of temporal, parietal, & limbic. Loss of language and memory.

Left parietal:

  • anomia, acalculia, as well as alexia and agraphia.

Right parietal:

  • constructional apraxia (skilled movements)

Left temporal:

  • absences, automatisms, déjà vu, Wernicke’s aphasia.

Occipital:

  • single - simple visual hallucinations, contralateral field loss
  • bilateral - blindness - complex