Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

Year 2 - neuroscience > Cerebral cortex > Flashcards

Cerebral cortex Flashcards

1
Q

What is the white matter of the brain and where is it found?

A

The inside - axons and connections

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

What is the grey matter of the brain and where is it found?

A

Surface of the brain - has cell bodies

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

What are the 3 types of fibres in the white matter?

A
  • association fibres
  • commisural fibres
  • projection fibres
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

What are association, commissural and projection fibres?

A
  1. Association fibres: connect areas within the same hemisphere – local circuitry e.g. joining gyri next to eachother
  2. Commissural fibres: connect left hemisphere to right hemisphere and integrate info between different association areas
  3. Projection fibres: connect cortex with lower brain structures (e.g. thalamus), brain stem and spinal cord. They are long projection pathways e.g. motor pathways
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

What is the neocortex and the archicortex and how many layers do they have?

A

Neocortex - most of cortex
Archicortex - around hippocampus

N - 6 layer structure
A - 3 cortical layers

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

What are the different layers of the neocortex?

A
  • Layer I contains mainly neurophils
  • The generally smaller pyramidal neurons in layers II and III have primarily corticocortical connections - Cortical layer IV is typically rich in stellate neurons with locally ramifying axons; in the primary sensory cortices, these neurons receive input from the thalamus, the major sensory relay from the periphery
  • Layer V, and to a lesser degree layer VI, contain pyramidal neurons whose axons typically leave the cortex (output)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

How does the neocortex vary between cortical areas, give an example?

A
  • Varies slightly in its microscopic detail between different cortical areas
  • For example, the primary visual cortex has an extra layer of wet matter inserted within the 6-layer structure
  • This is why we call it the striate cortex (it has an extra layer of white matter)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

How else is the cortex arranged?

A
  • Cortical columns
  • They have dense vertical connections
  • Neurones with similar properties are connected in the same column
  • The columns are the basis for topographical organisation
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

What is the neocortex arranged into?

A

Different lobes

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

What are primary and association cortices?

A

Primary cortices: function is predictable, organised topographically, left-right symmetry

Association cortices: function less predictable, not organised topographically, left-right symmetry weak/absent

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

What are the different lobes?

A

occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

What is the role of the primary visual cortex and which lobe is it in?

A
  • occipital lobe

- processing vision

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

What does the visual association cortex do?

A

Analyses different attributes of visual image in different places. The form & colour is analysed along the ventral pathway; spatial relationships & movement along dorsal pathway. Lesions affect specific aspects of visual perception.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

What is the role of the primary somatosensory cortex and where is it?

A
  • Post-central gyrus in the parietal lobe

- Processes sensory information

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

What does the posterior parietal association cortex do?

Injury of parietal lobe leads to?

A

Creates spatial map of body in surroundings, from multi-modality information. Injury may cause disorientation, inability to read map or understand spatial relationships, apraxia, hemispatial neglect.

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

What is apraxia?

A

Motor disorder in which the individual has difficulty with the motor planning to perform tasks or movements

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
17
Q

Where is the primary auditory cortex do and what does the temporal lobe do?
Injury leads to?

A
  • In the superior temporal gyrus in the temporal lobe
  • Processes language, object recognition, memory, emotion
  • Injury leads to agnosia, receptive aphasia (Wernicke’s)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
18
Q

What is agnosia?

A

Inability to process sensory information. Often there is a loss of ability to recognize objects, sounds, shapes, or smells

How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
19
Q

Where is the primary motor cortex?

A

Part of the pre-central gyrus in the frontal lobe

20
Q

What is the role of the frontal lobe?

Injury leads to?

A

Judgement, foresight, personality, appreciation of self in relation to world. Injury leads to deficits in planning and inappropriate behaviour

21
Q

Are Broca’s and Wernicke’s area on right and left side?

A

No, lateralised to the left

22
Q

Where are Broca’s and Wernicke’s area?

A

Broca’s area - inferior frontal lobe

Wernicke’s area - junction between parietal/temporal

23
Q

What are some ways of measuring brain function?

A

PET
fMRI
EEG
Light micrcoscopy

24
Q

What are the two main visual processing pathways in the primary visual cortex?

A

The dorsal steam WHERE – spatial relationship

The ventral stream WHAT – colour, form

25
Q

What are some visual association pathways?

A

They connect to other parts of the brain and pick out individual attributes of images. One part detects motion.

26
Q

What can lesions of the visual posterior association area lead to?

A

The inability to recognize familiar faces or learn new faces—a deficit called prosopagnosia (aka face blindness)

27
Q

What happens in the visual association cortex?

A

Image attributes are processed separately

28
Q

What are frontal cortex lesions characterised by?

A

A lack of planning, behaviour becomes disorganised, attention span and concentration diminish and self-control is hugely impaired (disinhibition

29
Q

What are parietal cortex lesions characterised by?

A
  • Disorientation, inability to read maps or understand spatial relationships, apraxia and hemispatial neglect (when patient draws something, they only draw half of it)
  • Patients lose their visual-spatial integration
30
Q

What does the parietal lobe (primary parietal association cortex) do?

A
  • Creates a spatial map of the body in surroundings, from multi-modality information
  • Integrates memory and where things are in space
31
Q

What is the role of the temporal lobe?

What do lesions result in?

A
  • language, object recognition, memory and emotion

- agnosia and receptive aphasia (difficulty understanding written and spoken language)

32
Q

How can temporal cortex lesions be treated?

How is this different to what was done in the past?

A
  • Removal of the damaged portion of the temporal lobe

- Before the solution was to do a bilateral temporalobectomy which resulted in dense anterograde amnesia

33
Q

What is a callosotomy?

A

corpus callosum is cut (for epilepsy)

34
Q

What are the role of the right and left hemispheres?

A

The left hemisphere is language dominant, the right hemisphere is largely spatial processing.

35
Q

Can people be born without corpus callosum’s and how are they different to those who had a callosotomy?

A
  • Someone born without a corpus callosum will have automatic compensatory mechanisms
  • However, they will still have subtle psychological deficits
  • In patients who have this due to surgical procedures, this is often more obvious as they have gone from normal to impaired
36
Q

What are some experiments done in split brain research?

A
  • A word is flashed briefly to the right field – you ask the patient what they saw
  • They will be able to do this, because the left hemisphere is dominant for verbal processing
  • If you flash the word briefly to the left field, the patient doesn’t can’t say what they see
  • However, they will be able to draw what the word say
37
Q

What is diffusion tensor imaging?

A
  • A MR modality that looks for alignment of water molecules, and coincident activity
  • Coincident alignment is taken to mean fibre connectivity
  • This way, you can build up a fibre network of the brain
  • We can use DTI in brain tumour patients to show break down of such connections
  • DTI gives us more information about interruption to specific intracortical circuitry
38
Q

What is transcranial magnetic stimulation?

A

The magnetic field induces an electric current in the cortex, causing neurons to fire. This can be used to test whether a specific brain area is responsible for a function, e.g. speech.

39
Q

What is transcranial direct current stimulation?

A
  • Changes the local excitability of neurons, increasing or decreasing the firing rate
  • This does not directly induce neuronal firing , however, it changes the threshold for decreasing/increasing the firing rate
  • Affects the resting voltage of the neuronal membrane to stimulate a neuron’s activity in a desired direction
40
Q

What are PET scans?

A
  • Work by detecting the radiation given off by a radiotracer (similar to GLUCOSE) as it collects in different parts of your body
  • This can be used to identify any abnormalities
  • E.g
    a high conc can identify cancerous cells because cancer cells use glucose at a much faster rate than normal cells
41
Q

Why is PET mainly used in research?

A

expensive

42
Q

How do MEG and EEGs work?

A

MEG: measures magnetic fields – involved a big machine

EEG: measures electric fields – involved lots of electrodes

43
Q

What are event-related potentials?

A
  • brain activity related to a stimulus

- lots of background noise so repeated and layered to remove noise

44
Q

What is an fMRI?

A
  • This is usually about monitoring blood flow and glucose metabolism
  • Glucose use is probably related to functional activity of the brain
  • Where there is more glucose and more blood flow, there is probably higher activity
45
Q

How can we measure optimism?

A
  • Measure the brain response to imagining positive and negative events in the future or the past
  • When participants imagined positive events in the future or the past, the amygdala and Rostral anterior cingulate cortex were more active than when they imagined negative events

Year 2 - neuroscience (13 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions