CHAPTER 2: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE Flashcards
studies how the brain and other aspects
of the nervous system are linked to cognitive processing and, ultimately, to behavior.
Cognitive Neuroscience
concerned with how the
the anatomy (physical structures of the body) and the physiology
(functions and processes of the body) of the nervous system affect
and are affected by human cognition
Cognitive Psychologist
central processing unit for everything we do
B
Refers to the specific areas of the brain that control specific skills or behaviors’
localization of function
organ in our body that directly controls our thoughts,
emotions, and motivations
Brain
T/F; BRAIN IS REACTIVE AS WELL AS DIRECTIVE
T
the basis for our ability to perceive, adapt to,
and interact with the world around us
NERVOUS SYSTEM
2 NERVOUS SYSTEM
CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM AND PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM
What are the 3 major regions of the brain?
Forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain
the region of the brain located toward the top and front
of the brain
Forebrain
forebrain includes what?
Cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, limbic system, thalamus, hypothalamus
where can cerebral cortex is located in the forebrain?
cerebral hemispheres
the outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres and plays a vital role in our thinking and other mental processes
Cerebral cortex
singular term for basal ganglia
ganglion
-collections of neurons crucial to motor function
basal ganglia
Dislocation of the basal ganglia can result in motor deficits,
these include:
tremors, involuntary movements, changes in posture and muscle tone and slowness in movement.
what are 2 diseases that entails severe deficits symptoms?
Parkinson’s and huntington diseases.
important to emotion, motivations, memory, and learning
limbic system
allows us to suppress instinctive responses
ls
helps us adapt our behaviors flexibly in response to our
changing environment
LS
Limbic system is important to?
emotion, memory, motivation, and learning
limbic system is comprised of 3 central interconnected cerebral structure?
septum, amygdala, and hippocampus
plays and important role in emotion especially in anger and aggression
amygdala
involved in anger and fear
septum
stimulation of amygdala results in?
fear
damage or lesion or removal of amygdala result to?
maladaptive lack of fear
t/f amygdala enhances perception of stimuli?
t
what are 2 effects of lesions to amygdala?
visual agnosia and hypersexuality
condition who has inability to recognize objects?
visual agnosia
essential in memory formation
hippocampus
greek word for hippocampus ?
seahorse
essential for flexible learning, seeing
relationships among learned and spatial memory
* - keep track of where things are and how these
things are spatially related to each other, it monitors what is
where
HPOCAMPUS
People who have suffered damage or removal of the hippocampus ARE UNABLE TO FORM MEMORIES T OR F
T
a disease that produces loss of memory
function
KORSAKOFFS SYNDROME
-relays incoming sensory information through groups of neurons
that project to the appropriate region in the cortex
THALAMUS
helps in the control of sleep and waking
THALAMUS
When the thalamus malfunctions, the result can be?
pain,
tremor, amnesia, impairment of language, and disruptions in
walking and sleeping
regulates behavior related to species survival: fighting, feeding,
fleeing, and mating
HYPOTHALAMUS
helps regulate emotions and react to stress
* -it also plays a role in sleep
HYPOTHA
whereby a person falls asleep often and at
unpredictable times
NARCOLEPSY
important for the functioning of the endocrine system and
involved in stimulating the pituitary glands
HYPOTHA
helps to control eye movement and coordination
MIDBRAIN
ras is also called?
reticular formation
it is a network of neurons essential to regulating
consciousness
Reticular activating system
are essential to our conscious awareness or control over our existence
ras and thalamus
connects the forebrain to the spinal cord.
brainstem
it is composed of hindbrain, thalamus, midbrain, and hypothalamus
brainstem
major structure of midbrain where vision is involved especially visual reflexes
superior colliculi
major structure of midbrain where hearing is involved
inferior colliculi
major structure of midbrain where it controls the consciousness, attention, cardiorespiratory function and movement
RAS
Hindbrain is comprised of ?
medulla oblongata, pons, cerebellum
the oldest and primitive part of the brain and was first to develop
hindbrain
controls heart activity and largely controls breathing,
swallowing, and digestion
medulla oblongata
the place at which nerves from the right side of the body cross
over to the left side of the brain
mo
an elongated interior structure located at the point at which
the spinal cord enters the skull and joins with the brain
* -contains part of the RAS, which helps to keep us alive
mo
contains neural fibers that pass signals from one part of the
brain to another
PONS
pons is derived from the latin word>
bridge
serves as bridging function
pons
-also contains a portion of the RAS and nerves serving parts of
the head and face
p
latin word for cerebellum
little brain
-controls coordination, balance, and muscle tone, as well as
some aspects of memory involving procedure-related
movements
cerebellum
is evolutionarily the oldest and most primitive part of
the brain. It is the first part of the brain to develop prenatally.
hb
is a relatively newer addition to the brain in
evolutionary terms. The next part of the brain to develop prenatally.
md
is the most recent evolutionary addition to the brain.
The last of the three portions of the brain to develop prenatally
fb
-plays an extremely important role in human cognition
* -because of it, we can plan, coordinate thoughts and actions,
perceive visual and sound patterns, and use language
cerebral cortex
cerebral cortex includes
sulci, fissures, and gyri
small grooves
sulci
large grooves
fissures
are bulges between adjacent sulci or fissures
gyri
t/f >The volume of the human skull has more than doubled over the past
2 million years, allowing for the expansion of the brain, and
especially the cortex
t
the surface of the cerebral cortex is grayish, it
primarily includes the grayish neural-cell bodies that process the
information that the brain receives and sends
gray matter
the underlying interior of the brain, includes mostly
white, myelinated axons
white matter
directs the motor responses on the right side
of the body
left hemisphere
directs responses on the left side of the
body
right hemisphere
transmission on the same side
ipsilateral
a dense aggregate of neural fibers connecting the two cerebral hemispheres, it transmits information back and forth
corpus callosum
-the study of hemispheric specialization in the human brain can be traced back to him. -he is a country doctor in France, in 1836, he treated more than 40 patients suffering from:aphasia
Marc Dax
loss of speech
aphasia
noticed a relationship between the loss of speech and the
side of the brain in which damage had occurred.
marc dax
a French scientist, who claimed that an autopsy revealed that
an aphasic stroke patient had a lesion in the left cerebral
hemisphere of the brain
paul broca
left hemisphere of the brain is
critical in speech
broca’s area
German neurologist, who studied language-deficient patients
who could speak but whose speech made no sense
Carl Wernicke
contributes to language comprehension
Wernickes area
the father of neuropsychology
* -he found that implantations of crudely built electrodes in
apparently identical locations in the brain yielded different
results
Karl spencer lashley
-the individual most responsible for modern theory and research
on hemispheric specialization was this Nobel Prize-winning
psychologist
* -he argued that each hemisphere behaves in many respects like
a separate brain
roger sperry
-patients who have undergone an operation severing the corpus
callosum
split brain patients
the ability to mentally manipulate two - or three dimensional
objects
spatial visualization ability
is important not only in language but also in movement
LEFT HEM
- is largely “mute”
- has little grammatical or phonetic understanding, but have
very good semantic knowledge
- has little grammatical or phonetic understanding, but have
- -involved in practical language use
RIGHT HEM
WHAT ARE THE 4 LOBES OF THE CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES
FRONTAL, PARIETAL, OCCIPITAL, TEMPORAL
located toward the front of the brain, is associated with motor
processing and higher thought processes, such as abstract
reasoning, problem solving, planning, and judgement
* -critical in producing speech
FRONTAL LOBE
the region toward the front of the frontal lobe,
is involved in complex motor control and tasks that require
integration of information over time
PREFRONTAL CORTEX
- specializes in the planning, control, and execution of
movement, particularly of movement involving any kind of
delayed response - if electrically stimulated, you would react by moving a
corresponding body part
- if electrically stimulated, you would react by moving a
PRIMARY MOTOR CORTEX
HOMUNCULI IS LATIN FOR
LITTLE PERSON
they depict the body parts of a person mapped on the brain.
HOMUNCULI
-the upper back portion of the brain, associated with
somatosensory processing
* -helps you perceive space and your relationship to it
* -also involved in consciousness and paying attention -the upper back portion of the brain, associated with
somatosensory processing
* -helps you perceive space and your relationship to it
* -also involved in consciousness and paying attention
parietal lobe
-receives information from the senses about pressure, texture,
temperature, and pain
* -located right behind the frontal lobe’s primary motor cortex
* -if electrically stimulated, you would feel as if you had been
touched
*primary somatosensory cortex
-located below the parietal lobe, directly under your temples, it
is associated with auditory processing and comprehending
language
* -if electrically stimulated, you would heard some sort of sound
temporal
-associated with visual processing, contains numerous visual
areas, each specialized to analyze specific aspects of a scene,
including color, motion, location, and form
occipital
the areas in the lobes in which sensory
processing occurs, the nerves contains sensory information going to
be projected to the thalamus
projection areas
primarily in the occipital lobe
>neural fibers go from the left side of the visual field for
each eye to the right side of the visual cortex (vice versa)
visual cortex
refers to the front part of the brain literally the nasal region
rostral
refers to thebottomn surface of the body or the brain literally the side of the stomach
ventral
literally means tail and refers to the back part of the body and brain
caudal
refers to the upside of the brain
dorsal
individual cells that transmits electric signals from one
location to another in the nervous system
neurons
the part of the brain associated with complex cognition
- the part of the cerebral cortex that evolved most recently
neocortex
neocortex contains how many neurons?
100,000 neurons per cubic millimeter
-contains the nucleus of the cell (the center portion that
performs metabolic and reproductive functions for the cell)
* -responsible for the life of the neuron and connects the
dendrites to the axon
soma
-branchlike structures that receive information from other
neurons, and the soma integrates the information
dendrites
-a long, thin tube that extends (sometimes split) from the
soma and responds to the information by transmitting an
electrochemical signal that travels to the terminus (end), where
the signal can be transmitted to other neurons
axon
-a white, fatty substance that surrounds some of the axons of
the nervous system, which accounts for some of the whiteness
of the white matter of the brain
myelin
> the more an axon is myelinated, the faster signals can be
transmitted!
TRUE
small gaps in the myelin coating the axon, which increase
conduction speed even more by helping to create electric signals,
nodes of ranvier
create electric signals
action potentials
-small knobs found at the ends of the branches of an axon that
do not directly touch the dendrites of the next neuron
terminal buttons
-a small gap between the neurons that serves as a juncture
between terminal buttons of one or more neurons and the
dendrites (or sometimes the soma) of one or more other neurons
synapse
-chemical messengers that transmit information across the
synaptic gap to the receiving dendrites of the next neuron
neurotransmitter
> 3 chemical substances that appear to be involved in
neurotransmission:
*monoamine neurotransmitters
*amino-acid neurotransmitters
* *neuropeptides
include serotonin and the catecholamines dopamine, adrenaline, and noradrenaline;
these compounds have multiple functions including modulation of psychomotor function,
cardiovascular, respiratory and gastrointestinal control, sleep mechanisms, hormone
secretion, body temperature, and pain.
monoamine
are glutamate (excitatory) and gamma amino
butyric acid (GABA) (inhibitory), GABA is produced from glutamate; these transmitters
are involved in epilepsy and brain damage due to ischaemia.
aminoacid
is a proteinaceous substance produced and released by neurons that acts
on neural substrates; humans possess a wide variety of neuropeptides that can
influence a broad range of activities - over 100 different neuropeptides have been
identified in the brain
neuropeptides
associated with memory functions
* -plays an important role in sleep and arousal
acetylcholine
associated with attention, learning, and movement coordination
* -also involved in motivational processes such as reward and
reinforcement
dopamine
-plays an important role in eating behavior and body-weight
regulation
seretonin
