Concepts of Brain Function Flashcards
What are the functions of the brain?
Sensory - Concepts of perception and reception
Motor - Controls movement of limbs
Higher order - Thinking, emotions, planning, language, decisions
What is the structure function relationship of the brain?
Idea of various parts of the brain being localised for specific functions
eg. Temporal lobe for audition and memory
How were brain maps created?
Phineaus gage - brain injury which didn’t kill him but altered his personality
Histology brodam - View neurones that had different visual morphologies in different parts of the brain
Functional studies - Surgery on epilepsy patients
- Monitor activity of brain and localisation when carrying out tasks
What is the homunculus?
Map of the cortex dividing it up into sections each with a different sensory function
What is decussation?
Where the left side of the body sends information to the right side of the brain and vice versa
What are the cortices and their hierarchy?
Primary
Secondary
Teritary
What do the primary cortices do?
Small 5 of brain function
Used for primary specific functions
What do the secondary cortices do?
Processes similar modalities of the 1’ cortices and has unimodal association
What do the tertiary cortices do?
Multimodal association taking up 50% of brain
such as storage of information for planning and decisions
concepts of mental images and 3D representation
What are some higher order functions of the brain?
Cognition
Consciousness
How does the brain and neurones connect and what is the importance of their connectivity relationship?
1 neurone may have up to 10,000 synapses
No of neurones not as important as the No of connections each one makes
No of connections is important for function (many different Nts)