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Cognitive neuroscience > Functional organisation of the brain and brain plasticity > Flashcards

Functional organisation of the brain and brain plasticity Flashcards

1
Q

What is a neuron?

A

The elementary unit of the nervous system. Basic signalling units. They receive, integrate and transmit signals

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2
Q

What is the soma?

A

Cell body. Contains the cell’s nucleus and DNA

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3
Q

What are dendrites?

A

They receive input. They are the branches of the neuron that pick up signals carried adjacent neurons

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4
Q

What are axons? (& myelin)

A

(Output). The fatty sheath that covers an axon is made up of myelin which speeds up conduction of nerve impulses

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5
Q

What are glial cells?

A
  • They provide supportive functions - housekeepers of CNS
  • They do not generate signals themselves
  • ~10x more glial cells in the brain than neurons
  • Without them neurons would not function properly and may die (e.g. multiple sclerosis
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6
Q

What are the 2 main types/locations of neural signalling?

A

Within the neuron and between neurons

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7
Q

What is a synapse?

A

The space between neurons where communication happens.

Presynaptic neuron –> synapse –> post synaptic neuron

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8
Q

What does chemical transmission happen between?

A

Cell-to-cell

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9
Q

What is the brain and what does it do (in broad, non-specific terms)?

A
  • Provide knowledge about how the brain works and understanding the consequences of brain damage
  • Helps understand how cognition is created/implemented
  • Knowledge about brain structure and function can inform and constrain psychological theories (integration)
  • There is a strong association between the brain, the mind and behaviour
  • We are reverse engineering something already ‘designed by nature’ to understand these relationships
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10
Q

What does medial versus lateral mean?

A

Middle versus to the side

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11
Q

What does superior versus inferior mean?

A

Superior versus below

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12
Q

What does anterior versus posterior mean?

A

Front versus back

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13
Q

What does dorsal versus ventral mean?

A

Back versus abdomen

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14
Q

What does ventromedial prefrontal cortex versus dorsolateral prefrontal cortex mean?

A

vmPFC (just above your eyes) means low and in the middle whereas dlPFC means higher up and on the side

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15
Q

What is grey matter?

A

On the outside of the brain. Contains the cell bodies of neurons

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16
Q

What does cortex mean?

A

Bark. Large thin layer of neurons covering the brain. Roughly 3mm thick

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17
Q

What significance does the folding of the cortex have?

A

It is many bumps and grooves, meaning it is highly folded. It is folded to maintain a high SA to volume ratio (save space), to bring the neurons closer together (improves communication) and the regions closer together (improve efficiency of communication)

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18
Q

How does cortical folding develop?

A
  • Cortical folding also changes dramatically across development
  • Folding peaks in around the 66th-80th week of life (birth = 40 weeks), remaining high in adults
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19
Q

What does GI stand for?

A

Gyrification index, a way of measuring extent of folding

20
Q

What is white matter?

A
  • Like the motorways or roads between the cities (grey matter)
  • Make up connections between regions
  • Appears while because of fatty myelin covering axons
21
Q

What are tracts?

A
  • Bundles of neuronal fibres connecting brain regions (motorway analogy)
  • Studied using DTI methods
22
Q

What are DTI methods?

A

Diffusion tensor imaging, an imaging method based on measuring the movement of water molecules in the brain

23
Q

What are the 3 types of white matter pathways?

A
  • Projection tracts: Connect ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ brain regions, and brain to spinal cord (e.g., corticospinal)
  • Association tracts: Connect regions within same hemisphere (IFOF)
    Commissural tracts: Links L and R hemispheres (e.g., corpus callosum)
24
Q

What are gyri (si: gyrus)?

A

A ridge or protruding surface of the brain (pink bit)

25
Q

What are sulci (si: sulcus)?

A

A depression, groove, crevice in brain surface (black bits)

26
Q

What are the 4 lobes?

A

Temporal, parietal, Frontal, Occipital

27
Q

What is the temporal lobe responsible for?

A

Hearing, language and memory

28
Q

What is the parietal lobe responsible for?

A

Movement, spatial processing, somatosensory processing

29
Q

What is the cerebellum responsible for?

A

Balance, fine motor movements, timing

30
Q

What is the dorsal portion frontal lobe?

A

Primary motor cortex

31
Q

What is the motor cortex?

A

Area at the back of the frontal lobes that controls voluntary movements

32
Q

What does stimulation to specific parts of the motor cortex in left or right hemisphere do?

A

makes specific body parts move on the opposite (contralateral) side of the body

33
Q

What is the homunculus?

A

(little man) Body regions represented in the ‘homunculus’, with ordered point-to-point relationship (e.g., toes next to ankle representation)

  • Size of each body part relates roughly to size of cortical region that controls muscles in that body part - except face & hands (much larger cortical representation because they are extremely important to functioning, more nerve fibres than in other parts of the body)
  • So, face & hands are over-represented as they have more fine muscles & therefore muscle control – more receptors
34
Q

What is located in the parietal lobe?

A

Primary somatosensory cortex

35
Q

What is the primary sensory cortex?

A

o an area at the front of the parietal lobes

  • It registers and processes body sensations
  • Stimulate this area and the person reports being touched
  • The more sensitive a body region, the greater area of sensory cortex devoted to it
  • Contralateral organisation
36
Q

What is the occipital lobe?

A

Also known as the ‘visual cortex’

  • A blow to back of the head might cause you to go blind
  • If stimulated there, you may see flashes of colour/light
37
Q

What is the temporal lobe?

A

Contains the auditory cortex

  • If stimulated there, you might hear something that isn’t real
  • fMRI data from people with schizophrenia reveal that auditory areas are active during hallucinations
38
Q

What is the association area?

A
  • Makes humans different
  • Most of the rest of cortex made up of brain areas not involved in primary motor or sensory functions (e.g. vision, audition etc.)
39
Q

What is cortical cytoarchitecture?

A
  • Cell structure and organisation
  • Brodmann (1909)
  • Original drawings of ~52 different brain areas
  • He categorised these neural regions according to their distinctive:
  • Cell morphology
  • Cell organisation (e.g. layers)
    (not overly modern but must be showing something so it’s still in use today)
  • System still in common use today (e.g., fMRI findings)
  • Numbering often done rather randomly
40
Q

What are subcortical structures?

A
  • Below the cortex are older, more primitive areas of the brain – with more basic functions (breathing, temperature, hormones, sleep, fight/flight, etc…)
  • E.g. Amygdala, hippocampus, hypothalamus
41
Q

What is plasticity?

A

The brain’s capacity for modification

  • Evident in brain reorganisation following damage
  • Especially in children (younger = more plastic)
42
Q

What have experiments on the effects of experience on brain development revealed?

A
  • Most severed neurons will not regenerate
  • However, neurons can reorganise in response to damage
  • And new neurons are growing all the time
43
Q

What is phantom limb?

A

Sensations of an arm or leg that has been lost or removed. The limb still lingers in their minds and is painful

44
Q

What is the main theoretical reasoning behind phantom limb?

A

It emerged from sensitive nerve endings

45
Q

What sis Ramachandran find while studying phantom limbs?

A
  • Hypothesised that the missing lower arm area of the sensory cortex might have reorganised due to missing the normal sensory input
  • The face and upper arm areas are on either side of arm area, they would be most likely to take over the cortex that is lacking normal innervation by arm
  • Found that stimulating the patient’s face led to ‘sensations’ in their phantom limb and so face-area did innervate the arm area!
  • Same finding with the upper arm area
  • 2 representations for missing arm: one on the face & one on upper limb
  • The ‘hand area’ in brain no longer being stimulated (no hand!), so the neighbouring face and arm areas ‘took over’ this region
46
Q

What was found by Maguire (2000) studying taxi drivers with MRIs?

A
  • The hippocampus is a brain area involved in spatial navigation/maps
  • Study with London taxi drivers showed they had a larger hippocampus than controls
  • Shows more experience in spatial navigation is associated with a larger hippocampus
  • Furthermore, the amount of time learning to be and working as a taxi driver was correlated with size of hippocampus
47
Q

How can brain organisation change with experience?

A

The brain is not as ‘hard-wired’ as once thought

  • This can happen due to experience or damage, such that brain areas may reorganize themselves over time
  • This means that everyone’s brain is unique and is constantly being sculpted by experience

Cognitive neuroscience (9 decks)

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