Intro to neuroanatomy Flashcards
What is a sulcus (sulci)?
A depression in the cerebral cortex
What is a gyrus (gyri)?
A ridge on the cerebral cortex
What is a fissure?
A deeper groove in the cerebral cortex
What is white matter?
White matter is made white by myelin, connective tissue (axons) covered in myelin
What is grey matter?
Cell body of neurons
Where do most of the similarities between mammals and fish brains occur?
Similar hindbrain and midbrain
How do mammal brains primarily differ from those of other animals?
Mammals have larger cerebral cortex (cerebrum) relative to other animals
What is the hindbrain responsible for?
The hindbrain controls vital functions - heartbeat, breathing.
Attached to spinal cord, relay signals from brain to periphery
What is the midbrain also known as?
Mesencephalon
What does the midbrain act as?
Also a relay station, relay information between senses and brain
What is the hindbrain also known as?
Rhombencephalon
What does the hindbrain consist of?
Medulla, pons, and cerebellum
What is the medulla important for?
Autonomic centre for control of HR and blood pressure. A lesion or damage to medulla is generally fatal.
What enters at the medulla?
Vast number of cranial nerves enter at the medulla
What is the pons important for?
Relay signals, work out where to send signals from periphery
Involved in respiration and normal breathing
Integrates all information sent from cranial nerves to send out to the rest of the brain
What is the cerebellum important for?
Fine motor control
What happens if you damage the cerebellum?
Cerebellar ataxia - inability to control fine motor movements
What does the midbrain consist of?
Tetum (superior and inferior colliculus) and tegmentum
Tetum contains…
Superior colliculus
Inferior colliculus
What is the superior colliculus important for?
Visual processing and the control of eye movements.
Where is the superior colliculus located?
In the tetum of the midbrain
Where is the inferior colliculus located?
In the tetum of the midbrain
Which part of the brain is important for visual processing and the control of eye movements?
The superior colliculus (tetum of the midbrain)
Which part of the brain is important for fine motor movements?
The cerebellum of the hindbrain
Which part of the brain is important for regulating heart rate and blood pressure?
The medulla of the hindbrain
Which part(s) of the brain act as relay stations for signals?
The pons of the hindbrain, the midbrain, the thalamus
What is the inferior colliculus important for?
Auditory processing, auditory information gets relayed through here
What is the tegmentum important for?
Unconscious processes
Relaying movement signals (particularly from the motor cortex) to the hindbrain before it gets sent to the spinal cord
What does the forebrain consist of?
Hypothalamus, thalamus, amygdala, hippocampus, cerebral cortex (higher order area)
Where is the hypothalamus? And why is this significant?
It is adjacent to the pituitary gland. This is significant as it controls much of the endocrine system.
What is the hypothalamus important for?
Homeostasis
Master controller of much of the endocrine system
Where is the thalamus?
Just above the hypothalamus
What is the thalamus important for?
Relaying sensory signals to the cerebral cortex
Also filters. Discards sensory information you don’t need.
Where is the amygdala?
In front of the hippocampus
What is the amygdala important for?
Emotion
Fear responses
What does the hippocampus look like?
A seahorse? lmao
What is the hippocampus important for?
Involved in the formation and storage of new memories.
The story of patient HM (Henry Molaison)
Case study of hippocampus damage
Developed severe epilepsy
Surgical temporal lobe removal and a great chunk of hippocampus, along with some of the amygdala
Anterograde amnesia; could not form episodic memories of new events
Also partial retrograde amnesia
Working memory and procedural memory were intact
What happened after HM underwent surgery?
Anterograde amnesia; could not form episodic memories of new events
Also partial retrograde amnesia
Working memory and procedural memory were intact
What is the Morris water maze?
Demonstrates the role of hippocampus in spatial learning.
What are the lobes of the cerebral cortex?
Frontal lobe (rostral), parietal lobe (mid-right), temporal lobe (mid-left), occipital lobe (claudal)
What is the central sulcus?
It separates frontal lobe from the parietal lobe
What is the lateral fissure?
It separates frontal lobe from the temporal lobe
What are the frontal lobes important for?
Executive function, abstract thinking, problem solving
Impulse control and social skills (prosocial behaviours)
Motor cortex is located here
Frontal lobotomy?
Developed by Egas Moniz in 1930s (used till 1950s) to treat a wide range of mental illness.
What is the parietal lobe involved in?
Somatosensory interpretation
What does the temporal lobes contain?
Primary auditory cortex
Primary olfactory cortex
What are the occipital lobes involved in?
Visual processing - information sent from photoreceptors in eyes back through optic nerve, relayed to other side of brain and processed in the visual cortices
What are primary and association areas?
Within the cortices, each sense has a primary cortex, and also association areas which integrate information
What is the corpus callosum?
It is the white mater tract that connect the left and right hemispheres
Allows for rapid communication between the two hemispheres.
Split-brain surgery?
Used for epilepsy.
