Lecture 2

Question 1

What are the two divisions of the Nervous System?

Answer 1

CNS (brain and spinal chord) and PNS

Question 2

What are the divisions of the PNS? What do they mean?

Answer 2

• autonomous: self-regulated activity
• somatic: voluntary movements, sensory

Question 3

What are the two divisions of the autonomous nervous system? What do they mean?

Answer 3

• sympathetic (arousal) and parasympathetic (resting)

Question 4

What are the two divisions of the somatic nervous system?

Answer 4

sensory input/afferent and motor output/efferent

Question 5

What are the three divisions of the brain?

Answer 5

forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain

Question 6

What is the function of the forebrain? (4)

Answer 6

• processing sensory info
• reasoning and problem solving
• regulate autonomic and endocrine
• motor functions

Question 7

What is the function of the midbrain? (2)

Answer 7

• regulate movement
• process auditory and visual information

Question 8

What are the functions of the hindbrain?

Answer 8

• regulate autonomic functions
• relay sensory info
• coordinate movement
• maintain balance

Question 9

What are the components of the forebrain (4) and their “jobs”?

Answer 9

• cerebrum: executive functions
• thalamus: sensory control centre, sleep
• hypothalamus: autonomic nervous system, hormones
• pineal gland: melatonin, hormones

Question 10

What are the three components of the midbrain and their functions?

Answer 10

• colliculi: vision/hearing
• tegmentum: pain/alertness
• cerebral peduncles: coordination

Question 11

What are the three components of the hindbrain and their function?

Answer 11

• pons: facial movement
• cerebellum: balance, posture and voluntary movements
• medulla: autonomic functions

Question 12

What are the four lobes of their brain and their functions?

Answer 12

frontal: planning, organization, emotional regulation, reasoning and problem solving

Parietal: integration of sensory information (touch, temp, pressure)

Temporal: sensory processing (hearing comp., language, complex visual info), and hippocampus does memory

occipital: visual processing; contains the primary visual cortex, which relays to other areas of the brain

Question 13

what is the corpus callosum?

Answer 13

means of communication between hemispheres

Question 14

What is the function of a neuron?

Answer 14

it is a basic signalling unit; it receives chemical info and reacts with electrical current

Question 15

What is the soma? What does it contain?

Answer 15

cell body
- peptides (large NT’s), enzymes for NT production

Question 16

What are the three types of glial cells?

Answer 16

• astrocyte, oligodendrocyte, microglia

Question 17

What is the function of the astrocyte?

Answer 17

• wraps around the blood vessel entering the brain, and filters toxins that are crossing the BBB

Question 18

what is the function of the oligodendrocyte?

Answer 18

oozes fat and coats the axon

Question 19

What is the function of the microglia?

Answer 19

• clean and repair damage

Question 20

What does glutamate do?

Answer 20

major excitatory signals

Question 21

What does GABA do?

Answer 21

major inhibitory signals

Question 22

What does acetylcholine do?

Answer 22

muscles, learning/memory

Question 23

What does dopamine do?

Answer 23

Movement, learning (when you get a reward for learning you get dopamine), attention and emotion

Question 24

What does serotonin do?

Answer 24

mood, hunger, sleep, arousal

Question 25

What does norepinephrine do?

Answer 25

controls alertness and arousal

Question 26

what do endorphins do?

Answer 26

natural opiates, pain and exercise

Question 27

Where are most of the dopamine receptors?

Answer 27

midbrain

Question 28

Where are most of the serotonin receptors?

Answer 28

gut and brain stem

Question 29

What are the two types of neural cell death?

Answer 29

necrosis: passive cell death, explodes, can cause inflammation
apoptosis: active cell death, organizes internal content into membrane pouches that glial cells clean up, less inflammation

Question 30

What is neural pruning?

Answer 30

• synapse elimination, fine tuning that happens during development

Question 31

what are the three ways of measuring neuroplasticity?

Answer 31

• strength of synapses, new dendrites growing, reorganization of synapses

Question 32

What are the two types of neural division?

Answer 32

asymmetrical: one daughter cell differentiates, the other becomes a stem cell
symmetrical: (during development) two stem cells

Question 33

What kind of cell can a neural stem cell generate into?

Answer 33

any cell in the CNS

Question 34

where does neurogenesis mainly happen?

Answer 34

• dentate gyrus in the hippocampus
• subventricular zone
• Less prominent: striatum (basal ganglia)

Question 35

How can we detect neurogenesis postmortem?

Answer 35

DCX: naturally released when new neurons are generated
BrdU: injected into the tissue and taken up during cell division when new neurons are generated

Question 36

What is a stroke? What is it caused by?

Answer 36

disruption of blood flow in the brain, caused by blood vessel rupture or blood clot

Question 37

What is sensorimotor map topography?

Answer 37

organization of the body has cortical representation