Lecture 7 - Overview of Nervous system Flashcards
Slicing brains (3)
Coronal - Slice it front to back.
Saggital - Side on view.
Transverse - Top to bottom.
Cerebrum has two parts……..
Cortex has 2 parts, gyri and sulci which give the brain its wrinkled appearance.
Draw out whole NS
Look at diagram
Major brain regions (3)
Forebrain
Brainstem
Cerbellum
Forebrain --> Cerebrum --> Cortex --> Temporal lobe (8)
Auditory processing.
Language.
Speech.
1874 Carl Warnicke hypothesised link between discrete area of the temporal lobe and receptive aphasia.
Receptive aphasia = Major impairment of language comprehension, whilst speech maintains a natural rhythm.
Aphasia- People fail to recognise/select the correct words.
Common in patients who have had a stroke.
Fluent aphasia - Can talk but correct words aren’t spoken from the brain (essentially just speaking unmeaningful words).
Forebrain --> Cerebrum --> Cortex --> Occipital lobe (3)
Visual processing - colour, orientation, motion.
Hallucinations are an example of schizophrenia.
McCarley et al (1999) examined MRI data from schizophrenic patients and found abnormal activity levels in their occipital lobe.
Forebrain --> Cerebrum --> Cortex --> Parietal lobe (3)
Sensory processing.
Proprioception/ Kinesthesia - Sense where we perceive the position/movement of our body, including our sense of equilibrium and balance.
Sufferers of dyslexia have reduced levels in their left parietal lobe (Pammer, 2014).
Forebrain --> Cerebrum --> Cortex --> Frontal lobe (7)
Decision making.
Attention.
Consciousness.
Emotions.
Deliberate movement.
Determines personality, emotions you express.
Approx 400000 people in US have recieved prefrontal lobotomy, used to treat personality and cognitive disorders.
Forebrain --> Cerebrum --> Cortex --> Corpus Callosum (3)
Connects right and left hemispheres, allowing info to be passed between them.
Fibres covered in myelin sheath, which gives it a white colour,
1960 (Gazzaniga and Wolcott) performed experiments on people who had damaged corpus callosums. By testing the hemispheres in isolation, found that each hemisphere dominated a certain set of behaviours.
Left - Analytical
Right - Creative
Forebrain –> Cerebrum –> Cortex –>
Hippocampus (3)
Memory formation/retrieval.
1985 Clive Wearing (composer/musician) contracted a virus that caused damage to hippocampus.
Forebrain --> Cerebrum --> Cortex --> Basal Ganglia (9)
Movement. Balance. Posture. Associated with Parkinsons/Huntingdons Chorea. High level of dopamine appears on scan.
Parkinsons = Neurodegenerative/progressive disease, caused by reduced dopaminergic function. Unable to synthesise enough dopamine esp in substantia nigra.
Treat involves precursor for dopamine L-DOPA, a replacement therapy.
Huntingdons Chorea, genetic disorder damage to basal ganglia –> leads to atrophy (tissue lost).
Bigger ventricles in HC brain as tissues around has decreased.
Forebrain –> Diencephalon –>
Thalamus (4)
40 different nuclei, multi-modal function.
Many different streams of information are intergrated in the thalamus.
Thalamic damage results in ‘blending’ of information streams (Ro et al, 2007).
Synasthesia = ‘Hearing’ colour and ‘Feeling’ sounds.
Forebrain –> Diencephalon –>
Hypothalamus (7)
Collection of small nuclei. Temperature. Hunger/Thirst. Neuroendocrine control. Circadian rhythms. Blood presssure/Heart rate. Bodys response to stress.
Brainstem (5)
Homeostasis - Breathing, heart rate and blood pressure.
‘Brain-stem dead’ - Loss of blood circulation
Motor movements - Reflexes/Fine motor movements of limbs/face in conjuction with cortex.
‘Locked-In syndrome’ - Loss of blood circulation to pons.
Caused by stroke.
Cerebellum (3)
Movement precision.
Coordination.
Brown et al (2006) evidence of cerebellar activity during the synchronisation of movement with musical rhythm.
