Modules 11, 12, and 13 (Unit 3) Flashcards
Ways to Study the Brain
- Case Study
- Animal Studies
- Record Electrical Activity (EEG)
- Neuroimaging
Animal Studies
- Removal of different brain parts or lesion/ destroying to see what happens
- Stimulate different parts while animal is alive
Types of neuroimaging
- PET
- fMRI
- MRI
Evolution of the Brain
- Evolution across time, not a lifetime
- Most complex organ in the body
- The older the brain is our history, the more simple it is
- The newer it is in history, the more complex
- Layers of complexity added over time
Parts of the Brainstem
- Medulla
- Pons
Pons
- Coordinates basic movement
- Sleep paralysis & Circadian rhythms (REM stage)
- Blocks messages from going to the brain or down the spinal chord
- So we don’t hurt ourselves when we sleep
Limbic System parts
- Hippocampus
- Amygdala
- Hypothalamus
Hippocampus
- Stores long-term memory (LTM)
- Pushes information into LTM
- Active during REM stage
- Reason why a good nights sleep is important
Cortical Lobes
- Frontal
- Parietal
- Occipital
- Temporal
Cerebrum vs. Cortex
- Cortex= thin covering of the cerebrum, does thinking
- 2 Hemispheres
- 4 lobes on each hemisphere
- Cerebrum= 85% of brain weight
- 300 trillion synaptic connections
Structure of Cerebral cortex
- Wrinkled (gyruses and Sulcuses)
- Creates increased surface area
- Geographically separated by lobes
Where are association areas?
- Everywhere!
- Surrounding primary input locations
Frontal Association Area
- Judgement
- Planning
- Personality
- Processing new memories
Parietal Association Areas
- Mathematics
- Spacial reasoning
Temporal Association Areas
-Facial recognition
Occipital Association Area
- Complex visual processing
- Color & object recognition
Visual Perception Track
- Enables us “to think about the world”
- Recognize and plan our future actions
Visual Action Track
-Guides our moment-to-moment movements
Left Hemisphere
- Determines cause and effect
- Reasoning, interpreting , calculating
- Speaking (processing speech too)
- Interprets language quickly and literally
Right Hemisphere
- Recognition of faces
- Perceptual tasks
- Making inferences
- Modulating speech(to make meaning clear)
- Orchestrate our sense of self
Left Hemisphere vs. Right Hemisphere
- NO ONE IS LEFT OR RIGHT BRAINED
- Info about left and right hemispheres comes from split brain surgeries
Language areas of the Cerebral Cortex
- Broca’s area
- Frontal lobe
- Speech production
- Very detailed mouth-motor movements
- Wernicke’s Area
- Temporal lobe
- Language comprehension (meaning)
Visual Wiring
- Left eye–> Right Hemisphere
- Right eye–> Left Hemisphere
- Data received is then shared between hemispheres (cannot be done w/o a corpus Callosum
Conscious Sequential Processing
- Processes serially (one after another)
- Slower
- Requires attention
- Good at solving new problems
- Reason why we cannot multi-task
