refresher of brain Flashcards
What are the two types of brain structures discussed?
Cortical and subcortical
What is the primary motor area located in?
Precentral gyrus (Brodmann area 4)
Fill in the blank: The _______ is responsible for hormone release throughout the body.
endocrine system
What is the function of hormones in the endocrine system?
Cause changes in state (long term)
True or False: The hypothalamus and pituitary gland control hormone release.
True
What are the two functional areas of the brain mentioned?
Sensory and motor
What is the significance of understanding naming concepts in cognitive neuroscience?
It makes understanding information about the brain much easier
List three parts of the brain mentioned in the content.
- Basal ganglia
- Hippocampus
- Amygdala
What is Broca’s area located in?
Inferior frontal gyrus (Brodmann areas 44/45)
What does the dorsal surface of the temporal lobe form?
Ventral bank of the lateral (sylvian) fissure
Fill in the blank: The _______ and _______ are responsible for hormonal signaling throughout the body.
hypothalamus, pituitary gland
What does understanding functional activation in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex help with?
Understanding cognitive neuroscience of working memory
What are gyri, sulci, and fissures?
Structures of the brain’s surface
What does the endocrine system involve?
Hormonal signaling throughout the body
What is semantic dementia?
A progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by loss of semantic memory affecting the temporal and frontal lobes first.
Symptoms include language difficulties, prosopagnosia, object agnosia, and emotional changes.
What are the main symptoms of semantic dementia?
Language symptoms (anomia), prosopagnosia, object agnosia, memory problems, personality changes, and emotional disturbances.
Anomia refers to problems with finding nouns rather than verbs.
Define associative agnosia.
Inability to recognize objects despite having intact vision, due to disrupted associations between visual and meaning/language nodes.
Patients can copy figures but cannot recognize the objects.
What is prosopagnosia?
A problem with face recognition where patients can see a face but cannot link it to any knowledge about the person.
This condition leads to social disruptions and coping strategies, such as memorizing mannerisms.
What is Wernicke’s aphasia?
A profound language comprehension deficit related to damage in the left posterior temporal area known as Wernicke’s area.
Also known as ‘fluent aphasia’ or ‘receptive aphasia’.
What are the characteristics of Wernicke’s aphasia?
Inability to recognize the meaning of spoken words, severe impairments in reading and writing, preserved speech production that may lack meaning.
Intellectual capabilities unrelated to speech remain intact.
What role does the amygdala play?
Involvement in emotional responses, particularly fear.
The amygdala is often referred to as the ‘almond’ due to its shape.
What is the difference between short-term memory (STM) and long-term memory (LTM)?
STM keeps information available for a short time, while LTM stores information for long periods.
Examples of STM include dialing a phone number, whereas LTM includes knowing the capital of Japan.
What is anterograde amnesia?
Loss of the ability to transfer new experiences into long-term memory since the lesion.
This type of amnesia affects the formation of new memories.
What is retrograde amnesia?
Loss of memory for events prior to the lesion, affecting previously formed memories.
Encoding of memories can take several years.
Who was H.M. (Henry Molaison)?
A patient known for his anterograde amnesia after hippocampal removal, demonstrating retention of skills despite lack of memory for tasks.
H.M. could learn new motor skills but had no recollection of performing them.
What functions does the temporal lobe serve?
Identifies objects, triggers emotional responses, and encodes memories.
Different parts of the temporal lobe are responsible for these functions.
What is the primary role of the frontal lobe?
Responsible for planning, decision-making, control, and action.
Damage can impair goal-directed actions and speech production.
What are executive functions?
Abilities that enable a person to determine goals, formulate ways to achieve them, and adapt to challenges over time.
These functions are associated with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.
What is Broca’s aphasia?
A condition characterized by problems with speech production and coordination of longer sentences, often leading to ungrammatical speech.
Patients typically understand speech but struggle to produce it.
What is the significance of double dissociations in brain studies?
They suggest specialized brain regions for different stimulus categories and recognition functions.
This indicates that specific areas of the brain are responsible for processing different types of information.
What is the function of the arachnoid membrane?
Cushions the brain
Underneath is the subarachnoid space, filled with cerebrospinal fluid.
What does the pia mater refer to?
A very slight membrane directly on top of the brain
Not visible.
What are the three meninges surrounding the brain?
- Dura mater
- Arachnoid membrane
- Pia mater
How many ventricles are filled with cerebrospinal fluid?
Four ventricles
Includes lateral ventricles (x2), third ventricle, and fourth ventricle.
What are sulci?
Grooves in the cerebral cortex
Singular: sulcus.
Define gyri.
Bumps between grooves
Singular: gyrus.
What is a fissure in the context of brain anatomy?
A large furrow that divides the brain into two hemispheres and lobes
Examples include the longitudinal fissure and central & lateral fissure.
What is the forebrain also known as?
Telencephalon and Diencephalon
Telencephalon: cerebral cortex, hippocampus, basal ganglia; Diencephalon: thalamus, hypothalamus.
What are the major structures of the midbrain?
- Tectum
- Tegmentum
- Superior colliculus
- Inferior colliculus
- Substantia nigra
What is the hindbrain also known as?
Rhombencephalon
Major structures include medulla, pons, cerebellum.
What is the role of white matter in the brain?
Transfers information between cortical sites.
Processing in the brain primarily occurs in which type of matter?
Grey matter
Grey matter consists of cell bodies of neurons, located in the outer parts of the brain called the cortex.
