SAC 2 Flashcards
Draw the branches of the nervous system
describe the branches of the Nervous System
Central Nervous System: The CNS comprises the brain and the spinal cord. It enables the brain to communicate with the rest of the body by conveying messages from the brain to the peripheral nervous system, and from the peripheral nervous system to the brain.
Peripheral nervous system: To communicate information from the body’s organs, glands and muscles to the CNS, including information from the outside world and from the inside world and to communicate information from the CNS to the body’s organs, glands and muscles via motor neurons or sensory neurons.
Somatic nervous system: Carries sensory neurons to the central nervous system, and carries motor neurons from the central nervous system to the skeletal muscles.
Autonomic nervous system: Responsible for the communication between the body’s non-skeletal muscles and the internal organs and glands that carry out bodily function.
Sympathetic: Acts like an emergency system, which becomes active when in danger or in times of stress. It activates the fight-or-flight response.
Parasympathetic: Responsible for maintaining our day-to-day functioning and for most of the automatic functions of the body which are controlled by homeostasis.
Ensure you understand the physiological response in a fight/flight action
- the stressor is percieved in the cerebral cortex.
- the hypothalamus is stimulated and triggers releases of hormones from the pituitary gland.
- pituitary hormones travel through the blood to the adrenal glands.
- adrenal glads are stimulated to relase cortisol and adrenalin, which are then carried thoughout the blood stream.
Ensure you understand hemispheric specialisation and the different functions of each hemisphere:
Right Hemisphere
Cognitive
- Music appreciation
- Art appreciation
- Fantasy
- Perception
- Spatial
- Visualisation and analysis
_Behavioural _
- Left hand touch
- Dance
- Sculpture
Left Hemisphere
Cognitive
- Maths
- Language
- Science
- Logic
Behavioural
- Right hand touch
- Writing
SPATIAL NEGLECT
What is spatial neglect?
It is known, as neglect syndrome is a disorder in which the person affected systematically ignores stimuli on one side of the body. There is damage to the posterior region in their right side of their parietal lobe, they ignore the left-hand side. It doesn’t damage a person’s eyes. It occurs from stroke or brain injury.
Anosognosia - when people are unaware of their condition
Anosodiaphoria - when people know they have the condition but are unconcerned.
SPLIT BRAIN SURGERY
The corpus callosum - A set of neural fibres that bridges the gap between the two hemispheres connects the hemispheres to communicate between them. The process of a Commisurotomy cuts this section of the brain. It is because of severe epilepsy.
The left hemisphere is more involved in verbal processes and constructing theoires about what is going on around them. Right hemisphere can verbally process information and express itself non-verbally.
APHASIA
The impairment of language caused by damage to the brain.
Broca’s Aphasia
A person with Broca’s aphasia has difficulty expressing themselves in words or sentences but their ability to comprehend speech is largely unaffected. Broca’s aphasia is a result of damage to Broca’s area (located in left frontal lobe) and, often, surrounding areas, and is referred to as expressive aphasia. It can be cuased by a stroke.
Broca’s aphasia has the following characteristics:
- Speech is non-fluent - Typically, there are pauses between words, especially those that are not well rehearsed.
- Partial or complete loss of the ability to recall names
- Articulation difficulties and words may be mispronounced
- Speech lacks grammar - Speech does not follow the grammatical rules.
- Difficulty with writing
Wernicke’s Aphasia
A person with Wernicke’s aphasia has difficulty understanding written and spoken language and in producing written and spoken language that makes sense to others. It is often referred to as receptive aphasia, a misleading term because the difficulty is not just limited to understanding language. They are tragically cut off by language – what they hear is gibberish to them and what they say sounds like gibberish. It is caused by stoke from damage to Wernicke’s area.
Wernicke’s aphasia has the following characteristics
- Speech is fluent but makes no sense
- The speech flows quite normally.
- There is partial or complete loss of the ability to recall names
- Nonsense words are used. While sentences may seem grammatical, the person may use meaningless words and nonsense syllables, or mispronounce words
- Difficulty understanding both written and spoken language
- Difficulty producing both written and spoken language that makes sense to others.
Ensure you understand the amount of cortical space devoted to different body parts for the motor cortex
The more sensitive the area the larger the area of cortex devoted to it. For example, the fingers and mouth have a larger area.
Ensure you understand the amount of cortical space devoted to different body parts for the Somatosensory cortex
Greater number of sensory neurons are located in specific parts of the body eg fingers and mouth
Ensure you know what occurs to each body part in the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system during arousal
Explain the structures of the FRONTAL and PARIETAL LOBE.
Frontal Lobe: Abstract thought, Social skills, Planning
- Primary Motor Cortex: Located at the rear of each frontal lobe. Responsible for movement of the skeletal muscles of the body. The more neurons then the more muscle movement.
- Broca’s Area: The speech production centre of the brain. It is in the left hemisphere only.
- Association Areas: The association area of the left frontal lobe (Broca’s area) is also responsible for the production of speech. Much of the frontal lobe is the association area. This is the part of the frontal lobe responsible for cognitive processes such as attention, planning, and problem solving, as well as aspects of personality.
- If damaged:
- Unable to learn from experiences;
- Make mistakes in planning
- Speech impaired.
Parietal Lobe: touch, non-verbal thought, spatial orientation
- Somatosensory cortex: Located in the parietal lobe, receives information from the sense receptors in the body.
- Association Areas: They are important for perceiving space and 3D dimensions.
- If damaged:
- Right parietal lobe:
- Spatial Neglect
- Long multiplication
- Left parietal lobe:
- Point to his or her own body parts
- Remember where something is in a room.
- Somatosensory cortex:
- Unable to process sensations on the relevant body part.
- Right parietal lobe:
label different parts of the brain
Explain the structures of the OCCIPITAL and TEMPORAL LOBE.
Temporal Lobe: hearing, language, visual recognition
- Primary Auditory Cortex: Located in the upper part of the temporal lobe. Receives sounds from the ears and is able to process sounds and speech.
- Association Areas: The association areas of the temporal lobes are also important for the processing of memory and recognising faces.
- Wernicke’s Area: Part of the left temporal lobe only, responsible for language reception, interpretation and for creation of grammatically correct speech.
- If damaged:
- Primary auditory cortex: experience forms of deafness.
- Right auditory association cortex: unable to recognise the pattern of sounds that do not have words or to locate a sound in space.
Occipital Lobe: vision
- Primary Visual Cortex: Located in the occipital lobes. Processes information from the eyes.
- Association Areas: Are interpreting and integrating the information that the eyes see.
- If damaged:
- Primary visual cortex: not actually be blind but would be unable to process any visual stimuli that their eyes see.
- Occipital lobe: Gap in their visual field
