Technologies for Studying the Brain Flashcards
Golgi Stain
used by…?
what does it stain?
- used by Roman y Cajal
- stains the soma, dendrites, dendritic spines, and axon in brown/black
- randomly stains a portion of cells in their entirety
- outlines the cells
- cellular level
- no one knows exactly the chemistry
- alternate bathing tissue in potassium dichromate and silver nitrate, repeat for days, weeks, months, years…
Staining
subject state? technology? costs? temporal resolution? spatial resolution? functional? example?
- subject state: post-mortem, brain tissue slices
- tech: inject stains in live system. Process brain tissue
- costs: sacrifice subjects
- Temp Res: none
- spatial resolution: good, per stain type
- functional: NO
- EX: Golgi, Nissl, Weigert
Ramon y Cajal
- the Neuron Doctrine
- fundamental structural and functional unit is the neuron
- neurons are discrete cells
- neurons have axon, dendrites and somas
- father of modern Neuroscience
Nissl Stain
get a sense of….?
- gets you more cell bodies and see more density
- good at staining the nucleus! counting cell bodies !
- get a sense for how many cell bodies are in a slice of tissue
- stains various parts of the cell body blue by attaching a chemical dye to the RNA/DNA molecules
- input and output layers are really dense
- you can see that different regions of brain have different architectures
- Brodmann’s areas correlation to the different architectures
All enzymes are…
proteins
Lesions
subject state? technology? costs? temporal resolution? spatial resolution? functional? example?
subject state: alive or post-mortem. Brain damaged, naturally or experimentally
tech: ablation surgery, process brain tissue
costs: can include damaging subjects
temporal resolution: none
spatial res: GOOD, per damaged area
functional: YES, per deficits
Ex: phineas gage, H.M.
TAN case study
- Neurologist Broca’s Patient: produced only “tan”
- comprehension good
- post-mortem exam revealed lesion in inferior frontal cortex
- area associated with language production NOT COMPREHENSION
Phineas Gage
- damage to what area?
- what changed?
- railroad worker
- damage to the prefrontal cortex
- changes in mood and personality
- he kinda became a dick
Patient HM
- had intractable epilepsy
- medial temporal lobe removed
- damage to hippocampus - unable to create new memories
- feedforward network: loops of neurons that get into feedback circles: in the hippocampus with memories
limitations to lesions
- patients are extremely rare
- human brain damage is organic - the spatial and temporal extent is not under experimental control
- solution: use animal brains
- prior to modern imaging, localizing the lesions had to wait until after death
Penfield Map
- Primary motor cortex and motor homunculus
- stimulated parts of the brain in order to see what if affect in the body
EEG
subject state? technology? costs? temporal resolution? spatial resolution? functional? example?
- electro-encephalogram
- you can record resting states of brain: aroused, relaxed, sleepy, asleep, deep sleep
- electric field created by neurons is detected on the gyri of the cortex
- subject state: alive. record from external array of sensors, worn on scalp
tech: cap of electrodes, record electric dipoles, perpendicular to brain surface, generated by changes of potential in thousands of cells. Oscilloscope output over time.
costs: relatively inexpensive tech
temp res: GOOD, per realtime (ongoing) brain activity
spatial res: POOR, dipole an overall effect of activity in many cells
functional: weak, per associated activity
EX: stages of sleep
multi-cell recording
- multielectrode array
- record extracellularly from many neurons at once
- when an area of cells lights up and is active
- allows us more insight into brian regions
ERP
subject state? technology? costs? temporal resolution? spatial resolution? functional? example?
- Event Related Potential
- subject state: alive. record from external array of sensors, worn on scalp. engaged in task
- tech: same as EEG. examine average of the EEG responses that are TIME LOCKED TO STIMULUS/TASK exposure, over repeated trials
- costs: relatively inexpensive tech
- temp res: GOOD, for particular moment re-onset of task
- spatial resolution: POOR from mean differences across areas
- functional: YES, per associated activity
- EX: N400 in language processing, p200 in visual attention
EEG uses
- distinguish epileptic seizures from other things, like non-epileptic seizures and migraines
- characterize seizures for treatment
- way to test if someone is “brain dead”
- make decisions about someone if they are in a coma
- monitor effects of anesthesia
- biofeedback and Brain-Computer Interfaces
- deafness in infants