The CNS and human behaviour Flashcards
Define the CNS
Consists of the brain and spinal cord and its origin of all complex commands and decisions
What are the 2 main functions of the CNS?
- It collects, processes responds to information in the environment
- It coordinates the working of different organs and cells in the body
What does the Thalamus do?
- This is the brain’s relay station.
- It receives information from your senses (not smell) and passes it on to the appropriate areas of the cerebal cortex for higher level processing.
-Thought to play a role in sleep, wakefulness and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD)
What is the role of the Hypothalamus?
-Sits below the Thalamus (hypo)
-Controls motivational behaviour- such as hunger, thirst and sex
-Key role in the body’s stress response through its control of “fight or flight”
-Maintains balance in the body: homeostasis, hormones
What is the role of the limbic system?
-Consists of several structures such as the amygdala which plays a large role in regulating emotional response
-It has a role in regulating emotional responses (aggression)
-It has a role in memory and learning
-Highly interconnected with areas of the cortex, integrating cortical and subcortical parts of the brain
What is the role of Cerebellum?
-Two hemispheres and is highly convoluted (wrinkles)
-It main purpose is to coordinate posture, balance and movement
-50% of it is made up of neurons
What is the role of the Corpus callosum?
-This dense collection of nerve cells physically connects the 2 hemispheres below the cerbral cortex
-passes signals
-important to interact between each hemisphere
What is lateralisation?
The left and right sides of the brain are specialised to attend to different information, to process sensory inputs in different ways and to control different types of motor behaviour.
What is localisation?
Within each hemisphere, certain areas are responsible for specific functions and behaviour
How many lobes is the cerebral cortex have?
4
Why does the cerebral cortex wrinkles?
To increase the surface area- giving it more processing power
Where are the frontal lobes?
Located at the front of your brain, the frontal lobes make up about 40% of the cerebral cortex in humans
What is the function of the frontal lobes?
They control high level of cognitive functions such as thinking, problem solving and decision making. (They also contain the motor cortex- controls voluntary movements on the opposite side of the body)
Where is the Parietal lobes?
Theses are found on the other side of the central sulcus, further back in the brain.
What is the pariental lobes?
-The somatosensory cortex processes sensory information from the skin (touch, temperature and pressure) in a contralateral manner
Where are the temporal lobes?
They lie beneath the lateral sulcus of each hemisphere
What are in the temporal lobes and what are their role?
-Each contains an auditory cortex which deals with sound information coming mainly from the opposite ear.
-They process the location, volume and pitch of counds and therefore have a role in understanding language.
Where are the ocicipital lobes?
Located at the back of the brain
What are in the occipital lobes and what are their roles?
-Contains a primary visual cortex and several secondary areas.
-Everything we see to the right of our field of vision (both right and left eye) is initially processed by our left visual cortex before being shared (via the corpus callosum) with the righ visual cortex and vise versa.
What are the 2 language areas of the brain?
-Broca’s area
-Wernicke’s area
What is the Broca’s area?
-Small area in the left frontal lobe responsible for speech production
- Damage to this area causes Broca’s aphrasia, the main feature of which is slow, laborious speech lacking in fluency.
What is the Wernicke’s area?
Wernicke was describing patients who had difficulty understanding language, producing fluent but meaningless speech. He located the main area of damage in the left temporal lobe.
