Week 6 - Neurobiology Flashcards
What are afferent nerves?
Nerves that carry messages to the brain or spinal cord.
What is agnosias?
Due to damage of Wernicke’s Area, an inability to recognize objects, words or faces.
What is aphasia?
An ability to produce or understand words, due to damage of the Broca’s area.
What is the autonomic nervous system?
A part of the peripheral nervous system that connects to glands and smooth muscles. Consists of sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions.
What is Broca’s area?
An area in the frontal lobe of the left hemisphere. Implicated in language production.
What is the central sulcus?
The major fissure that divides the frontal and the parietal lobes.
What is arcuate fasciculus?
A fiber tract that connects Wernicke’s and Broca’s speech areas.
What is the cerebellum?
A nervous system structure behind and below the cerebrum. Controls motor movement coordination, balance, equilibrium, and muscle tone.
What is the cerebrum?
Consists of left and right hemispheres that sit at the top of the nervous system and engages in a variety of higher-order functions.
What is cingulate gyrus?
A medial cortical portion of the nervous tissue that is a part of the limbic system.
What is a computerized axial tomography?
A noninvasive brain-scanning procedure that uses X-ray absorption around the head.
What is ectoderm?
The outermost layer of a developing fetus.
What are efferent nerves?
Nerves that carry messages from the brain to glands and organs in the periphery.
What is electroencephalography?
A technique that is used to measure gross electrical activity of the brain by placing electrodes on the scalp.
What is event-related potentials?
A physiological measure of large electrical change in the brain produced by sensory stimulation or motor responses.
What is the forebrain?
A part of the nervous system that contains the cerebral hemispheres, thalamus, and hypothalamus.
What is fornix?
A nerve fiber tract that connects the hippocampus to mammillary bodies.
What is the frontal lobe?
The most forward region (close to forehead) of the cerebral hemispheres.
What is functional magnetic resonance imaging?
A noninvasive brain-imaging technique that registers changes in blood flow in the brain during a given task.
What is the globus pallidus?
A nucleus of the basal ganglia.
What is the gray matter?
Composes the bark or the cortex of the cerebrum and consists of the cell bodies of the neurons.
What is gyrus?
A bulge that is raised between or among fissures of the convoluted brain.
What is the hippocampus?
A nucleus inside (medial) the temporal lobe implicated in learning and memory.
What is the hypothalamus?
Part of the diencephalon. Regulates biological drives with pituitary gland.
What is immunocytochemistry?
A method of staining tissue including the brain, using antibodies.
What is a lateral geniculate nucleus?
A nucleus in the thalamus that is innervated by the optic nerves and sends signals to the visual cortex in the occipital lobe.
What is the lateral sulcus?
The major fissure that delineates the temporal lobe below the frontal and the parietal lobes.
What are lesion studies?
A surgical method in which a part of the animal brain is removed to study its effects on behavior or function.
What is the limbic system?
A loosely defined network of nuclei in the brain involved with learning and emotion.
What is magnetic resonance imaging?
Or MRI is a brain imaging noninvasive technique that uses magnetic energy to generate brain images.
What is the magnification factor?
Cortical space projected by an area of sensory input (e.g., mm of cortex per degree of visual field).
What is the medulla oblongata?
An area just above the spinal cord that processes breathing, digestion, heart and blood vessel function, swallowing, and sneezing.
What is the neural crest?
A set of primordial neurons that migrate outside the neural tube and give rise to sensory and autonomic neurons in the peripheral nervous system.
What is neural induction?
A process that causes the formation of the neural tube.