1.2 The Brain Story Flashcards
phrenology
Gall was convinced that the brain was the organ of the mind and that innate faculties were localized in specific regions of the cerebral cortex. His idea was that there were 35 or so specific functions, and every function had his own specific brain region. Gall also said that when a person used a specific function more, that brain region would also grow and be more advanced. This would cause a bump in the overlying skull and he said you could see someones personality through analyzing the skull. This was called phrenology
aggregate field theory
Flourens showed that, when destroying parts of the brains of pigeons and rabbits, indeed, certain parts of the brain were responsible for certain functions. For instance, without the cerebellum the animals became uncoordinated and lost their equilibrium. Flourens developed the notion that the whole brain participated in behavior - this is called the aggregate field theory.
topographic organization in the cerebral cortex
A map of the body was represented across a particular cortical area, where one part would represent the foot, another the lower leg, and so on. Jackson also noticed that it was rare for a patient to lose a function completely.
Broca’s area
associated with language production
Wernicke’s area
associated with language comprehension
cytoarchitectonics
How cells differ between brain regions is called cytoarchitectonics, many famous anatomist contributed to work on this phenomenom to subdivide the cortex
the black reaction
Golgi developed one of the most famous cell stains in the history of the world: ‘the black reaction’ which impregnated individual neurons with silver chromate. This stain permits visualization of individual neurons in their entirety.
syncytium
a continuous mass of tissue that shares a common cytoplasm.
neuron doctrine
Cajal was the first to identify the unitary nature of neurons and came with to be known as the neuron doctrine - the concept that the nervous system is made up of individual cells.
