20 Flashcards
(15 cards)
What changes in personality & affect can occur in some temporal lobe epilepsy?
Hypergraphia: Compulsive writing or drawing
Hyperreliogiosity: intense relgious interest or behavior
Altered sexuality: often hyposexuality, but sometimes hypersexuality
Emotional intensity: heightened emotionality or obession
Circumstantiality: excessive detail in speech, hard to stay on topic
Increased aggression or irritability (in some cases)
What somatosensory submodalities are carried in the spinothalamic tract? How does the spinothalamic tract run, where does it cross (decussate), where does it go in the thalamus?
Carries: Pain, temperature, crude touch
Pathway: Enters spinal cord -> Descussates (crosses) in spinal cord at the same or nearby level -> ascends in the anterolateral column -> synapses in ventral posterior lateral (VPL) nucleus of the thalamus.
What somatosensory submodalities are carried in the dorsal column medial lemniscal pathway? How does the dorsal column medial lemniscal pathway run, where does it decussate, where does it go in the thalamus?
Carries: Fine touch, vibration, pressure, proprioception
Pathway: enters spinal cord and ascends ipsilaterally in dorsal column -> synapses in medulla (nucleus gracilis/cuneatus) -> decussates in medulla -> ascends via medial lemniscus -> synapses in VPL nucleus of the thalamus.
What is the pain scale useful for? What can you not do with it very well? (from
last time)
Subjectively measuring pain intensity
What are the two different subparts of the vestibular system? What in general do the parts of the vestibular system respond to?
Semicircular canals: Respond to rotational acceleration
Otolith organs: Respond to linear acceleration and gravity
Be able to explain why spinning around and around followed by a sudden stop results in a feeling that the world is spinning.
Kid - stood on grass and twirled around and around - fell over - canals - sloshing liquid around and around - vortex will keep going for a bit - signal sent to brain is that you are still moving around - hard time staying upright
Occupations - ballerina, figure skaters- how come they do not fall over - people learn how to spot - keep eyes on fixed point - they swing body around as far as possible to focus on certain point - flip head while body spins slowly to prevent spinning motion
Which cranial nerve deals with the information from the vestibular system? To what purposes in general is the information from the vestibular system used?
Vestibular system attached to cochlea - using hair cells to detect motion - 8th cranial nerve vestibulocochlear nerve - pons, medulla - staying upright, eye movement
Where in the thalamus does information from proprioception and hapsis go? What did we see in class about the thalamic relays for vestibular information?
Ventral posterior nucleus (VPN)
What is somatosensory mapping? How is the homunculus (generally) represented on the somatosensory cortex?
Somatosensory mapping: Representation of body parts in the primary somatosensory cortex (S1)
Homunculus: shows the cortical area devoted to each part
In what sense are there multiple representations of the body on the somatosensory cortex ?
Multiple maps across subregions of somatosensory cortex
Each area processes different aspects of touch and position
Be able to locate on sketches of the parietal lobe: anterior parietal area, general location of superior parietal lobule, and inferior parietal lobe. How in general are the functions of these three areas different?
Anterior Parietal Area: Broddman’s area 1, 2, 3, 43 - somatosensation
Superior Parietal Lobule: area 5, 7 - somatosensation, spatial awareness, vision
Inferior Parietal Lobule: area 40, 39 - somatosensation, spatial awareness, vision
Intraparietal Sulcus (IPS): A horizontal groove that separates SPL from IPL; important in visually guided attention and hand-eye coordination.
What are the precentral and postcentral gyrus? Which one is in the parietal lobe? What function does it have?
Precentral gyrus:
In frontal lobe, site of primary motor cortex (M1) - controls voluntary movement
Postcentral gyri:
In parietal lobe, Brodmann’s 1, 2, and 3, site of primary somatosensory cortex (S1) - processes bodily sensations
What are the two areas that comprise the inferior parietal lobe?
-Supramarginal gyrus (Brodmann 40)
-Angular gyrus (Brodmann 39)
What is the general organization of connections, and what are the functions of superior and inferior posterior parietal lobe areas?
Superior Posterior Parietal (SPL)
Receives somatosensory and visual input, important for motor planning, eye-hand coordination, and spatial attention.
Inferior Posterior Parietal (IPL)
Integrates auditory, visual, and somatosensory information
Key for intermodal integration - combining multiple senses to understand the world.
What are the three sets of connections of the posterior parietal lobe with other areas of the brain and what are their functions?
Parietal-Prefrontal connections:
Support working memory, spatial reasoning, and attention control
Parietal-Premotor connections:
Involved in motor planning, especially for reaching, grasping, and eye movements
Parietal-Limbic connections:
Link to emotion, navigation, and memory (especially via the hippocampus and cingulate cortex)
