lecture 3 unit 3 Flashcards
(24 cards)
3 parts of brain
Hind, mid, and forebrain
Hindbrain
medulla – regulates breathing, heart rate, sneezing, salivating, and vomiting
Pons – contributes to our sleeping and waking cycle and helps to control our balance eye movements and swallowing
Reticular activating system – important for alertness and also contributes to our daily cycle of waking and sleeping
Cerebellum – important for coordinating movements maintaining balance and also influences attentional and emotional responses
The midbrain
just behind hindbrain
-superior colliculus controls our orienting response to the sudden presence of a visual stimulus
Inferior colliculus – responsible for orientating attention to the sudden occurrence of a sound
Ventricles are filled with cerebrospinal fluid (which performs important waste removal and nutrient providing functions)
Basal ganglia – responsible for engaging planned physical movements, learning motor skills, and integrating sensory information, physical movements and the reward system of the brain
–disorders that originate from basal ganglia dysfunction include – parkinsons, huntingtons, tourettes
Tourettes syndrome sufferers – may be unable to control fascial and muscle movements, their eyes from blinking or from making grunting or snorting noises
Corprolia – compulsively shouting offensive words – (quite rare)
The forebrain
The nucleus accumbens – works with the basal ganglia to generate “oh yeah” pleasurable experiences
The limbic system –
the limbic system
Amygdala – controls the creation of memory for emotional experiences and processing emotional content of stimuli
Hippocampus – a key structure for creating new memories – damage can cause amnesia
Hypothalamus – regulates body temperature and helps coordinate biological drives, such as sex and aggression by controlling the release of hormones by the pituitary gland – experience of orgasms for both genders
Thalamus – relay station for receiving and transmitting sensory information from the eyes ears skin and tongue to higher brain areas
Cerebral cortex –
Humans neurons in cerebral cortex 19-23 billies —– 100 billie nerons 1000-10000 neural connections
4 lobes
Occipital, parietal, temporal, frontal – see class notes
right vs left
Right hemisphere – visual and special skills, musical
Left – language, logic, mathematics
The idea of a division of labour between the hemispheres have some supportive evidence but have also been highly exaggerated – we constantly use and need bot sides of our brain
Corpus callosum
connection between two sides for communication
Split brain patients
items presented to the right visual field can be verbally identified
—-items presented to the right side of the visual field can be identified verbally — items presented to the left side of the visual field cannot be verbally identified – left hemisphere produces language and right hemisphere is not capable of generating language
Neuroplasticity
the brains extraordinary capacity to change its structure as a consequence of experience and learning\
the brains extraordinary capacity to change its structure as a consequence of experience and learning\
Neuroplasticity
Lesioning
causing brain damage in a non human animals and then measuring what effect the damage has on their behaviour
Trans-cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
directing a magnetic pulse at an area of a persons brain and seeing what affect that has on their mental function
Structural neuroimaging
– non invasive technologies that provide information about the state of brain structures
Computerized tomography scans (CT
– a set of x rays are taken of the brain by rotating a tube around the persons head
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
a machine generates a magnetic field that brings all the hydrogen molecules in our brain into alignment – radio waves then get sent through the skull to disrupt this alignment
— when the radio waves are turned off, energy absorbed from the radio waves are released when the hydrogen molecules become aligned buy the magnetic field again.
— different types of brain matter and the ventricles release different amounts of energy and alignment occurs at different speeds for different types of brain matter.
Computers can use this information to create detailed images of the interior structure of the brain
Disruption tensor imaging (DTI)
- provides a measure of white matter pathways
- -can diagnose brain disorders
Functional neuroimaging
tools for measuring changes in brain activity across time
Electroencephalogram (EEG)
involves attaching electrodes to a persons scalp and measuring the electrical activity generated by neurons sending messages to on another
Event-related potentials (ERPs)
EEG recordings that follow presentation of a stimulus
Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
provides a measure of the magnetic generated from neural activity
Positron emission tomography (PET
involves injecting radioactive substance into the bloodstream and then later using a scan to detect which parts of the brain contain more of the substance
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI
involves placing a person’s head in a magnetic field and scanning for changes in the consumption of oxygen by different parts of the brain
Areas that generate more deoxygenated blood, and that require more oxygenated blood to replace it are areas that are more active – allows for the creation of images that identify the areas of the brain that are most active when someone is performing some mental function
Pros and cons for each technique:
EEG is fast and cheap, but not very precise
MEG more sensitive than EEG but is more expensive
PETis more expensive and slower than EEG and MEG but is also more precise at localizing brain activity
MRI is the most expensive, not as fast as EEG and MEG but is faster and more precise than PET
