1) Cog Neuro

emphasis on linking different regions of the brain with different behaviors and cognition; function and pathology of the nervous system; neurologists work in the clinical setting

study of the structure and function of all aspects of the nervous system; mechanisms of the nervous system…includes neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neurochemistry

the study of mental activity as an information-processing problem; how information is processed when we perform a complex task; successful in determining obstacles of a system; can be proposed without considering biological issues

has two storage buffers: the phonological loop (for acoustic rehearsal code) and the visuospatial sketchpad (visual or spatial code); both controlled by the central executive

is an interdisciplinary effort to relate mental processes to brain structures; Interaction is bidirectional; the goal being to characterize how various cognitive processes are implemented in the brain

neurology, neuroscience, cognitive psychology and computer science/artificial intelligence

developed a silver stain that allowed individual neurons to be seen

Golgi thought the brain was a continuous mass of tissue with a common cytoplasm

came up with the Neuron Doctrine: used Golgi’s stain to show that the brain was made up of individual nerve cells linked together by long extensions

the belief that brain funcitons are carried out through the synchronized activity of independent neurons

1) connectional specificity: the neuron is the anatomical unit: is an independent unit/individual cell

2)dynamic polarization: inferred that information entered at one point and exited at another; was a direction/flow of information in the cell

3) neuron is a developmental/embryological unit: during development, the axon grows out of the cell body; it was an evolving unit

4) neuron is a metabolic unit: came from studies in which different parts of neurons were cut and parts of the cell died and parts lived; the axon WILL NOT regenerate after damage

• 5) if you kill one cell another doesn’t
• necessarily die

• 6) neuron is the basic information
• processing unit; it’s possible for one neuron to do simple computing

• 1) soma-cell body
• 2) axon-transmitting process
• 3) dendrite-receiving process
• 4) synapse-gap between neurons where transmission takes place

• dendrites
• axon
• nerve terminals

stains the rough ER revealing the distribution of cell bodies (somata)

a retrograde tracer; taken up by axons and transported back to the cell bodies; used to visualize where the input to a particular neural region originates

structural/metabolic support; myelination of axons; remove debris following injury or cell death; clean-up of extracellular ions and neurotransmitters; guide the migration of neurons during development; makes up selectively permeable blood brain barrier (form tight junctions with endothelial cells that line capillaries and venules)

within; between

modulate activity in large regions rather than strictly exciting/inhibiting specific postsynaptic neurons; originate from the cell bodies in the midbrain; ex: Dopamine (DA, created in the ventral tegmental area), norepinephrine (NE, created in the locus coeruleus), serotonin (5-HT)

synthesized in cell body OR synaptic terminals; released from synaptic vesicles by presynaptic neuron --- bind to receptors on postsynaptic neuron

glutamate (Glu) and acetylcholine (Ach)

Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) and glycine (Gly)

facilitates learning and memory; affected in Alzheimer’s Disease

enhances vigilance & preparation for action

facilitates movement, reinforces behaviors, helps keep information in short-term (working) memory; affected in Parkinson’s Disease (low levels) and schizophrenia (high levels)

inhibits some behaviors; lots of other effects; affected in Depression

boundary of motor and somatosensory cortices AS WELL AS the seperator between the frontal and parietal lobes

seperates the left and right cerebral hemishperes; runs from rostral to caudal end of the forebrain

the brain's outer "bark" layer; the gray matter

separates temporal lobe from parietal and frontal lobes insula is buried within it

corpus callosum, cingulate gyrus, thalamus, olfactory bulb, amygdala, hippocampus

a ridge/outside fold on the cerebral cortex; very top is called the conveitus

a band of myelinated axons projecting into layer 4B of the primary visual cortex from layer 4Cα; it is visible to the naked eye, and is coterminous with area V1

not visible on the outside, the folds inside; the very bottom is called the fundus

how cells differ between brain regions

structural; functional

the notion that the whole brain participated in a behavior; Flourens

current that is passively conducted throughout the neuron

male the inside of the cell more positive and more likely to generate an action potential; called excitatory postsynaptic potentials

make the inside of the cell less positive and less likely to generate an action potential; called inhibitory postsynaptic potentials

diminished amplitude of the current at more distant loci

forms a continuous cortical sheathl contains cell bodies of neurons and glial cells

fatty myelin surrounding the axons

bundles of axons

neighboring and distant connections between two cortical regions

absorbed at the dendrites or s ome and then diffuse along the axons (ex: radioactively labeled amino acids)

brain and spinal cord

eveything outside the CNS; delivers sensory information to the CNS and carries the motor commands of the CNS to the muscles

white matter tracts that cross from the left to the right side of the CNS

the portion of the cortex that contains 6 man cortical layers and has a high degree of specialization of neuronal organization; composed of areas such as primary sensory and motor cortex; most evolved type of cortex

the portion of the neocortex that is neither sensory nor motor

controls movement; collection of subcortical neuronal groups in the forebreain beneath the anterior portion of the lateral ventricles; 3 subdivisions are the globus pallidus, caudate and putamen

the caudate and putamen combined

thalamus and hypothalamus

consists of midbrain, pons and medulla