Multimodal associations areas and lateralization of cortical functioning , cerebral white matter, and Basal nuclei parts of cerebrum

Anterior association area

• also called prefrontal cortex

• most complicated cortical region

• involved with intellect, cognition, recall, and personality

• contains working memory needed for abstract ideas, judgement, reasoning, persistence, and planning

• development depends on feedback from social enviroment

posterior association area

• large region in temporal, parietal, and occipital lobes

• plays a role in recognizing patterns and faces and localizing us in space

• involved in understanding written and spoken language (Wernicke’s area)

Limbic associaton area

• provides emotional impact that makes a scene important to us and helps establish memories ( emotional visceral brain)

cerebral dominance

• refers to the hemisphere that is dominant for language

• 90% of humans have left-sided dominance (right-handed people)

• 10% have right-sided dominance (left-handed people)

Left hemisphere

controls language, math, and logic

right hemisphere

visual spaitial skills, intuition, emotion, artisical and musical skills

how do hemispheres mainly communicate?

They communicate almost instantaneously via fiber tracts and functional integration

Cerebral white matter

• resposnible for communication between cerebral areas, and between cortex and lower CNS

• consists of myelinated fibers bundled into large tracts

Association fibers

horizontal running fibers that connect different parts of the same hemipshere

comissural fibers

horizatonal fibers that connect gray matter of two hemispheres

Projection fibers

vertical fibers that connect hemispheres with lower brain of spinal cord

internal capsule

processions fibers on each side of the brain stem form a compact band, that passes between the thalamus and some of the basal nuclei

Basal Ganglia

• third of the basic regions of the cerebrum

• each includes caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus, and caudate nucleus and putamen=striatum

• closely associated with sub-thalamic nuclei (diencephalon) and substantial nigra (midbrain)

• functions- influence muscle movements, play a role in cognition and emotion, regulate the intensity of slow or stereotyped movements, filter out incorrect/inappropriate responses, and inhibit antagonistic, unnecessary movements