Final Weeks Content

Movement

Sensory systems provide input to the brain, leading to various movements performed by the body.

Motor Pathway

Involves the primary motor cortex, spinal cord motor neurons, and muscles, with lateral and medial corticospinal tracts controlling different muscle groups.

Cerebellum

Plays a role in fine motor control, motor patterns, and timing of movements through inhibitory input.

Posterior Parietal Cortex

Involved in initial planning of movements and encodes the planned action or goal.

Basal Ganglia

Part of the limbic system, involved in automating movements, habit formation, and controlling eye movements.

Melatonin

Hormone released by the pineal gland, affecting wakefulness and sleepiness.

Circadian Rhythm

Body's internal clock regulating various physiological processes, influenced by light exposure and individual differences.

REM Sleep

Rapid eye movement sleep stage important for dreaming and memory consolidation.

Thirst Mechanisms

Osmotic and hypovolemic thirst regulate water intake to maintain blood concentration and volume.

Hunger Regulation

Involves hormones like ghrelin and leptin, signaling hunger and satiety, controlled by the hypothalamus.

Emotions

Three components include cognition, feeling, and action, influencing behavior and physiological responses.

Anger

Result of an imbalance of testosterone, cortisol, and serotonin, leading to aggression or inhibition.

Triple Imbalance Theory of Anger

Anger results from imbalances in testosterone, cortisol, and serotonin levels.

Fear

Associated with the amygdala, involved in fear response, learning fear, and directing attention to threats.

Stress

Body's response to threats, involving three stages - alarm, resistance, and exhaustion.

Physiology of Stress

Activation of the HPA axis, releasing cortisol, affecting immune function, glucose levels, memory, and protein synthesis.

Memory

Process of storing information in the brain, involving working memory, reference memory, procedural memory, and declarative memory.

Hippocampus

Brain region crucial for memory, involved in turning working memories into reference memories and acquiring relational memories.

Long-Term Potentiation

Strengthening of synapses through repeated stimulation, involving glutamate receptors like AMPA and NMDA.

Long-Term Depression

Weakening of synapses through low-frequency stimulation, occurring in the hippocampus and cerebellum.

Navigation

Cognitive mapping for spatial orientation, involving the hippocampus and specialized cells like place cells and grid cells.

Wernicke’s area

Brain region involved in language comprehension

Wernicke’s (fluent) aphasia

Condition resulting in the inability to comprehend language

Consciousness

Subjective experience of awareness

Qualia

Individual instances of subjective, conscious experience

Turing test

Test to determine if a machine can exhibit human-like intelligence

Chinese Room

Thought experiment questioning machine consciousness

Neural correlates of consciousness

Brain activity associated with conscious experiences

Global workspace theory

Theory suggesting conscious information is spread across the cortex

Gamma waves

Brain waves involved in synchronizing firing across regions of the cortex

P300

EEG signal correlated with decision-making