LESSON 02: Cognitive Neuroscience

Cognitive Neuroscience

It studies how the brain and other aspects of the nervous

system are linked to cognitive processing and, ultimately, to behavior.

Brain

It is the organ in our bodies that most directly controls our thoughts, emotions, and motivations.

Localization of Function

It refers to the specific areas of the brain that control specific skills or behaviors.

Localization of Function

It is a major focus of brain research.

Nervous System

It is the basis for our ability to perceive, adapt to, and interact with the world around us.

Brain

It is the supreme organ of the nervous system.

Forebrain, midbrain, hindbrain

Three major regions of the brain

Forebrain

It is the region of the brain located toward the top and front of the brain.

Cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, limbic system, thalamus, hypothalamus

What are parts are consisted in the forebrain?

Cerebral Cortex

It is the outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres.

Cerebral Cortex

It plays a vital role in our thinking and other mental processes.

Basal Ganglia (singular: ganglion)

They are collections of neurons crucial to motor function.

Motor Deficits

Result due to the dysfunction of the basal ganglia

Parkinson's and Huntington's Disease

Disorders wherein deficits due to the dysfunction of the basal ganglia is observed.

Limbic System

A system that is important to emotion, motivation, memory, and learning.

Limbic System

It allows us to suppress instinctive responses.

Limbic System

It helps us adapt our behaviors flexibly in response to our changing environment.

Septum, amygdala, hippocampus

Three central interconnected cerebral structures that comprises the limbic system.

Septum

It is involved in anger and fear.

Amygdala

It plays an important role in emotion, especially in anger and aggression and enhances the perception of emotional

stimuli.

Amygdala

Stimulation of this organ commonly results in fear.

Maladaptive lack of fear and impaired perception of emotional stimuli

What is the result of damaging or removing the amygdala?

Hippocampus

It is an organ essential to memory formation.

Greek word for "seahorse"

From what Greek word did the name of the hippocampus came from?

Hippocampus

It is essential for flexible learning, seeing relationships among items learned and spatial memory.

Inability to form new memories

Damage or removal of the hippocampus will result to what?

Korsakoff's Syndrome

A disease that produces loss of memory function caused by many factors such as damage to the hippocampus, lack of vitamin B-1 in the brain, excessive alcohol use, etc.

Declarative Memory

Memory for pieces of information

Procedural Memory

Memory for courses of action

Thalamus

It relays incoming sensory information through groups of neurons that project to the appropriate region in the cortex.

Hypothalamus

It regulates behavior related to species survival: fighting, feeding, fleeing, and mating; Also helps regulate emotions and react to stess.

Midbrain

It helps to control eye movement and coordination.

Reticular Activating System (RAS) or Reticular Formation

It is a network of neurons essential to regulating consciousness, including sleep; wakefulness; arousal; attention to some extent; and vital functions, such as heartbeat and breathing.

Hindbrain, thalamus, midbrain, and hypothalamus

They make up the brainstem.

Brainstem

It connects the forebrain to the spinal cord.

Superior Colliculi

Involved in vision; especially visual reflexes (midbrain)

Inferior Colliculi

Involved in hearing (midbrain)

Medulla oblongata, pons, cerebellum

Parts that comprises the hindbrain

Medulla Oblongata

It controls heart activity and largely controls breathing,

swallowing, and digestion.

Medulla Oblongata

It is an elongated interior structure located at the point at which the spinal cord enters the skull and joins with the brain.

Medulla Oblongata

It is the place where nerves cross here from one side of the body to opposite side of the brain.

Pons`

It contains neural fibers that pass signals from one part of the brain to another.

Pons

It is serves as a bridging function.

Latin for "bridge"

Pons is derived from what Latin word?

Cerebellum

It controls bodily coordination, balance, and muscle tone, as well as some aspects of memory involving procedure-related movements.

Latin for "little brain"

Cerebellum is derived from what Latin word?

Hindbrain

It is evolutionarily the oldest and most primitive part of the brain.

Hindbrain

The first part of the brain to develop prenatally.

Midbrain

It is a relatively newer addition to the brain in evolutionary

terms.

Forebrain

The most recent evolutionary addition to the brain.

Forebrain

The last of the three portions of the brain to develop prenatally.

Cerebral Cortex

Enables us to think; forms a 1- to 3-millimeter layer that wraps the surface of the brain somewhat like the bark of a tree wraps around the trunk.

Sulci, gyri, and fissures

The three convolutions or creases of the cerebral cortex

Sulci

Small grooves in the cerebral cortex

Fissures

Large grooves in the cerebral cortex

Gyri

The bulges between adjacent sulci or fissures.

80%

The cortex makes up _____ of the human brain

Gray Matter

Grayish neural-cell bodies that process the information that the brain receives and sends

White Matter

The brain's interior which includes mostly white, myelinated axons.

Cerebral hemispheres

The two halves of the brain

Contralateral

From one side to another

Ipsilateral

On the same side

Corpus callosum

It is a dense aggregate of neural fibers connecting the two cerebral hemispheres, which transmits information back and forth.

Marc Dax

He discovered the relationship between the loss of speech (aphasia) and the side of the brain in which damage had occurred.

Aphasia

Loss of speech

Paul Broca

He discovered that the left hemisphere of the brain is critical in speech.

Broca's area

Responsible for speech production

Carl Wernicke

He discovered a brain area responsible for interpreting meaning of language, tracing it around the left cerebral hemisphere.

Wernicke's area

Responsible for language comprehension

Karl Spencer Lashley

The father of neuropsychology; studied the localization of the brain.

Roger Sperry

The individual most responsible for modern theory and research on hemispheric specialization

Split-brain patients

Patients who have undergone an operation severing the corpus callosum.

90%

Roughly _____ of the adult population has language functions that are predominantly localized within the left hemisphere.

Apraxia

Disorders of skilled movements

Verbal processes

The left cerebral hemisphere is dominant in what type of processes?

Spatial processes

The right cerebral hemisphere is dominant in what type of processes?

Lobes

Largely arbitrary anatomical regions divided by fissures of the cerebral cortex

Frontal Lobe

Lobe associated with motor processing and higher thought processes.

Prefrontal Cortex

The region toward the front of the frontal lobe; involved in complex motor control and tasks that require integration of information over time.

Primary motor cortex

It specializes in the planning, control, and execution of movement, particularly of movement involving any kind of delayed response.

Homunculus

Map of the primary motor cortex drawn as a cross section of the cortex surrounded by the figure of a small upside-down person whose body parts map out a proportionate correspondence to the parts of the cortex.

Little person

Homunclus is Latin for...

Parietal Lobe

Lobe associated with somatosensory processing.

Primary Somatosensory Cortex

It receives information from the senses about pressure, texture, temperature, and pain; also consciousness and paying attention.

Temporal Lobe

Lobe associated with auditory processing and comprehending language; also retaining visual memories.

Contralateral

The auditory region is primarily ________.

Occipital Lobe

Lobe associated with visual processing

Projection areas

The areas in the lobes in which sensory processing occurs.

Occipital lobe

The visual cortex is primarily in the _______ lobe.

Rostral

It refers to the front part of the brain (literally the "nasal region").

Ventral

It refers to the bottom surface of the body/brain (the side of the stomach).

Caudal

It literally means "tail" and refers to the back part of the body/brain.

Dorsal

It refers to the upside of the brain (it literally means "back," and in animals the back is on the upside of the body).

Neurons

Cells that transmit electrical signals from one location to another in the nervous system

Neocortex

The greatest concentration of neurons is in the _______ of the brain.

Neocortex

The part of the brain associated with complex cognition.

Soma or cell body

It contains the nucleus of the cell (the center portion that performs metabolic and reproductive functions for the cell).

Dendrites

Branchlike structures that receive information from other neurons

Axon

A long, thin tube that extends (and sometimes splits) from the soma and responds to the information

Myelin

A white, fatty substance that surrounds some of the axons of the nervous system