AP psych unit 3 *Brain*

Cerebral cortex

Outer most layer of neural tissue covering the cerebrum

Composition of cerebral cortex

Grey matter: cell bodies, white matter: myelinated axons

Function of cerebral cortex

Conducts complex mental activities like, perceiving, complex thoughts, speaking, language, and sensory processing

What do the folds of the cerebral cortex do

Help increase surface area instead of increasing skull

Cerebrum

Largest structure of the brain, divided into four lobes

Frontal lobe contains:

Broca’s area, prefrontal cortex, and motor cortex

What does frontal lobe do

Judgement, awareness, planning, memory, personality.

What does prefrontal cortex do

Executive functioning, decision making, reasoning, planning, judgment, impulse control, abstract thinking.

What does motor cortex do

Controls voluntary muscle movements and coordination of muscle groups

What area does temporal lobe have

Wernickes area

What does the temporal lobe do

Controls hearing, auditory processing, language comprehension

-facial recognition and emotional processing.

What does the parietal lobe do

Sensory integration, spatial awareness, body position in space (joints)

What area(s) are in the parietal lobe

Somatosensory cortex, association areas

What does the somatosensory cortex do

Receives and processes tactile sensory input from the body, (EX: touch, temp, pressure, and pain).

Where is the somatosensory cortex located

Directly behind the motor cortex

What does the association area do

Integrates sensory (somatosensory cortex) and spatial information (parietal lobe) to enable spatial Awareness, and body position.

What does the occipital lobe do

Visual processing and interpretation

Frontal lobe and parietal lobe control what sense

Speech

What senses does parietal lobe control

Speech, taste, and reading

What sense does frontal lobe control

Speech

What senses does temporal lobe control

Smell, and hearing

What senses does occipital lobe control

Vision

Contralateral hemispheric organization

The structural design of the NS where hemisphere of the brain controls and receives information from the opposite side of the body.

Whats an example of the Contralateral hemispheric organization?

The left hemisphere motor cortex controls the movement of your right hand, right leg, and the right side of your face.

Where is the brain stem located

The swell of the spinal cord before it enters the skull

What is the function of the brain stem

Responsible for automatic survival functions

What is brain plasticity?

The brains ability to change its actual physical architecture, growing new dendritic spines, axonal sprouting, of forming new synaptic connections when learning a new skill.

Whats an example of brain plasticity

Learning to drive, at first you consciously think about every action, eventually it becomes automatic muscle memory.

What does the medulla do?

Regulates heart rate, breathing, reflexes (coughing, sneezing) - keeps you alive.

What does the medulla control

Controls much of peripheral nervous system (automatic)

What does the cerebellum do?

Voluntary motor behavior, balance, posture - creates smooth and accurate movements.

What is the Reticular activating system

A network of neurons from spinal cords to thalamus

What are the functions of the reticular activating system

Sensory filter- filters incoming information to help focus and motivate behavior, regulate sleep/wake cycles.

What parts are in the limbic system

Thalamus, hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, and reward center

What is the limbic system?

Cluster of subcortical structures regulating emotion, memory, motivation, and survival.

What does the thalamus do?

sensory relay stations, receives incoming sensory data from body and redirects to cortical lobes.

What sensory data does the thalamus not receive.

Smell

What does the hypothalamus

homeostasis and endocrine link, maintains internal balance and controls pituitary gland.

What does the hippocampus do?

memory consolidation, encodes, consolidates new conscious explicit memories (facts, events, names)

What does the amygdala do?

emotion, agression, threat detection, processes fear and agression

What is the reward center

A network of neurons associated with pleasure and motivation

What does the reward center do?

Uses dopamine to communicate expectation of pleasure, remembers if the experience is pleasurable.

What is the corpus callosum?

A thick band of axon fibers connecting the left and right hemispheres of the brain.

What does the corpus callosum do?

Carries messages back and forth so both sides can communicate.

What does the right hemisphere do?

Visual-spatial-perceptual tasks, reading maps and emotional context - emotional tone of voice, seeing the “big picture”

What does the left hemisphere do?

Language processing - speech production and language comprehension, analytic thought - math, logic, reading, writing.

Where is Broca’s area located?

Left frontal lobe

What does Broca’s area do?

Controls language expression and directs muscle used in speech

What is broca’s aphasia

Cannot produce words, slow inaccurate.

Where is wernickes area?

Left temporal lobe

What does wernickes area do?

Controls language comprehension

What is wernickes aphasia

Cannot understand others sentences, scentences spoken have no meaning.