AP Psych - Moduke 11-13 Brain Structures

Medulla

Controls heartbeat and breathing

Pons

Controls sleep and arousal

Thalamus

Relay station for incoming and outgoing sensory information

Reticular Formation

Helps control arousal and filters incoming sensory stimuli

Cerebullum

Processing sensory input, coordinating movement, and balance, non-verbal learning and memory

Limbic System

A neural system associated with controlling emotions and drives

Amygdala

Linked to emotion, fear and agression

Hippocampus

helps process for storage of explicit (conscious) memories of facts and events.

Geographic memory

Hypothalamus

Directs eating, drinking, and body temperature. Helps govern the endocrine system via the pituitary gland, linked to emotion and reward.

Pituitary Gland

The endocrine system's most influental gland. Under the influence of the hypothalamus, it regulates growth and controls other endrocrine glands.

Cerebral Cortex

Ultimate control and information processing center

Frontal Lobes

Involved in speaking, motor movements, judgements, and decision making

Parietal Lobes

Receives and processes sensory input for touch and body position

Temporal Lobes

Each lobe receives auditory information, primarily from the opposite ear

Occipital Lobes

Each lobe receives visual information, primarily from the opposite visual field

Motor Cortex

Controls voluntary movements

Somatosensory Cortex

Registers information from the skin senses and body movement

Auditory Cortex

Receives information from the ears

Visual Cortex

Receives information from the eyes

Association Areas

areas of the cerebral cortex that are not involved in primary motor or sensory functions; rather, they are involved in higher mental functions such as learning, remembering, thinking, and speaking

Broca's Area

Involved in expressive language

Broca's Aphasia

A type of aphasia (language disorder after stroke) with effortful speech. People affected have a hard time finding the right words.

Wernicke's Area

Involved in receptive language - understanding what you say or hear.

Wernicke's Aphasia

A type of aphasia (language disorder after stroke) that impairs what you mean to say. People affected have a hard time understanding what they want to say.

Plasticity

The brain's ability to change, especially during childhood, by reorganizing after damage or by building new pathways based on experience.

Neurogenesis

Producing new neurons

Corpus Callosum

the large band of neural fibers connecting the two brain hemispheres and carrying messages between them

Split Brain

a condition resulting from surgery that isolates the brain's two hemispheres by cutting the corpus callosum connecting them. Often done to help people with severe epilepsy from having seizures.

Dual Processing

the principle that information is often simultaneously processed on separate conscious and unconscious tracks

Blindsight

A condition in which a person can respond to a visual stimulus without consciously experiencing it.