Brain stuff module 2

Corpus callosum

Connects right and left hemispheres of the brain, allows communication between the 2

Frontal lobe

Cognition (attention, memory, decision-making, executive function), motor movement, speech and language

Prefrontal cortex

Higher level cognition, decision making, problem-solving, initiation of movement, and inhibition of inappropriate social impulses.

Primary motor cortex

Issues plans for voluntary movement to the body- contralaterally

Broca’s area

Primary site for expressive language, locating words for expression- part of brain that helps you find the words for what you want to say

Parietal lobe

Receiving and processing somatosensation (touch, pain, body position in space)

Sensory homunculus

More surface area is devoted to body parts with more sensory receptors (mouth, hands) than to less-sensitive parts (knee, elbow)

Temporal lobe

Reception and processing of audition and memory

Wernicke area

Auditory language comprehension- struggle to understand others speech, language fluent but meaningless

Primary auditory cortex

Receives sensory audition signals from the ears. Right side processes environmental sounds, left side transmits speech sounds to wernicke’s area.

Hippocampi

Convert short term memory into long term memory

Occipital lobe

Visual processing

Left hemisphere

Language, analytical/logical processing, reading, writing, mathematics, and sequential processing

Right hemisphere

Spatial processing, facial recognition, emotional/prosodic aspects of communication, music, and big-picture processing

Arcuate fasciculus

Allows words received and processed in Wernicke area to be transmitted forward to Broca area for direct repetition- understand words said to them, but cannot repeat those words verbally

Angular Gyrus

Reception of visual language, reading written language and sign language.

The cortex

Known for our highest-level reasoning and cognitive functions — language, planning, voluntary attention

The subcortex

Responsible for more life-giving and involuntary functions — homeostasis, digestion, heart and cardiovascular regulation, vegetative respiration, reflexes, and refining volitional movement.

The brainstem

Responsible for life-giving functions, 3 divisions (midbrain, pons, medulla)

Midbrain

Most superior of the three brainstem divisions, connects cerebrum to lower structures, contains the substantia nigra, which produces dopamine

Pons

Where the cerebellum connects to the rest of the brain and location of many cranial nerve nuclei

Medulla

Houses the respiratory center (vegetative respiration), and the swallowing central pattern generator (reflexive, coordinated pharyngeal swallow) autonomic functions that keep you alive

Pyramidal Decussation

Motor neuron fibers from the primary motor cortex cross to opposite side of the body within the medulla, creates contralateral innervation

Reticular Activating System

Regulates the level of wakefulness or arousal, including the sleep wake cycle. Also contributes to other autonomic functions, such as blood pressure and respiration

Gag reflex

Brainstem reflex, causes contraction of the pharynx and closure of the airway to prevent aspiration and penetration

Vestibulo-Ocular reflex

Brainstem reflex, stabilizes visual gaze despite head movement

Cerebellum

Coordination, balance, posture, timing, accuracy, smoothness of movement, and motor learning.

Middle peduncle

receives rough motor from contralateral cerebrum

Inferior peduncle

receives somatosensory information about body position from the body for integration into movement plan

Superior peduncle

sends refined motor plans onward to the thalamus and then the cerebrum for execution

Thalamus

Relays sensory information to appropriate areas of the cerebral cortex and participates in motor, attention, and arousal functions.

Basal ganglia

Regulation and control of movement.

What are the four major structures you need to know in the basal ganglia?

Caudate nucleus, putamen, globus pallidus, and subthalamic nucleus.

The limbic system

Deeply involved in regulating emotion, plus behaviors like feeding, mating, motivation, and emotional learning.

Hypothalamus

regulates autonomic functions (heart rate, blood pressure, hunger, thirst, sexual arousal) via control of the pituitary gland — the “master gland”

Amygdala

Generates negative emotions — aggression, fear, anger, anxiety. Involved in emotional memory and fear conditioning — connecting a negative experience to the elicitation of fear

Mammillary bodies

Involved in spatial and episodic memory

The spinal cord

An elongated tubular structure of gray and white matter, located beneath the medulla within the vertebral column, terminating at the level of the lumbar vertebrae

Spinal cord function

Houses major afferent/sensory and efferent/motor pathways transmitting impulses between the brain and the peripheral nervous system.

Gray matter

the point of synapse for spinal nerves' efferent and afferent pathway

White matter

transmits efferent impulses from the cerebral cortex/subcortex down to the spinal

nerves, and afferent impulses from spinal nerves up toward the cerebral cortex.