Neal Notes: Neuroanatomy

Neuroanatomy: The Limbic System

⁃ Thalamus : relays sensory signals to the cerebral cortex, regulates consciousness and alertness

A. Damage: loss of sensation, coma

⁃ Hypothalamus : Regulates biological drives (feeding/drinking/sexual behaviors) as well as sense of time (SCN)

A. Feeding Fighting Flight Mating

B. Damage: increased appetite/absense of feeling sated (full)

C. Helps control the body’s autonomic system, fight or flight

⁃ Hippocampus : Processing and Retrieval of Memory, connects emotions and perceptions of memories

A. Traumatic events are more memorable (memories are NOT stored in the 🦛)

B. Damage: Amnesia, retrograde (unable to recall older memories) or anterograde (inability to create new memories, but can recall past ones)

C. Alzheimer’s begins in the hippo

⁃ Amygdala : Emotional response, aggression, and fear conditioning

A. Strong ties to the hippo

B. Phobia

Sensation and Perception: Vision

⁃ Paradox: our retina does process everything, BUT the brain develops shortcuts

⁃ Unconscious Inference : good guesses, smart predictions and that so what we literally perceive

A. Top down, the cat in the, past experience

B. Bottom up, raw information, blur,