Brain

• The corpus callosum connects both sides of the brain together
• Each hemisphere controls the opposite side of the body
• The cerebellum is involved with motor control, balance, coordination, posture, and speech.
• The pons relays sensory information from the body to the thalamus and coordinates voluntary movements.
• Phylogenetic Division


  • Forebrain
  • Midbrain & Hindbrain
• Forebrain


  Where cognition happens
• Midbrain & Hindbrain


  Responsible for lower level, non-cognitive functions (basic life support, relaying messages)
• Hindbrain


  Most primitive
• Sub cortical structures


  • Hypothalamus
  • Thalamus
  • Hippocampus
  • Amygdala
• Hypothalamus


  Regulates basic functions (hunger, temperature, arousal, basic emotions)
• Thalamus


  Integrates information from multiple regions of brain (switching station for sensory info), involved in memory
• Hippocampus


  Critical for learning, memory, emotion
• Amygdala


  Involved specifically in the emotional content of memories, emotion in general, and aggression
• No direct connection between right and left lobes of cortex, but info is communicated subcortically via corpus collosum interior commissure
• Hemispheres of Brain


  • Parietal
  • Occipital
  • Temporal
  • Frontal
• Parietal


  Spatial processing and attention, somatosensory cortex (senes info from body: pain, pressure, touch, temp)
• Occipital


  Processes visual info, low level stimuli (orientation, shape, colour) to more complex aspects of it (recognizing what objects are)
• Temporal


  Process auditory info, encodes and retrieves info from long term memory
• Frontal


  • Motor cortex
  • Premotor Cortex
  • Prefrontal Cortex
• Motor cortex


  Fine motor movement
• Premotor Cortex


  Involved in planning the fine motor movements
• Prefrontal Cortex


  Wide range of cognitive functions/ executive functioning (planning, decision making, behaviour, info processing)
• Franz Gall's phrenology was discredited quickly, as we now know cognitive processes are highly interactive
• Double dissociations


  Example: Broca and Wernicke's Aphasia - Broca: Impaired speech production but no issues in comprehension, Wernicke: deficit in comprehension but no issues in producing speech
• Wilder Penfield's Montreal Procedure involved probing the brain while patients were awake, using their response as a guide to map out specific functions performed by the various regions of the brain
• Brain Imaging Techniques


  • CAT Scan
  • MRI
  • ERP
  • PET
  • fMRI
• CAT Scan


  Highly focused converging X rays passed through head at different angles, different brain tissues have different densities and deflect the X rays differently
• MRI


  Uses the different magnetic properties of brain tissues that will produce electromagnetic signals that the MRI machine detects
• ERP


  Measures electrical activity as a function of cognitive tasks
• PET


  Measures the byproduct of the electrical activity: the metabolism or blood flow in the brain
• fMRI


  Can measure the inflow and outflow of OXYGENATED blood in the brain by using the blood's magnetic properties (BOLD function)
• Static Imaging can be used to pinpoint damage and abnormalities but CANNOT show how the brain is actually functioning
• Donder's Subtractive Logic involves reaction time studies to measure the time for a process to occur by comparing two reaction times or tasks