The Brain and Neuropsychology

• Autonomic Nervous System Functions


  Moods and feelings, responds to threats, involved in puberty ect
• Somatic Nervous System Functions

  Collects external and internal information and receives instructions from the central nervous system
• Peripheral Nervous System

  • Somatic nervous system
  • Autonomic nervous system
• Central Nervous System


  Coordinates incoming information, makes decisions about movement/other activities, thinking and memory
• Fight or flight response


  physiological reaction that occurs when in the presence of something mentally or physically terrifying.
• Neuron


  Information processing units of the brain
• Sensory neuron function(s)

  Processes information taken from the senses to the brain
• Motor neuron function(s)


  Stimulates muscles and carries signals from the CNS to effectors eg. glands
• Relay neuron function(s)


  Carries messages from one part of the CNS to another
• Excitation


  Electrical activity elicited in a nerve or muscle when stimulated
• Inhibition


  conscious or unconscious constraint or curtailment of a process or behaviour
• Neurotransmitter


  chemical messengers that facilitate communication between neurons in the brain and nervous system
• Synapse


  How neurons communicate with each other
• Synaptic transmission


  The process by which one neuron communicates with another across a synapse
• Frontal lobe function(s)


  • Controls; thought, memory, planning, problem solving, cognitive and social behaviours and movements (eg. facial expressions)
  • Often affected by traumatic brain injuries
• Parietal lobe function(s)

  • Responsible for integrating information from other areas to form the basis of complex behaviours, including all involving the senses
  • Language, forming words and thought
• Temporal lobe function(s)

  • Helps us understand and process what we hear
  • Involved in how we learn and organise information
  • Emotions and emotional memories
• Occipital lobe function(s)

  • Where visual information is processed
  • Injury to this area can cause vision imparements
• Cerebellum function(s)

  • Balance and coordination
  • As we become more practical in physical skills (eg.walking)bthe cerebellum makes these actions smoother
• Localized function


  Specific parts of the cerebral cortex are specialized for particular types of cognitive and behavioural processes
• Motor area

  • Controls deliberate movement using motor neurons to send messages to our muscles
  • Active parts of the body (eg. fingers) have a larger share of the motor cortex than less active parts (eg. torso)
• Somatosensory area

  • Deals with touch
  • The more sensitive an area of the body is, the larger the amount of somatosensory cortex it involves
• Visual cortex

  • In the occipital lobe
  • Receives information from both eyes through the optic nerve
• Auditory (and language) cortex

  • Does the same as the visual cortex
  • Damage to this part of the brain could cause hearing loss
• Broca's area

  • At the base of the left frontal lobe
  • Deals with speech production
  • Damage to this area can cause you to struggle with speech
• Wernicke's area

  • In the temporal lobe
  • Understanding speech
  • People with damage to his area can speak, but have trouble understanding what others say
• Angular gyrus

  • Back of the parietal lobe
  • Recieves information about written language from the visual cortex, and interprets it like speech
• CT Scans

  • Work similarly to X-Rays
  • The brain is examined by taking a large number of X-Rays
  • Images taken from different angles (either slice through, or cross section off the persons brain)
  • Images put together to create detailed picture
• PET Scans

  • Measure metabolic activity within the brain (which parts are more active)
  • Person injected with a small amount of glucose, called radiotracer (most active areas of the brain absorb more of it)
  • This information is sent to a computer, the active areas appear as different colours (red and yellow areas are more active than blue areas
• fMRI Scans

  • Work similarly to PET scans
  • Measure changes in blood oxygen levels in the brain
  • When a brain area is active, it uses more oxygen so more blood is directed to the area, this is called the haemodynamic response
  • Picked up through radio signals which produce 3D images on a computer screen
• Neurological damage


  Damage to the nervous system