gross/ cellular neuroanatomy

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GROSS
GROSS
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what are the projection areas? how much space do they take up?
25% of cortical space, includes primary motor areas and primary sensory areas
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what is the role of primary motor areas?
send axons towards muscles in the body, last point of cortical processing/ brain control before messages sent to body
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what are primary sensory areas?
it is the receiving station for information arriving from sense organs, first point of contact with cortex, modality specific areas for vision, audition and touch
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what are association areas and how much space do they take up?
75% space, integrate info from project areas and do higher order processing on it - involved in thought, special cognition, memory etc
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how does an MRI scan measure structure?
creates 3D image of tissues inside the body which is composed of voxels (volume elements), the brightness in each voxel reflects density of tissue in that location
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what is the brightness of the smaller sulcus/ fissures in the brain?
there is more grey matter so it is brighter on average
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what is the brightness of the bigger sulcus/ fissures in the brain?
less grey matter so darker on average
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what is brain plasticity?
ability of brain to change structure and function in response to experience, injury etc.
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what is an example of plasticity in taxi drivers?
process of learning road names/ test causes detectable changes in the hippocampus
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what is an example of plasticity in those who are blind or suffer with brain injury?
blind patients reading braille show activation in primary visual cortex, as when visual cortex doesn't receive visual info it seems to take over other functions
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CELLULAR
CELLULAR
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what are neurons?
information processing nerve cells, they are elongated and separated by synapses, electronically active, there is 80-90 billion of them
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what are glia?
they are 'glue' i.e connective tissue of nervous system, some contain insulating myelin, 10x more glia than neurons
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what is the cell body called and what does it contain/ what width is it?
called the 'soma', contains cell nucleus and mitochondria etc, varies from 5-100 microns
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what are dendrites?
receive signals from other neurons, short network of thin projections from cell body, only project a few hundred microns from the cell body
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what are axons?
nerve cells which have relatively long projection from cell body and sends signals to other neurons, longest are motor neuron axons
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what is the axon covered in and what is the purpose of this?
axons are covered in myelin sheath which is a fatty substance that insulates the nerve impulses travelling along the axon, myelination speeds up nerve conduction
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what is in the 'grey matter' of the brain?
cell bodies and dendrites
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what is in the white matter or the brain? why is it this colour?
made of axonal fibre tracts connecting different brain areas, white colour comes from fatty myelin sheaths around the axons
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what are glial cells?
provide support to neurons, regulate blood flow and the supply of nutrients to neurons, they also guide development and guide neural migration and produce chemicals to stop it
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what is the synapse?
end of axon stops adjacent to the dendrite and it is the location of communication between nerve cells, the axon terminal releases chemicals which affect the dendrites on the other side of the synapse
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what are pre and post synaptic cells?
pre synaptic cells are the cells that send the message and post synaptic cells are the cells that receive the message
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how does communication among neurons occur?
cell membrane is highly unstable and has a neg. interior (-70mv)... when info transmits through it, an action potential/nerve impulse occurs. Action potential is short-term event where the electrical membrane potential of a cell rapidly inc. & dec
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what are ions?
molecules with a positive or negative charge
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what is table salt and what is another salt? (periodic table)
table salt = NaCl (sodium chloride) and another salt = KCl (potassium chloride)
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when do action potentials occur?
when the interior of cell temporarily reaches threshold of slightly less negativity (-55 mv or so), cell interior flips from -55 or so to fully positive charge, process instigates a repetition of depolarisation (neg. to pos.) down cell axon.
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what does the sodium/ potassium 'pump' do?
maintains resting potential in membrane (-70mv)created by differences in external sodium and internal potassium concentration, by portioning Na+ and K+ ions,
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what is the resting state in the cell membrane?
negative concentration, when there are more positively charged ions outside (sodium) than inside (potassium), in this stage all gated sodium and potassium channels are closed
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what is the active state in the cell membrane?
when a current passes through and changes the voltage difference across a membrane, the channel will activate and the m gate will open
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what is depolarisation?
positively charged sodium ions flow into negatively charged membrane which causes the resting potential to move toward 0 mV. When the depolarization reaches about -55 mV a neuron will fire an action potential
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what is the refractory state in the cell membrane?
impossible to send another action potential, h gate is closed and blocks sodium ions from entering the cell, no sodium = no depolarisation so no action potential
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what is repolarisation?
brings the cell back to resting potential, the inactivation gates of the sodium channels close, stopping the inward rush of positive ions
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what is the all or none basis?
means that an action potential is either triggered or it isn't, like flipping a switch. A neurones will always send the same size action potential
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Card 2

Front

what are the projection areas? how much space do they take up?

Back

25% of cortical space, includes primary motor areas and primary sensory areas

Card 3

Front

what is the role of primary motor areas?

Back

Preview of the front of card 3

Card 4

Front

what are primary sensory areas?

Back

Preview of the front of card 4

Card 5

Front

what are association areas and how much space do they take up?

Back

Preview of the front of card 5
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