Anatomy of the Brain

Regions Major Structures Functions Deficits

Cerebral Cortex - Thinking and mental processes
Forebrain - Crucial in motor functions - Tremors
- Most recent - Involuntary movements
evolutionary Basal Ganglia - Changes in posture and
addition to the - collection of nuclei muscle tone
brain and neural fibers - Slowness of movement
- Last to develop
prenatally *Parkinson’s &
Huntington’s Disease
Limbic - Anger
Septum
System - Fear
- Emotion - Anger - Palpitations
- Motivation Amygdala - Aggression - Fearful hallucinations
- Memory - Stimulation usually results - Frightening flashbacks
- Learning in fear in memory
- Enhances perception of
emotional stimuli *Autism
*Visual agnosia
(inability to
recognize objects)
*Hypersexuality
Hippocampus - Essential in memory formation - Inability to form new
- Essential for flexible memories
learning
- Seeing relationships among *Korsakoff’s syndrome
items learned - disease that
- Spatial memory produces loss of
memory function
- associated with
deterioration of
hippocampus
- lack of thiamine
 - Relays sensory information to - Pain
the appropriate regions of the - Tremor
cerebral cortex - Amnesia
Thalamus - Helps in the control of sleep - Impairment of language
and waking - Disruptions in waking
and sleeping

*Schizophrenia
- Abnormal changes
in the thalamus
- Difficulties in
filtering stimuli
and focusing
attention
- Hallucinations
- Delusions
Involved in:
Hypothalamus - The endocrine system *Narcolepsy
- The autonomic nervous sytem - A person falls
- Survival behavio: fighting, asleep often an at
feeding, fleeing, and mating unpredictable
- Consciousness times
- Emotions, pleasure, pain, and
stress reactions
Midbrain Superior colliculi - Involved in vision
- Helps control (especially visual reflexes)
eye movement and Inferior colliculi - Involved in hearing
coordination Reticular Activating Important in controlling:
- Newer addition System - Consciousness (sleep arousal)
to the brain in - Extends to the - Attention
evolutionary hindbrain - Cardiorespiratory function
terms - Movement
- Second to Gray matter, red nucleus, - Important in controlling
develop substantia nigra, and movement
prenatally ventral region
 Hindbrain Medulla Oblongata - Cardiorespiratory function
- Oldest and most - Nerves cross here from (heart activity and
primitive part one side of the body breathing)
of the brain to opposite side of - Digestion
- First part of the brain - Swallowing
the brain to - An elongated interior - Helps keep us alive
develop structure located at
prenatally the point at which the
spinal cord enters the
skull and joins with
the brain
- Contains part of the
RAS
Pons Involved in:
- Bridge - Consciousness
- Contains part of the - Facial nerves
RAS - Bridging neural transmissions
from one part of the brain to
the other
Cerebellum - Bodily coordination, balance,
- Little brain and muscle tone
- Some aspects of memory
involving procedure-related
movements

Brain Death
- Based on the function of the brainstem
- Various reflexes of the brain are absent for more than 12 hours
- Brain shows no electrical activity or cerebral circulation of blood
Cerebral Hemispheres
Left Hemisphere
- Language
- Movement
- Finding patterns
- Processes information analytically (piece
by piece, usually in a sequence)
Lobes of Cerebral Hemispheres
Lobes
Frontal lobe
 Prefrontal cortex – involved in complex
motor control and tasks that require
integration of information over time
 Primary motor cortex – specializes in the
planning, control, and execution of
movement, particularly of movement
involving any delayed response
Parietal lobe
 Primary somatosensory cortex – receives
information from senses about pressure,
texture, temperature, and pain
Temporal lobe
Occipital lobe
 Visual cortex – primarily in the occipital
lobe
Right Hemisphere
- Spatial-visualization ability
- Spatial-orientation tasks
- Semantic knowledge
- Practical language use
- Self-recognition
- Comprehension
- Processes information holistically
Function
- Motor processing and higher thought
processes:
 Abstract reasoning
 Problem solving
 Planning
 Judgment
- Critical in producing speech
- Somatosensory processing
- Helps perceive space and your relationship
to it
- Involved in consciousness and paying
attention
- Auditory processing
- Comprehending language
- Retaining visual memories
- Matches new things you see to what you
have retained in visual memory
- Visual processing
- Contains numerous visual areas each
specialized to analyse specific aspects of
a scene, including color, motion,
location, and form
Neuronal Function and Structure
Parts Function
Neurons Soma - Contains the nucleus of the cell
- Individual neural - Performs metabolic and reproductive
cells functions for the cell
- Transmit electrical - Connects the dendrites to the axon
signals from one Dendrites - Branchlike structures that receive
location to another in information from other neurons
the nervous system Axon - A long, thin tube that extends from the
- Concentrated in the  Myelin – a white, soma and responds to the information, when
neocortex of the brain fatty substance appropriate, by transmitting an
that surrounds some electrochemical signal
of the axons of the
nervous system
 Node of Ranvier –
are small gaps in
the myelin coating
along the axon,
which increase
conduction speed
even more by
helping to create
electrical signals
Terminal buttons - Small knobs found at the ends of the
 Synapse branches of an axon that do not directly
- Juncture between touch the dendrites of the next axon
the terminal
buttons of one or *Alzheimer’s disease – associated with reduced
more neuron and the efficiency of synaptic transmission of nerve
dendrites of one or impulses.
more other neurons
- Important in
cognition
 Neurotransmitter
- Chemical messengers that transmit information across the synaptic gap to the receiving dendrites of
the next neuron

Neurotransmitter Function
Acetylcholine - Memory functions
- Sleep and arousal
Dopamine - Attention
- Learning
- Movement coordination
- Motivational processes

*Schizophrenia – high levels of dopamine

*Parkinson’s disease – low dopamine levels
Serotonin - Plays an important role in eating behavior and body weight regulation
- Involve in aggression and regulation of impulsivity

*Anorexia – some types of anorexia are related to high serotonin levels.