The Spinal Cord and Brainstem

• there are two, central and peripheral nervous systems
• CNS is brain and spine
• CNS is covered by bone, PNS is not

peripheral nervous systems

Somatic and Autonomic

• Somatic
  • Pain and feeling
  • Sensation and movement
• Autonomic
  • Glands and organs
    • Sympathetic and parasympathetic
    • Sympathetic
      • Arousal
    • Parasympathetic
      • rest, repair, and digestion
    • Both used as toggle switch, bot participate in sex

The Spinal Cord

• More like a tail of the brain
• Very well protected by Vertebra
• Protected discs in between vertebra
• Manages some reflexes
• carries information

Brainstem I: The Hindbrain - Rhombencephalon

Medulla at bottom of brain (rostral): does info transfer
divides into two structures: the myelencephalon and the metencephalon.
95% of serotonin produced in gut, doesnt cross blood brain barrier
Pons is green buldge on brain stem
Locus coeruleus, look for trouble with ptsd
Cerebellum: skilled movements and imbalanced

• Influence go beyond that
• damage cause problems with cognitive functions
  Reticular formation: sleep and consciousness, arousal, movement, pain
• Medulla → Regulates vital functions such as heart rate, respiration, and blood pressure.
• Pons → Acts as a bridge for motor and sensory information between the brain and the spinal cord, and plays a role in sleep and arousal.
• Raphe nuclei → Involved in serotonin production and regulation of mood, sleep, and arousal.
• Locus coeruleus → Involved in norepinephrine production and plays a role in stress response, attention, and arousal.
• Cerebellum → Coordinates movement, balance, and motor learning.
  

Midbrain - Mesencephalon

• Tectum - roof
  • Cerebral aqueduct separates two.
• Tegmentum - floor
• Substantia nigra - black substance
  • voluntary motor system
  • Parkinson's we see distortion
• Periaqueductal gray → Involved in pain modulation and defensive behaviors.
• Superior colliculus → Processes visual information and helps coordinate eye and head movements.
• Inferior colliculus → Processes auditory information and plays a role in sound localization.
• Red nucleus → Involved in motor coordination, particularly controlling limb movements.
  • Posture
• 

Forebrain - Prosencephalon (Lecture 2.3)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVDNv0AZNTs

Diencephalon

• Thalamus
  • Egg shaped
  • Sensory Rely/ processing
  • Info coming in from senses besides smell goes here
  • Important to learning, mem, and consciousness
• Hypothalamus
  • Hypo means below
  • Below the thalamus
  • major regulartory center
  • homeostasis
  • hunger, thirst, sex, aggression,, body temp
• Parietal lobe and temporal lobe

Telencephalon

• Basal Ganglia
  • Plural for Ganglion
  • Group project voluntary motor control
  • Putamen
    • Involved in motor control and learning motor skills.
    • Works closely with the caudate nucleus as part of the striatum.
  • Nucleus accumbens
    • Central to the brain's reward circuitry.
    • Plays a significant role in motivation, pleasure, and addiction.
  • Globus pallidus
    • Regulates voluntary movement by modulating motor signals.
    • Acts as an output structure for the basal ganglia.
  • Caudate nucleus
    • Involved in motor processing, learning, and memory.
    • Plays a role in goal-directed behavior and procedural learning.
  • Decision to move made in prefrontal cortex
  • asks this, is it good idea (based on reward and punishment)

Limbic System

• Hypothalamus
  • Regulation of thirst
  • Regulation of autonomic nervous system
  • Regulation of endocrine system
• Septal area
  • Sexual pleasure
  • Pleasure
• Anterior cingulate cortex
• Fomix
  • Redfiber, connecting mamal parts???
• Posterior cingulate cortex
  • Decision-making
  • Involved in error detection, emotion regulation, decision-making, and attention.
• Mammillary body
• Hippocampus
  • Manage Stress
  • Essential for learning and memory, particularly in forming and retrieving long-term memories
• Parahippo-campal gyrus
  • Memory formation
• Amygdala
  • Greek for almonmd (shape
  • Tags sensory information as good or bad
  • threat detector
  • Very connected to hippocampus
  • Plays a key role in processing emotions, especially fear and aggression, and in forming emotional memories.
• Olfactory bulb
  • Under front lobes in cerebral cortex

Cerebral Cortex

The cerebral cortex is a thin, six-layered covering of the convolutions of the cerebral hemispheres.

• People who are asked to switch languages as they name objects don't show extra activation in the orbitofrontal cortex.
• Bark = Cortex
• Lobes of Cortex
  • Frontal Lobe
    • Big Executive, decision making, cognitive
  • Orbitofrontal cortex
    • Behind bony orbits protecting eyes
    • Conscious
    • Sense of right and wrong
  • Lateral sulcus
    • It separates the temporal lobe from the frontal lobe and the parietal lobe.
    • Language processing
  • Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
    • Attention in play from switching between stimuli
  • Central sulcus
    • Divides between frontal and parietal lobes
  • Precentral gyrus (Primary Motor Cortex)
    • Major gyrus
    • Cells that implement movement once decisioon to move
  • Parietal lobe is body senses
    • Somatosenses
  • Postcentral gyrus
    • Primary somatosensory cortex)
  • Occipital Lobe
    • Vision
    • Borrow other parts
    • orders edges movement color shape
    • use parietal lobe to utilize other senses
  • Primary visual cortex
  • Temporal Lobe
    • Priamry auditory cortex here
    • some visual processing
    • face recognition
    • object recognition

Four Commissures

- Corpus callosum
- Largest
- Anterior commissure
- Split brain to limit seizures
- Hippocampal commissure
- Connects tails of hippocampi
- Massa intermedia
- Dot in middle of thalamus
- Connect nuclei
- not everyone has one

Localizing Functions in the Cortex

• Lateralized language to left hemisphere
  • 20% of left or ambi have it on right side or split between both
• logical deductive reasoning and basic computatioal is in left side
• right side is more emotional