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319 Sentences With "cortices"

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Children with smaller prefrontal cortices are significantly more likely to start using marijuana early in life than those with larger prefrontal cortices.
Then, from the ages of 18-25, there's further maturation of the prefrontal cortices.
"Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden both had fully developed prefrontal cortices in 2005," said McElwee.
The areas affected include the frontal and temporal cortices, which are involved in language processing.
MRIs of people who have had this chemotherapy for breast cancer indicate damage to the premotor and prefrontal cortices.
Using electrodes hooked to the primates' visual cortices, the researchers track the nerve pulses produced in response to the stimuli.
He's found, perhaps not surprisingly, that when the mind wanders, our sensory cortices are less sensitive to the outside world.
People with schizophrenia often have overactivity in their sensory cortices, but poor connectivity from these areas to their frontal lobes.
"They did find interesting effects in the visual cortices and how that connected to different parts of the brain," Gallimore continues.
Squirrels and rats have cortices as smooth as soft-serve, whereas human and dolphin brains look like heaps of udon noodles.
More thinning of the temporal and motor cortices could be seen in the overweight/obese diabetic group compared with normal-weight diabetics.
Indeed, brain areas like the frontal and parietal cortices developed later in the course of evolution, and enlarged as modern humans emerged.
With their mice cortices sufficiently buzzing, the researchers used G-CaMP7 to observe the subjects' neurological activity both before and during tDCS.
Sensations from the hands are processed in parts of the brain called the somatosensory cortices, of which there is one in each cerebral hemisphere.
Dr. Diamond studied the brains of nine stimulated rats and found that all of them had thicker cerebral cortices than their stimulus-deprived counterparts.
Clusters of gray matter were significantly thinner in the temporal, prefrontoparietal, motor and occipital cortices in the brains of diabetic participants than in the non-diabetic group, the study found.
Computers are evolving, and the next generation of machines could look like the human brain in which a central stem controls the nervous system and outsources tasks to the surrounding cortices, NYT's Cade Metz reports.
Throughout the experiment, the subjects' brain-activity patterns remained consistent during moments of pain, but, as they figured out the rules of the game, the ominous light began triggering more and more blood flow to a couple of regions—the anterior insula and the prefrontal cortices.
The researchers behind the work, an international team based at Harvard University and Finland's University of Jyväskylä, used 3D printed materials to simulate the brain in its formative stages, finding that as their simulated cortices grew, they experienced compression forces due to the differing rates of growth among layers of the brain.
Even so, moderate quantities were expressed in adrenal cortices/medulla, thyroid, and kidney.
Monkeys with lesions in the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices also show impairment on tactual recognition.
Certain language functions such as word retrieval and production were found to be located to more anterior language cortices, and deteriorate as a function of age. Sowell et al., also reported that these anterior language cortices were found to mature and decline earlier than the more posterior language cortices. It has also been found that the width of sulcus not only increases with age, but also with cognitive decline in the elderly.
The rhinal cortex is the cortex surrounding the rhinal fissure, including the entorhinal cortex and the perirhinal cortex. It is a cortical region in the medial temporal lobe that is made up of Brodmann areas 28, 34, 35 and 36. Input from all sensory cortices flows to the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices, whence it continues to the entorhinal cortex and then the hippocampus. After feedback from the hippocampus, information then returns in the reverse sequence to the sensory cortices.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to measure brain activity. The lateral prefrontal cortices, the parietal cortices and caudates were activated in both genders. With more difficult tasks, more brain tissue was activated. The left hemisphere was predominantly activated in females' brains, whereas there was bilateral activation in males' brains.
Grasping language–A short story on embodiment. Consciousness and Cognition, 19(3), 711-720. Some studies have investigated the activation of motor cortices using abstract and also concrete verbs, examining the stimulation of the motor cortices when comprehending literal action verbs (concrete) vs. the metaphorical usage of the same action verbs (abstract).
When the pre-frontal region of the cerebral cortex, which is generally involved in decision making and planning, determines that a particular motor activity will be executed, it sends activating signals to the motor cortices. The motor cortices send signals through the basal ganglia to refine the choice of muscles that will participate in the movement and to amplify the activity in the motor cortices that will drive the muscle contractions. In the direct pathway, the motor cortices send activating signals to the caudate and putamen (which together form the dorsal striatum). The cells of the direct pathway in the caudate and putamen that receive these signals are inhibitory and, once they become activated, send inhibitory signals to the GPi and SNpr and stop activity there.
There are many types of topographic maps in the visual cortices, including retinotopic maps, occular dominance maps and orientation maps. Retinotopic maps are the easiest to understand in terms of topography. Retinotopic maps are those in which the image on the retina is maintained in the cortices (V1 and the LGN). In other words, if a specific region of the cortices was damaged that individual would then have a blind spot in the real world, they would not be able to see the bit of the world that corresponded to the retina damage.
When the pre- frontal region of the cerebral cortex, which is generally involved in decision making and planning, determines that motor activity be executed, it sends activating signals to the motor cortices. The motor cortices send activating signals to the direct pathway through the basal ganglia, which stops inhibitory outflow from parts of the globus pallidus internus and the substantia nigra pars reticulata. The net effect is to allow the activation of the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus which, in turn, sends activating signals to the motor cortices. These events amplify motor cortical activity that will eventually drive muscle contractions.
Radiographs in chronic OM document deformed bone, often with thick, undulating cortices, and bony sequestra entrapped by lucencies indicative of fibrous tissue and or pus.
The cerebral cortex, in this case of a rhesus macaque monkey, is the outer layer depicted in dark violet. In anatomy and zoology, the cortex (plural cortices) is the outermost (or superficial) layer of an organ. Organs with well-defined cortical layers include kidneys, adrenal glands, ovaries, the thymus, and portions of the brain, including the cerebral cortex, the best- known of all cortices.
Henry Gustav Molaison (February 26, 1926 – December 2, 2008), known widely as H.M., was an American man who had a bilateral medial temporal lobectomy to surgically resect the anterior two thirds of his hippocampi, parahippocampal cortices, entorhinal cortices, piriform cortices, and amygdalae in an attempt to cure his epilepsy. Although the surgery was partially successful in controlling his epilepsy, a severe side effect was that he became unable to form new memories. The surgery took place in 1953 and H.M. was widely studied from late 1957 until his death in 2008. He resided in a care institute in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, where he was the subject of ongoing investigation.
The term socioemotional brain network or system (also known as the ventral affective system) refers to the striatum as well as the medial and orbital prefrontal cortices.
It is speculatively able to stop signals, ending transmission of unimportant info. The thalamus relays info between pons (cerebellum link), motor cortices, and insula. Insula is also heavily connected to motor cortices; insula is likely where balance is likely brought into perception. The oculomotor nuclear complex refers to fibers going to tegmentum (eye movement), red nucleus (gait (natural limb movement)), substantia nigra (reward), and cerebral peduncle (motor relay).
Second, the EC is also the major output of the hippocampus. The information coming to the hippocampus from both the poly- and unimodal association cortices, converge in the EC.
Before activation of the direct pathway, these two nuclei were actively sending inhibitory signals to the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus, which prevented the development of significant activity in the motor cerebral cortices. This behavior ceases on activation of the direct pathway. The net effect is to allow the activation of the ventral lateral nucleus which, in turn, sends activating signals to the motor cortices. These events amplify motor cortical activity that will eventually drive muscle contractions.
Currently, brain-imaging studies have revealed that the sensory cortices in the brain are reorganized after visual deprivation. These findings suggest that when vision is absent in development, the auditory cortices in the brain recruit areas that are normally devoted to vision, thus becoming further refined. A significant aspect of the aging process is cognitive decline. The dimensions of cognitive decline are partially reversible however, because the brain retains the lifelong capacity for plasticity and reorganization of cortical tissue.
Confusional arousals are associated with behavioural awakening with persistent slow-wave electroencephalographic activity (see slow-wave sleep) during Non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM). It suggests that sensorimotor network is activated while non sensorimotor areas are still "asleep". The altered state of consciousness may be explained by a hypersynchronous delta activity (see delta wave) in network involving the frontoparietal cortices (suggesting to be "asleep"), and higher frequency activities in sensorimotor, orbitofrontal, and temporal lateral cortices (suggesting an "awakening").
In the thalamus the GPimedial fibers are separated from the nigral as their terminal arborisations do not mix. The thalamus relays the nigral output to the premotor and to the frontal cortices.
It is believed that the emotion disgust is recognized through activation of the insula and basal ganglia. The recognition of emotion may also utilize the occipitotemporal neocortex, orbitofrontal cortex and right frontoparietal cortices.
It has been believed for some time that inputs from different sensory organs are processed in different areas in the brain, relating to systems neuroscience. Using functional neuroimaging, it can be seen that sensory-specific cortices are activated by different inputs. For example, regions in the occipital cortex are tied to vision and those on the superior temporal gyrus are recipients of auditory inputs. There exist studies suggesting deeper multisensory convergences than those at the sensory-specific cortices, which were listed earlier.
Studies during acute experiences of hallucinations demonstrate increased activity in primary or secondary sensory cortices. As auditory hallucinations are most common in psychosis, most robust evidence exists for increased activity in the left middle temporal gyrus, left superior temporal gyrus, and left inferior frontal gyrus (i.e. Broca's area). Activity in the ventral striatum, hippocampus, and ACC are related to the lucidity of hallucinations, and indicate that activation or involvement of emotional circuitry are key to the impact of abnormal activity in sensory cortices.
The cerebral cortex (plural cortices), also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals. The cerebral cortex mostly consists of the six-layered neocortex, with just ten per cent consisting of allocortex. It is separated into two cortices, by the longitudinal fissure that divides the cerebrum into the left and right cerebral hemispheres. The two hemispheres are joined beneath the cortex by the corpus callosum.
A "secondary" neural network composed of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, superior medial cortex, superior lateral cortex, anterior cingulate, medial orbitofrontal, temporopolar and occipital cortices, thalamus and amygdala can be identified as active regions in a quarter to a third of imaging studies on autobiographical memory. Regions of the brain that are reported infrequently, in less than a quarter of autobiographical memory imaging studies, include the frontal eye fields, motor cortex, medial and lateral parietal cortices, fusiform gyrus, superior and inferior lateral temporal cortices, insula, basal ganglia and brain stem. These widespread activation patterns suggest that a number of varying domain-specific processes unique to re-experiencing phenomena, such as emotional and perceptual processes, and domain-general processes, such as attention and memory, are necessary for successful autobiographical memory retrieval.
Lenz et al. (1998). Painful stimuli evoke potentials recorded from parasylvian cortex in humans. Journal of Neurophysiology, 80(4), 2077-2078Rolls et al. (2003). Representations of Pleasant and Painful Touch in the Human Orbitofrontal and Cingulate Cortices.
Recent research indicates that the adrenal medulla may receive input from higher-order cognitive centers in the prefrontal cortex as well as the sensory and motor cortices, providing credence to the idea that there are psychosomatic illnesses.
There, her work uncovered the importance of the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices in preserving our long-term memories. Her doctoral thesis won her the Society for Neuroscience's Donald B. Lindsley Prize in the field of behavioral neuroscience.
There is evidence that the degree of cross modal plasticity between the somatosensory and visual cortices is experience- dependent. In a study using tactile tongue devices to transmit spatial information, early blind individuals were able to show visual cortex activations after 1 week of training with the device. Although there were no cross modal connections at the start, the early blind were able to develop connections between the somatosensory and visual cortices while sighted controls were unable to. Early or congenitally blind individuals have stronger cross modal connections the earlier they began learning Braille.
The medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortices have been found to be relatively deactivated during meditation (experienced meditators using concentration, lovingkindness and choiceless awareness meditation). In addition experienced meditators were found to have stronger coupling between the posterior cingulate, dorsal anterior cingulate, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices both when meditating and when not meditating. Over time meditation can actually increase the integrity of both gray and white matter. The added amount of gray matter found in the brain stem after meditation improves communication between the cortex and all other areas within the brain.
Cortical white matter increases from childhood (~9 years) to adolescence (~14 years), most notably in the frontal and parietal cortices. Cortical grey matter development peaks at ~12 years of age in the frontal and parietal cortices, and 17 years in the temporal lobes (with the superior temporal cortex being last to mature) for women and they have reached full maturity at age 16-17. For men, they become fully mature at age 18. In terms of grey matter loss, the sensory and motor regions mature first, followed by other cortical regions.
The anterior part of the gyrus includes the perirhinal and entorhinal cortices. The term parahippocampal cortex is used to refer to an area that encompasses both the posterior parahippocampal gyrus and the medial portion of the fusiform gyrus.
In these instances, cross modal plasticity can strengthen other sensory systems to compensate for the lack of vision or hearing. This strengthening is due to new connections that are formed to brain cortices that no longer receive sensory input.
Subtype 1 shows widespread low grey matter volumes, particularly in the thalamus, nucleus accumbens, medial temporal, medial prefrontal, frontal, and insular cortices. Subtype 2 shows increased volume in the basal ganglia and internal capsule, with otherwise normal brain volume.
Some of the above- mentioned areas have been shown to be active in both music and language processing through PET and fMRI studies. These areas include the primary motor cortex, the Brocas area, the cerebellum, and the primary auditory cortices.
Issues in the BA10 areas have been implicated as a possible neurological correlate for autism spectrum disorder which is often characterized by deficits in joint attention. Further research involving eye tracking methods of joint attention found similar neural correlates. Researchers saw increased activation in the right amygdala, the right fusiform gyrus, anterior and dorsal anterior cingulate cortices, striatum, ventral tegmental area, and posterior parietal cortices when participants were engaging in joint attention based on the eye tracking. Neurophysiological studies in primates Recent studies have investigated the neural basis of gaze following and joint attention in rhesus monkeys.
A study that compared the lesions of two cerebral deafness patients to an auditory agnosia patient concluded that cerebral deafness is the result of complete de- afferentation of the auditory cortices, whereas in auditory agnosia some thalamo-cortical fibers are spared. In most cases the disorder is transient and the symptoms mitigate into auditory agnosia (although chronic cases were reported). Similarly, a monkey study that ablated both auditory cortices of monkeys reported of deafness that lasted 1 week in all cases, and that was gradually mitigated into auditory agnosia in a period of 3–7 weeks.
The activity in the somatosensory and visual areas are not as high in tactile gnosis for people that are not blind, and are more-so active for more visual related stimuli that does not involve touch. Nonetheless, there is a difference in these various areas within the brain when comparing the blind to the sighted, which is that shape discrimination causes a difference in brain activity, as well as tactile gnosis. The visual cortices of blind individuals are active during various vision related tasks including tactile discrimination, and the function of the cortices resemble the activity of adults with sight.
It is argued that the entire ventral visual-to-hippocampal stream is important for visual memory. This theory, unlike the dominant one, predicts that object-recognition memory (ORM) alterations could result from the manipulation in V2, an area that is highly interconnected within the ventral stream of visual cortices. In the monkey brain, this area receives strong feedforward connections from the primary visual cortex (V1) and sends strong projections to other secondary visual cortices (V3, V4, and V5). Most of the neurons of this area in primates are tuned to simple visual characteristics such as orientation, spatial frequency, size, color, and shape.
In the 1940s, neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield and his neurologist colleague Herbert Jasper developed a technique of brain mapping to help reduce side effects caused by surgery to treat epilepsy. They stimulated motor and somatosensory cortices of the brain with small electrical currents to activate discrete brain regions. They found that stimulation of one hemisphere's motor cortex produces muscle contraction on the opposite side of the body. Furthermore, the functional map of the motor and sensory cortices is fairly consistent from person to person; Penfield and Jasper's famous pictures of the motor and sensory homunculi were the result.
Studies, with human patients and with experimental animals, suggest that knowledge stored as explicit memory is first acquired through processing in one or more of the three polymodal association cortices (prefrontal, limbic, and parieto- occipital-temporal) to form visual, auditory and somatic information. From there, the information is then conveyed in series to the parahippocampal and perirhinal cortices, then onwards to the EC, dentate gyrus, hippocampus, subiculum and then finally back to the EC. From the EC, the information is sent back to the parahippocampal and perirhinal cortex, and finally back to the polymodal association areas of neocortex. The EC has dual functions in processing information for explicit memory storage: First, it is the main input to the hippocampus. The EC projects to the dentate gyrus via the perforant pathway and by this means provides the critical input pathway in this area of the brain, linking the association cortices to the hippocampus.
Self-blame-selective hyperconnectivity between anterior temporal and subgenual cortices and prediction of recurrent depressive episodes. JAMA Psychiatry, 72(11), doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.1813. These data suggest that depression episodes change the quality of self-blame, making individuals vulnerable to depression recurrence.
Complex movements cause greater amplitudes of the BP, which reflects the fact that there is greater activation of the SMA. Further experiments also suggest that the bilateral sensorimotor cortices play a role in the preparation of complex movements, along with the SMA.
The prefrontal and visual cortices are also involved in explicit memory. Research has shown that lesions in the hippocampus of monkeys results in limited impairment of function, whereas extensive lesions that include the hippocampus and the medial temporal cortex result in severe impairment.
A recent review of the cognitive–affective neuroscience of somatization disorder suggested that catastrophization in patients with somatization disorders tends to present a greater vulnerability to pain. The relevant brain regions include the dorsolateral prefrontal, insular, rostral anterior cingulate, premotor, and parietal cortices.
The central biological constructs involved in any kind of learning are those essential to memory formation, particularly those involved with semantic knowledge: the hippocampus and the surrounding Rhinal cortices. Each plays an important role in learning, and therefore in learning techniques such as distributed practice.
Study showing four functional networks that were found to be highly consistent across subjects. These modules include the visual (yellow), sensory/motor (orange) and basal ganglia (red) cortices as well as the default mode network (posterior cingulate, inferior parietal lobes, and medial frontal gyrus; maroon).
The spatial odor map in the glomeruli layer of the olfactory bulb may contribute to these functions. The odor map begins processing of olfactory information by spatially organizing the glomeruli. This organizing aids the olfactory cortices in its functions of perceiving and discriminating odors.
Diagram of the different lobes of the brain The autobiographical memory knowledge base is distributed through neural networks in the frontal, temporal and occipital lobes. The most abstract or conceptual knowledge is represented in frontal and anterior temporal networks, possibly bilaterally. Sensory and perceptual details of specific events are represented in posterior temporal and occipital networks, predominantly in the right cortex. A "core" neural network composed of the left medial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices, medial and lateral temporal cortices, temporoparietal junction, posterior cingulate cortex, and cerebellum are consistently identified as activated regions in at least half of the current imaging studies on autobiographical memory.
Sholl analysis is a method of quantitative analysis commonly used in neuronal studies to characterize the morphological characteristics of an imaged neuron, first used to describe the differences in the visual and motor cortices of cats.Sholl, D.A., 1953. Dendritic organization in the neurons of the visual and motor cortices of the cat. J. Anat. 87, 387–406 Sholl was interested in comparing the morphology of different types of neurons, such as the star- shaped stellate cells and the cone-shaped pyramidal cells, and of different locations in the dendritic field of the same type of neurons, such as basal and apical processes of the pyramidal neuron.
Studies of false recognition in amnesic patients with damage to either the medial temporal lobe or other diencephalon structures, have demonstrated that the same processes involved in accurate recognition, are also involved in false recognition. These cortices play a role in strategic monitoring processing, as they attempt to examine other cortical outputs. If these cortices were damaged, there would be no control over the cortical outputs, increasingly the likelihood of a false recognition error. Additionally, patients suffering from amnesia or Alzheimer's disease have a reduced level of false recognition, believed to be caused by taking too many trials to create the semantic gist information needed for the attribution error.
Motor-inhibitory control is a function of the right lateralized frontostriatal circuit, which includes the right inferior frontal and bilateral anterior cingulate cortices. The impairment of motor-inhibitory control is similar to the neurological conditions of those who have problems suppressing inappropriate behaviors, such as abusing methamphetamine.
The caudate is highly innervated by dopamine neurons that originate from the substantia nigra pars compacta (SNc). The SNc is located in the midbrain and contains cell projections to the caudate and putamen, utilizing the neurotransmitter dopamine. There are also additional inputs from various association cortices.
Sleep spindles are unique to NREM sleep. The most spindle activity occurs at the beginning and the end of NREM. Sleep spindles involve activation in the brain in the areas of the thalamus, anterior cingulate and insular cortices, and the superior temporal gyri. They have different lengths.
Affect dysregulation and disorders of the self. New York: Norton. In such cases as borderline personality disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder, hypersensitivity to emotional stimuli causes a slower return to a normal emotional state. This is manifested biologically by deficits in the frontal cortices of the brain.
One study found evidence that Zen meditators experienced a slower age related decline rate for cerebral gray matter volume in the putamen which plays a role in learning, cognitive flexibility and attentional processing This could suggest a better attentiveness in aging meditators versus non- meditators. Long-term meditation practitioners have also shown to have a higher tolerance for pain. This effect has been correlated to altered function and structure in somatosensory cortices and an increased ability to decouple regions in the brain associated with the cognitive appraisal of pain (anterior cingulate cortex and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). The brain state changes found in meditators are almost exclusively found in higher-order executive and association cortices.
The evolution of the central sulcus is theorized to have occurred in mammals when the complete dissociation of the original somatosensory cortex from its mirror duplicate developed in placental mammals such as primates, though the development did not stop there as time progressed the distinction between the two cortices grew.
There are three general classes of tests utilized by physicians when determining a diagnosis for FCMS: (1) automatic-voluntary dissociation assessment, (2) psycholinguistic testing, and (3) neuropsychological testing. In addition, brain scanning techniques are utilized to observe whether ischemic abnormalities or lesions are present within the operculum region of the cortices.
VanPutte, C. L., Regan, J., Russo, A., Seeley, R. R., Stephens, T. D., Tate, P., & Seeley, R. R. (2014). Seeley's anatomy & physiology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. Studies have shown that patients with acute stress disorder have overactive right amygdalae and prefrontal cortices; both structures are involved in the fear-processing pathway.
MRI research on brain regions indicates that the volumes of frontal, parietal and temporal cortices, and the hippocampus are also correlated with g, generally at .25 or more, while the correlations, averaged over many studies, with overall grey matter and overall white matter have been found to be .31 and .27, respectively.
His paper with Tim Buschman, Top-down versus Bottom-up Control of Attention in the Prefrontal and Posterior Parietal CorticesBuschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science. 315: 1860–1862. was The Scientist's Hot Paper for October 2009.
The direct pathway passes through the caudate nucleus, putamen, and globus pallidus, which are parts of the basal ganglia. It also involves another basal ganglia component the substantia nigra, a part of the midbrain. In a resting individual, a specific region of the globus pallidus, the internal globus pallidus (GPi), and a part of the substantia nigra, the pars reticulata (SNpr), send spontaneous inhibitory signals to the ventral lateral nucleus (VL) of the thalamus, through the release of GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Inhibition of the inhibitory neurons that project to the ventral anterior nucleus (VA), which project to the motor regions of the cerebral cortices of the telencephalon, leads to an increase in activity in the motor cortices, thereby promoting muscular action.
The indirect pathway passes through the caudate, putamen, and globus pallidus, which are parts of the basal ganglia. It traverses the subthalamic nucleus, a part of the diencephalon, and enters the substantia nigra, a part of the midbrain. In a resting individual, a specific region of the globus pallidus, known as the internus, and a portion of the substantia nigra, known as the pars reticulata, send spontaneous inhibitory signals to the ventrolateral nucleus (VL) of the thalamus, through the release of GABA, an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Inhibition of the excitatory neurons within VL, which project to the motor regions of the cerebral cortices of the telencephalon, leads to a reduction of activity in the motor cortices, and a lack of muscular action.
Penfield's scientific contributions go past the somatosensory and the motor cortices; his extensive work of the functions of the brain also included charting the functions of the parietal and temporal cortices. Of his 520 patients, 40 reported that while their temporal lobe was stimulated with an electrode they would recall dreams, smells, visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as out-of-body experiences. In his studies, Penfield found that when the temporal lobe was stimulated it produced a combination of hallucinations, dream, and memory recollection. These experiences would only last as long as the electrode stimulations were present on the cortex, and in some cases when patient experienced hallucinatory experiences that evoked certain smells, sensations of flashing light, stroking the back of their hand, and many others.
In the 16th century, Andreas Vesalius and Francesco Piccolomini were the first to distinguish between white matter, the cortex, and the subcortical nuclei in the brain. About a century later, Thomas Willis noticed that the corpus striatum was typically discolored, shrinkened, and abnormally softened in the cadavers of people who had died from paralysis. The view that the corpus striatum played such a large role in motor functions was the most prominent one until the 19th century when electrophysiologic stimulation studies began to be performed. For example, Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig performed them on dog cerebral cortices in 1870, while David Ferrier performed them, along with ablation studies, on cerebral cortices of dogs, rabbits, cats, and primates in 1876.
Burgess, N. & Hitch, G. J. (1999). Memory for Serial Order: A Network Model of the Phonological Loop and its Timing. Psychological Review, 106(3), 551-581 Silent speech-reading and silent counting are also examined when experimenters look at subvocalization. These tasks show activation in the frontal cortices, hippocampus and the thalamus for silent counting.
Lower extremity function is more spared than that of the faciobrachial region. The majority of the primary motor and somatosensory cortices are supplied by the MCA and the cortical homunculus can, therefore, be used to localize the defects more precisely. Middle cerebral artery lesions mostly affect the dominant hemisphere i.e. the left cerebral hemisphere.
However, this activation of primary cortex seems to be isolated and dissociated from higher- order associative cortices (Laureys et al., 2002). Also, there is evidence of partially functional cerebral regions in catastrophically injured brains. To study five patients in PVS with different behavioral features, researchers employed PET, MRI and magnetoencephalographic (MEG) responses to sensory stimulation.
Olfactory information is sent to the primary olfactory cortex, where projections are sent to the orbitofrontal cortex. The OFC contributes to this odor-reward association as well as it assesses the value of a reward, i.e. the nutritional value of a food. The OFC receives projections from the piriform cortex, amygdala, and parahippocampal cortices.
Potential treatments may lie in neurochemical modulation. Juveniles with Anorexia nervosa have marked decreases in set-shifting abilities, possibly associated with incomplete maturation of prefrontal cortices associated with malnutrition. One can also consider people with addictions to be limited in cognitive flexibility, in that they are unable to flexibly respond to stimuli previously associated with the drug.
Eur J Neurosci. 2003 May;17(10):2156-62. The caudal pontine reticular nucleus is also thought to play a role in the grinding of teeth during sleep. The region also suppresses muscle tone during REM sleep, activates eye movements, and decreases the sensory input to the cerebral cortex, specifically the primary and sensory somatosensory cortices.
The cerebrum is made up of the two cerebral hemispheres and their cortices (the outer layers of grey matter), and the underlying regions of white matter. Its subcortical structures include the hippocampus, basal ganglia and olfactory bulb. The cerebrum consists of two C-shaped cerebral hemispheres, separated from each other by a deep fissure called the longitudinal fissure.
Endogenous regulation of corticosteroid receptors is indicated by altered binding of the previously mentioned compound in the prefrontal cortex with administration of corticosteroids. Furthermore, regulation of stress activities involves the prefrontal cortex. Lesions in rat prefrontal cortices impair spontaneous alternation, radial maze performance, and passive avoidance. In primates these impair inhibition of line-of-sight responses.
Although this model is considered outdated, it is still widely mentioned in Psychology and medical textbooks, and consequently in medical reports of auditory agnosia patients. As will be mentioned below, based on cumulative evidence the process of sound recognition was recently shifted to the left and right anterior auditory cortices, instead of the left posterior auditory cortex.
The yotari mouse is an autosomal recessive mutant. It has a mutated disabled homolog 1 (Dab1) gene. This mutant mouse is recognized by unstable gait ("Yota-ru" in Japanese means "unstable gait") and tremor and by early deaths around the time of weaning. The cytoarchitectures of cerebellar and cerebral cortices and hippocampal formation of the yotari mouse are abnormal.
The levels of Gαs but not other G proteins is increased in the frontal, temporal and occipital cortices. The binding of serotonin receptors to G proteins is also elevated globally. Leukocyte and platelet levels of Gαs and Gαi is also elevated in those with bipolar disorder. Downstream targets of G protein signaling is also altered in bipolar disorder.
Studies of the rat brain have shown that the cortex contains high numbers of PNNs in the motor and primary sensory areas and relatively fewer in the association and limbic cortices. In the cortex, PNNs are associated mostly with inhibitory interneurons and are thought to be responsible for maintaining the excitatory/inhibitory balance in the adult brain.
Using MRI, studies showed that while white matter increases from childhood (~9 years) to adolescence (~14 years), grey matter decreases. This was observed primarily in the frontal and parietal cortices. Theories as to why this occurs vary. One thought is that the intracortical myelination paired with increased axonal calibre increases the volume of white matter tissue.
Location of entorhinal cortex in the human brain In summary, damage to either the hippocampus or the rhinal cortices, which result in memory deficits in different areas, also results in a limitation of the effect of distributed practice on learning and memory consolidation, but never completely eliminates it. This shows that the ability to improve learning through distributed practice is not wholly dependent on either the hippocampus or the rhinal cortices but is dependent on the interaction between working memory abilities and the ability to form long-term memories, whether semantic or episodic, conscious or subconscious.Goverover, Y., Arango-Lasprilla, C.J., Hillary, F.G., Chiaravalloti, N., De Luca, J. (2009). Application of the spacing effect to improve learning and memory for functional tasks on traumatic brain injury: a pilot study.
For example, during pitch comparison blocks, participants were instructed to report whether the second stimulus was higher, lower, or equal in pitch relative to the first pitch, regardless of the two tones spatial locations. Conversely, during spatial comparison blocks, participants were instructed to report whether the second tone was leftward, rightward, or equal in space relative to the first tone, regardless of tone pitch. This task was used in two experiments, one utilizing fMRI and one ERP, to gauge the spatial and temporal properties, respectively, of 'what' and 'where' auditory processing. Comparing the pitch and spatial judgements revealed increased activation in primary auditory cortices and right inferior frontal gyrus during the pitch task, and increased activation in bilateral posterior temporal areas, and inferior and superior parietal cortices during the spatial task.
Following this, structural reanalysis and repair occur, at about 600–900ms. Finally, the autonomic nervous system and multimodal association cortices are activated. Koelsch and Siebel proposed that from about 250–500ms, based on the sound's meaning, interpretation and emotion occurs continuously throughout this process. This is indicated by N400, a negative spike at 400ms, as measured by an "event related potential".
Both GAD65 and GAD67 experience significant downregulation in cases of autism. In a comparison of autistic versus control brains, GAD65 and GAD67 experienced a downregulation average of 50% in parietal and cerebellar cortices of autistic brains. Cerebellar Purkinje cells also reported a 40% downregulation, suggesting that affected cerebellar nuclei may disrupt output to higher order motor and cognitive areas of the brain.
On a lichen, the cortex is the "skin", or outer layer of thallus tissue that covers the undifferentiated cells of the medulla. Fruticose lichens have one cortex encircling the branches, even flattened, leaf-like forms; foliose lichens have different upper and lower cortices; crustose, placodioid and squamulose lichens have an upper cortex but no lower cortex; and leprose lichens lack any cortex.
Together, these findings indicate abnormal processing of internally generated sensory experiences, coupled with abnormal emotional processing, results in hallucinations. One proposed model involves a failure of feedforward networks from sensory cortices to the inferior frontal cortex, which normally cancel out sensory cortex activity during internally generated speech. The resulting disruption in expected and perceived speech is thought to produce lucid hallucinatory experiences.
Lateral prefrontal cortex, superior parietal cortices The contribution of the lateral prefrontal cortex to working memory has already been recognized in adults. Also, the superior parietal cortex is activated for individual items that have been encountered previously. It has only recently, however, been demonstrated that the LPFC is already active in children by the ages of 5 and 6. Tsujimoto, Satoshi, et al.
This animal model has been said to be more similar to humans than birds. It has been shown that humans demonstrate 15–30 Hz (Beta) oscillations in the cortex while performing muscle coordination exercises. This was also seen in macaque monkey cortices. The cortical local field potentials (LFPs) of conscious monkeys were recorded while they performed a precision grip task.
Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science, 315: 1860–1862. PFC activity has also been shown to reflect the flexible remapping of stimulus-response associations.Pasupathy, A. and Miller, E.K. (2005) Different time courses for learning-related activity in the prefrontal cortex and striatum. Nature, 433:873–876.
The visual white matter: The application of diffusion MRI and fiber tractography to vision science. Journal of Vision, 17(2), 4. For instance, occipital-callosal fiber tracts were localized with 1–2 mm precision using DTI-TF techniques - which are very important for the cooperation of visual cortices, and any lesion to them can lead to alexia, the inability to read.
The hypoglossal nerve (XII) supplies the intrinsic muscles of the tongue, controlling tongue movement. The hypoglossal nerve (XII) is unique in that it is supplied by the motor cortices of both hemispheres of the brain. Damage to the nerve may lead to fasciculations or wasting (atrophy) of the muscles of the tongue. This will lead to weakness of tongue movement on that side.
There is some debate, however, as to the cross-species nomenclature for neocortex. In avians, for instance, there are clear examples of cognitive processes that are thought to be neocortical in nature, despite the lack of the distinctive six-layer neocortical structure. In a similar manner, reptiles, such as turtles, have primary sensory cortices. A consistent, alternative name has yet to be agreed upon.
The motor cortices are involved in the formation and retention of memories and skills. When an individual learns physical movements, this leads to changes in the motor cortex. The more practiced a movement is, the stronger the neural encoding becomes. A study cited how the cortical areas include neurons that process movements and that these neurons change their behavior during and after being exposed to tasks.
Wilder Penfield created maps of primary sensory and motor areas of the brain by stimulating cortices of patients during surgery. The work of Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga on split brain patients in the 1950s was also instrumental in the progress of the field. The term cognitive neuroscience itself was coined by Gazzaniga and cognitive psychologist George Armitage Miller while sharing a taxi in 1976.
In humans, the pSTG was shown to project to the parietal lobe (sylvian parietal-temporal junction-inferior parietal lobule; Spt-IPL), and from there to dorsolateral prefrontal and premotor cortices (Figure 1, bottom right-blue arrows), and the aSTG was shown to project to the anterior temporal lobe (middle temporal gyrus-temporal pole; MTG-TP) and from there to the IFG (Figure 1 bottom right-red arrows).
The majority of thalamocortical fibers project to layer IV of the cortex, wherein sensory information is directed to other layers where they either terminate or connect with axons collaterally depending on type of projection and type of initial activation. Activation of the thalamocortical neurons relies heavily on the direct and indirect effects of Glutamate, which causes EPSP’s at terminal branches in the primary sensory cortices.
In this case, orientation is primarily a visual characteristic. It can be derived directly from the object image that forms on the retina, irrespective of other visual factors. In fact, data shows that a functional property of neurons within primate visual cortices' are their discernment to orientation. In contrast, haptic orientation judgements are recovered through collaborated patterned stimulations, evidently an indirect source susceptible to interference.
Huntington's disease (HD) is a rare autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder caused by mutations in the huntingtin gene. HD is characterized by loss of medium spiny neurons and astrogliosis. The first brain region to be substantially affected is the striatum, followed by degeneration of the frontal and temporal cortices. The striatum's subthalamic nuclei send control signals to the globus pallidus, which initiates and modulates motion.
Auditory stimulation induced more widespread activation in the primary and pre-frontal associative areas of MCS patients than vegetative state patients. There were also more cortiocortical functional connectivity between the auditory cortex and a large network of temporal and prefrontal cortices in MCS than vegetative states. These findings encourage treatments based on neuromodulatory and cognitive revalidation therapeutic strategies for patients with MCS.Resting overall cerebral metabolism of various brain states.
Cognitive control is mediated by reciprocal PFC connectivity with the sensory and motor cortices, and with the limbic system. Within their approach, thus, the term "cognitive control" is applied to any situation where a biasing signal is used to promote task-appropriate responding, and control thus becomes a crucial component of a wide range of psychological constructs such as selective attention, error monitoring, decision-making, memory inhibition, and response inhibition.
As an early step in this direction, an fMRI study on the flow of information processing during visuospatial reasoning has provided evidence for causal associations (inferred from the temporal order of activity) between sensory-related activity in occipital and parietal cortices and activity in posterior and anterior PFC. Such approaches can further elucidate the distribution of processing between executive functions in PFC and the rest of the brain.
Subthalamic nucleus cells can then send more activating signals to some parts of the globus pallidus internus and substantia nigra pars reticulata. Thus, parts of these two nuclei are driven to send more inhibitory signals to the ventrolateral nucleus of the thalamus, which prevents the development of significant activity in the motor cerebral cortices. This behavior prevents the activation of motor cortical areas that would compete with the voluntary movement.
This decrease in glucose metabolism worsens as clinical symptoms develop and the disease progresses. Studies have found a 17%-24% decline in cerebral glucose metabolism in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, compared with age-matched controls. Numerous imaging studies have since confirmed this observation. Abnormally low rates of cerebral glucose metabolism are found in a characteristic pattern in the Alzheimer’s disease brain, particularly in the posterior cingulate, parietal, temporal, and prefrontal cortices.
The practice of meditation can include a wide range of techniques that aim to activate the PNS through sustained conscious attention and concentration. However, the ability to restrain attention is a challenging and unnatural pursuit for the brain, as it constantly attempts to update the individual's awareness with new information.Buschman, T., & Miller, E. (2007). Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices.
Presence at birth is extremely rare and associated with other congenital anomalies such as proximal femoral focal deficiency, fibular hemimelia or anomalies in other part of the body such as cleidocranial dyastosis. The femoral deformity is present in the subtrochantric area where the bone is bent. The cortices are thickened and may be associated with overlying skin dimples. External rotation of the femur with valgus deformity of knee may be noted.
Recently, new evidence has been presented in support of a more precise interpretation of this hypothesis. The hippocampal formation includes, among other structures: the hippocampus itself, the entorhinal cortex, and the perirhinal cortex. These latter two make up the "parahippocampal cortices". Amnesics with damage to the hippocampus but some spared parahippocampal cortex were able to demonstrate some degree of intact semantic memory despite a total loss of episodic memory.
Retroactive Interference has been localized to the left anterior ventral prefrontal cortex by magnetoencephalography (MEG) studies investigating Retroactive Interference and working memory in elderly adults. The study found that adults 55–67 years of age showed less magnetic activity in their prefrontal cortices than the control group. Executive control mechanisms are located in the frontal cortex and deficits in working memory show changes in the functioning of this brain area.
In contrast, amplitude enhancements were observed for the P100 and N140 for consciously perceived stimuli. The authors concluded that early activation of S1 is not sufficient to warrant conscious stimulus perception. Conscious stimulus processing differs significantly from unconscious processing starting around 100 ms after stimulus presentation when the signal is processed in parietal and frontal cortices, brain regions crucial for stimulus access into conscious perception. In another study, Iwadate et al.
The Hippocampus Book: Oxford University Press. The connections of the dentate gyrus and entorhinal cortex are also more sophisticated in humans. In rats and cats, a very large reciprocal connection exists between the entorhinal cortex and the olfactory system. In primates this connection is absent and there are highly differentiated connections between the multimodal parasensory and paralimbic cortices and the EC which are not as evident in rats and cats.
While there are no standard criteria for the diagnosis of Grinker's myelinopathy, neuroimaging can be an important diagnostic tool in ruling out other diagnoses. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scans can be used to demonstrate a decrease in white matter density in the patient's cerebral hemispheres, with the typical exception of overlying cortices. Unexplained, uniform demyelination of white matter can indicate acute onset Grinker's myelinopathy.
They have reduced brain activity in the orbital prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, temporal cortex, and brain stem. They also showed less developed white matter connections between different areas in their cerebral cortices, particularly the uncinate fasciculus. Conversely, enriching the experience of preterm infants with massage quickens the maturating of their electroencephalographic activity and their visual acuity. Moreover, as with enrichment in experimental animals, this associates with an increase in IGF-1.
The cognitive control system refers to the lateral prefrontal, lateral parietal, and anterior cingulate cortices. The most commonly investigated region is the prefrontal cortex which undergoes substantial development throughout adolescence. The development of the prefrontal cortex has been implicated in the ability to regulate behavior and engage in inhibitory control. As a result of synaptic pruning and myelination of the prefrontal cortex, improvements in executive functions have been observed during adolescence.
Auditory inputs from temporal cortical regions are the primary inputs to rat 36d, with visual inputs becoming more prominent closer to the postrhinal cortical border. Area 36d projects to 36v and then to 35, which forms the primary output region of perirhinal cortex. Inputs to area 35 more strongly reflect olfactory and gustatory inputs from piriform and insular cortices, in addition to inputs from entorhinal cortex and frontal regions.
Previous neuroimaging studies have consistently reported activity in the SMA and premotor areas, as well as in auditory cortices, when non-musicians imagine hearing musical excerpts. Recruitment of the SMA and premotor areas is also reported when musicians are asked to imagine performing. Deutsch's scale illusion: an auditory illusion in which two scales are presented with successive tones alternating between each ear but are perceived as simultaneous, unbroken scales.Bregman, Albert (1994).
Affective advertising (using comedy, drama, suspense, etc.) activates the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortices, and the brainstem whereas cognitive advertising (strict facts) mainly activates the posterior parietal cortex and the superior prefrontal cortices.Ioannides A, Liu L, Theofilou D, Dammers J, Burne T, Ambler T, Rose S. Real time processing of affective and cognitive stimuli in the human brain extracted from MEG signals. Brain Topography. 2000; 13(1):11–19.
Higher-order theory can account for the distinction between unconscious and conscious brain processing. Both types of mental operations involve first-order manipulations, and according to higher-order theory, what makes cognition conscious is a higher-order observation of the first-order processing. In neuroscience terms, higher-order theory is motivated by the distinction between first-order information in early sensory regions versus higher-order representations in prefrontal and parietal cortices.
As the swelling gets progressively larger it can impinge on other structures resulting in loose teeth and malocclusion. Bone can also be perforated leading to soft tissue involvement. The lesion has a tendency to expand the bony cortices because the slow growth rate of the lesion allows time for the periosteum to develop a thin shell of bone ahead of the expanding lesion. This shell of bone cracks when palpated.
Dextromethorphan had been thought to cause Olney's lesions when administered intravenously; however, this was later proven inconclusive, due to lack of research on humans. Tests were performed on rats, giving them 50 mg or more every day for as long as a month. Neurotoxic changes, including vacuolation, have been observed in posterior cingulate and retrosplenial cortices of rats administered other NMDA receptor antagonists such as PCP, but not with dextromethorphan.
This suggests that individuals on liraglutide find highly desirable foods less appealing and that the medication might prove an effective weight loss therapy for people who tend to eat foods as a reward, such as when they are stressed. Most recently, Dr. Mantzoros and colleagues examined the serotonin 2c receptor agonist lorcaserin in obese adults and discovered that lorcaserin was decreasing activation in the attention-related parietal and visual cortices in response to highly palatable food cues at 1 week in the fasting state and in the parietal cortex in response to any food cues at 4 weeks in the fed state. Decreases in emotion and salience-related limbic activity, including the insula and amygdala, were attenuated at 4 weeks. In a secondary analysis, they observed that decreases in caloric intake, weight, and BMI correlated with activations in amygdala, parietal and visual cortices at baseline, suggesting that lorcaserin would be of particular benefit to emotional eaters.
Barbas H, Ghashghaei H, Rempel-Clower N, Xiao D (2002) Anatomic basis of functional specialization in prefrontal cortices in primates. In: Handbook of Neuropsychology (Grafman J, ed), pp 1-27. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science B.V. It is defined as the part of the prefrontal cortex that receives projections from the medial dorsal nucleus of the thalamus, and is thought to represent emotion and reward in decision making.Fuster, J.M. The Prefrontal Cortex, (Raven Press, New York, 1997).
Silent- reading activates similar areas of the auditory cortex that are involved in listening. Finally, the phonological loop; proposed by Baddeley and Hitch as “being responsible for temporary storage of speech-like information”Baddeley, A., Eysenck, M. W. & Anderson, M. C. (2009). Memory. New York, NY: Psychology Press is an active subvocal rehearsal mechanism, activation originating mostly in the left hemispheric speech areas: Broca's, lateral and medial premotor cortices and the cerebellum.Gruber, O. (2001).
However, this does not mean that the brain loses functionality; rather, it becomes more efficient due to increased myelination (insulation of axons) and the reduction of unused pathways. The first areas of the brain to be pruned are those involving primary functions, such as motor and sensory areas. The areas of the brain involved in more complex processes lose matter later in development. These include the lateral and prefrontal cortices, among other regions.
The symptoms suppose a primary affliction of the occipital and temporal cortices under clinical death. This basis could be congruent with the thesis of pathoclisis—the inclination of special parts of the brain to be the first to be damaged in case of disease, lack of oxygen, or malnutrition—established eighty years ago by Cécile and Oskar Vogt.Vogt C, Vogt O. (1922). Erkrankungen der Großhirnrinde im Lichte der Topistik, Pathoklise und Pathoarchitektonik.
Focal hand dystonia is a task-related movement disorder associated with occupational activities that require repetitive hand movements. Focal hand dystonia is associated with abnormal processing in the premotor and primary sensorimotor cortices. An fMRI study examined five guitarists with focal hand dystonia. The study reproduced task-specific hand dystonia by having guitarists use a real guitar neck inside the scanner as well as performing a guitar exercise to trigger abnormal hand movement.
Vogt-Mugnier and her husband's main interest was the identification and characterization of distinct regions in the neocortex by both functional and structural criteria. The Vogts were attempting to precisely locate the regions in the cerebral cortex that correlate with specific brain functions. This also motivated their experimental work on electrostimulation of the cortices in 150 monkeys. In this endeavor, they collaborated with Korbinian Brodmann to map areas of the cortex and the thalamus.
Studies using positron emission tomography (PET) trace a slight increase in blood flow to the frontal lobe in participants completing prospective memory tasks involving remembering a planned action, while performing other tasks.Okuda, J., Fujii, T., Yamadori, A., Kawashima, R., Tsukiura, T., Fukatsu, R., et al. (1998). Participation of the prefrontal cortices in prospective memory: evidence from a PET study in humans. Neuroscience Letters, 253, 127–130.Burgess, P.W., Scott, S.K., & Frith, C.D. (2003).
Language stimuli influence electrical activity in sensorimotor areas of the brain that are specific to the bodily association of the words presented. This is referred to as semantic somatotopy, which indicates activation of sensorimotor areas that are specific to the bodily association implied by the word. For example, when processing the meaning of the word “kick,” the regions in the motor and somatosensory cortices that represent the legs will become more active. Boulenger et al.
This focus on peripheral sensory system is not an isolated occurrence, as most sensory afferents entering the claustrum bring peripheral sensory information. Moreover, the claustrum possesses a distinct topological organization for each sensory modality. For example, there is a retinotopic organization within the visual processing area of the claustrum that mirrors that of visual association cortices and V1, in a similar (yet less complicated) manner to the retinotopic conservation within the lateral geniculate nucleus.
596: 17-29 Several cortical brain regions are associated with attention and vigilance. These include the right frontal, inferior parietal, prefrontal, superior temporal cortices and cingulate gyrus. In the frontal lobe, fMRI and TCD data indicate that brain activation increases during vigilance tasks with greater activation in the right hemisphere. Lesion and split brain studies indicate better right-brain performance on vigilance tasks, indicating an important role for the right frontal cortex in vigilance tasks.
An apical dendrite is a dendrite that emerges from the apex of a pyramidal cell. Apical dendrites are one of two primary categories of dendrites, and they distinguish the pyramidal cells from spiny stellate cells in the cortices. Pyramidal cells are found in the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, the entorhinal cortex, the olfactory cortex, and other areas. Dendrite arbors formed by apical dendrites are the means by which synaptic inputs into a cell are integrated.
View of left entorhinal cortex (red) from beneath the brain, with front of brain at top. Artist’s rendering. The superficial layers – layers II and III – of EC project to the dentate gyrus and hippocampus: Layer II projects primarily to dentate gyrus and hippocampal region CA3; layer III projects primarily to hippocampal region CA1 and the subiculum. These layers receive input from other cortical areas, especially associational, perirhinal, and parahippocampal cortices, as well as prefrontal cortex.
Noradrenergic and specific serotonergic antidepressants (NaSSAs) such as miratzapine and tricyclic antidepressants such as imapramine both increased BDNF in the cerebral cortices and hippocampi of rats. Because BDNF mRNA levels increase with long- term miratzapine use, increasing BDNF gene expression may be necessary for improvements in depressive behaviors. This also increases the potential for neuronal plasticity. Generally, these antidepressants increase peripheral BDNF levels by reducing methylation at BDNF promoters that are known to modulate serotonin.
That is, an external stimulation, such as a painful stimulus, still activates "primary" sensory cortices in these patients but these areas are functionally disconnected from "higher order" associative areas needed for awareness. These results show that parts of the cortex are indeed still functioning in "vegetative" patients (Matsuda et al., 2003). In addition, other PET studies have revealed preserved and consistent responses in predicted regions of auditory cortex in response to intelligible speech stimuli.
The cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop is the source of the ordered input necessary for a higher level upper cortical loop. Feedback is controlled by the inhibitory potential of the cortices via the striatum. Through 5-HT2A efferents from layer V of the cortex transmission proceeds through the striatum into the globulus pallidus internal and substantia nigra pars compacta. This core input to the basal ganglia is combined with input from the subthalamic nucleus.
This distinction was introduced by the pioneering neuroanatomist Camillo Golgi, on the basis of the appearance under a microscope of neurons stained with the Golgi stain that he had invented. Santiago Ramón y Cajal postulated that higher developed animals had more Golgi type II in comparison to Golgi type I neurons. These Golgi type 2 neurons have star-like appearance. These Golgi type 2 neurons are found in cerebral and cerebellar cortices and retina.
Adolescents who start drinking at a young age show a decreased BOLD response in these brain regions. Alcohol dependent young women in particular exhibit less of a BOLD response in parietal and frontal cortices when performing a spatial working memory task. Binge drinking, specifically, can also affect one's performance on working memory tasks, particularly visual working memory. Additionally, there seems to be a gender difference in regards to how alcohol affects working memory.
Capture of attention by salient stimuli is assumed to be driven by "bottom-up" signals from subcortical structures and the primary sensory cortices. The ability to override "bottom-up" capture of attention differs between individuals, and this difference has been found to correlate with their performance in a working-memory test for visual information. Another study, however, found no correlation between the ability to override attentional capture and measures of more general working-memory capacity.
In this way he could more accurately target the areas of the brain responsible, reducing the side-effects of the surgery. This technique also allowed him to create maps of the sensory and motor cortices of the brain (see cortical homunculus) showing their connections to the various limbs and organs of the body. These maps are still used today, practically unaltered. Along with Herbert Jasper, he published this work in 1951 (2nd ed.
The rhinal cortex is an area of the brain surrounding the hippocampus. Multiple animal trials on different species have shown it to be as, if not more important for the existence of multiple different types of memory and learning, than the hippocampus. It is divided into two parts, the perirhinal cortex and the entorhinal cortex. Distributed practice exists to a limited degree in animals after the removal of the hippocampus, if the Rhinal cortices are un-damaged.
Statistical concerns in dream studies are another cause of methodological issues. Many investigators used small samples for sleep studies and statistical parametric mapping (a technique for examining differences in brain activity recorded during functional neuroimaging experiments).Braun, A.R., Thomas, J., Nancy, J., Gwadry, W. F., Carson, R. E., Varga, M., Baldwin, P., Belenky, G., & Herscovitch, P. (1998) Dissociated Pattern of Activity in Visual Cortices and Their Projections During Human Rapid Eye Movement Sleep. Science 279, 91 – 95.
Few studies of complex motor control have distinguished between sequential and spatial organization, yet expert musical performances demand not only precise sequencing but also spatial organization of movements. Studies in animals and humans have established the involvement of parietal, sensory–motor and premotor cortices in the control of movements, when the integration of spatial, sensory and motor information is required. Few studies so far have explicitly examined the role of spatial processing in the context of musical tasks.
Lesions in cerebrocerebellum, which receives input exclusively from the cerebral cortex and projects its output to premotor and motor cortices, result in impairments in highly skilled sequences of learned movements, for instance, playing a musical instrument. Lesions may also result in problems with planning movements and ipsilateral incoordination, especially of the upper limb and to faulty phonation and articulation. Pathological interaction between cerebellothalamic tract and basal ganglia may be the explanation for the resting tremor in Parkinson's disease.
Portraits activate the face area in the fusiform gyrus (FFA) and landscape paintings activate the place area in the parahippocampal gyrus (PPA). Beyond classifying visual elements, these sensory areas may also be involved in evaluating them. Beautiful faces activate the fusiform face and adjacent areas. The question of how much and what kind of valuation takes place in sensory cortices is an area of active inquiry. Looking at paintings that depict actions also engages parts of people’s motor systems.
In addition, patients with tumors who undergo surgery will often sustain damage to these structures, as is described in a case below. Damage to any part of this system, including the hippocampus and surrounding cortices, results in amnesic syndromes. This is why people who suffer from strokes have a chance of developing cognitive deficits that result in anterograde amnesia, since strokes can involve the temporal lobe in the temporal cortex, and the temporal cortex houses the hippocampus.
For example, projections to motor and occulomotor areas would assist with gaze movement to direct attention to new stimuli by increasing the firing frequency of claustral neurons. Salvinorin A, the active hallucinogenic compound found in Salvia Divinorum, is capable of inducing loss of awareness. Consumption of salvinorin A can induce synesthesia, in which different sensory modalities are interpreted by different sensory cortices. (For example: seeing sounds, tasting colours.) This supports the idea of intrathalamic segregation and conduction (attention).
Entorhinal pyramidal cells of layer V receive strong input from the perirhinal cortex and sensory cortices. These pyramidal cells then project into the superficial entorhinal layer II and III cells. Layer V EC cells have strong recurrent excitatory synapses much like CA3 layers in the hippocampus and when provoked are capable of burst activity. Medial to lateral entorhinal area connections are sparse and principally project from the medial EC to the lateral EC. These connections are not reciprocal.
This bilateral recognition of sounds is also consistent with the finding that unilateral lesion to the auditory cortex rarely results in deficit to auditory comprehension (i.e., auditory agnosia), whereas a second lesion to the remaining hemisphere (which could occur years later) does. Finally, as mentioned earlier, an fMRI scan of an auditory agnosia patient demonstrated bilateral reduced activation in the anterior auditory cortices, and bilateral electro-stimulation to these regions in both hemispheres resulted with impaired speech recognition.
Using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and a behavioural paradigm, one study investigated whether listening to action- related sentences activated activity within the motor cortices. This was investigated using Motor Evoked Potentials (MEPs) from the TMS which were recorded from hand muscles when stimulating the hand motor area, and from foot and leg muscles when stimulating the foot motor area. Participants were presented with sentences relating to hand or foot actions. As control, participants listened to sentences containing abstract content.
At birth, the neurons in the visual and motor cortices have connections to the superior colliculus, spinal cord, and pons. The neurons in each cortex are selectively pruned, leaving connections that are made with the functionally appropriate processing centers. Therefore, the neurons in the visual cortex prune the synapses with neurons in the spinal cord, and the motor cortex severs connections with the superior colliculus. This variation of pruning is known as large-scaled stereotyped axon pruning.
The sensory cortex can refer informally to the primary somatosensory cortex, or it can be used as a term for the primary and secondary cortices of the different senses (two cortices each, on left and right hemisphere): the visual cortex on the occipital lobes, the auditory cortex on the temporal lobes, the primary olfactory cortex on the uncus of the piriform region of the temporal lobes, the gustatory cortex on the insular lobe (also referred to as the insular cortex), and the primary somatosensory cortex on the anterior parietal lobes. Just posterior to the primary somatosensory cortex lies the somatosensory association cortex, which integrates sensory information from the primary somatosensory cortex (temperature, pressure, etc.) to construct an understanding of the object being felt. Inferior to the frontal lobes are found the olfactory bulbs, which receive sensory input from the olfactory nerves and route those signals throughout the brain. Not all olfactory information is routed to the olfactory cortex: some neural fibers are routed to the supraorbital region of the frontal lobe, while others are routed directly to limbic structures.
Simultaneously, in the indirect pathway, the motor cortices send activating signals to the caudate and putamen. The cells of the indirect pathway in the caudate and putamen that receive these signals are inhibitory and, once activated, they send inhibitory signals to the globus pallidus externus, reducing the activity in that nucleus. The globus pallidus externus normally sends inhibitory signals to the subthalamic nucleus. On activation of the indirect pathway, these inhibitory signals are reduced, which allows more activation of the subthalamic nucleus.
Research has shown substantial evidence of well defined neural pathways linking cortices to organize auditory perception in the brain. Thus, the issue lies in our abilities to imitate sounds. Beyond the fact that primates may be poorly equipped to learn sounds, studies have shown them to learn and use gestures far better. Visual cues and motoric pathways developed millions of years earlier in our evolution, which seems to be one reason for an earlier ability to understand and use gestures.
Certain aspects of language and melody have been shown to be processed in near identical functional brain areas. Brown, Martinez and Parsons (2006) examined the neurological structural similarities between music and language. Utilizing positron emission tomography (PET), the findings showed that both linguistic and melodic phrases produced activation in almost identical functional brain areas. These areas included the primary motor cortex, supplementary motor area, Broca's area, anterior insula, primary and secondary auditory cortices, temporal pole, basal ganglia, ventral thalamus and posterior cerebellum.
Posterior cortex usually means the posterior (back) part of the complete cerebral cortex and includes the occipital, parietal, and temporal cortices. In other words, the posterior cortex includes all the cerebral cortex without the frontal cortex. In combination with specific cortical areas, 'posterior cortex' usually refers to the posterior (back) part of that cortical area. For example: the posterior parietal cortex is the posterior part of the parietal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex is the posterior part of the cingulate cortex.
Sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and the hypothalamus are regulated by the higher brain. Through them, the higher cerebral cortex areas can control the immune system, and the body’s homeostatic and stress physiology. Areas doing this include the insular cortex, the orbital, and the medial prefrontal cortices. These cerebral areas also control smooth muscle and glandular physiological processes through the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system including blood circulation, urogenital, gastrointestinal functions, pancreatic gut secretions, respiration, coughing, vomiting, piloerection, pupil dilation, lacrimation and salivation.
However, in the 1960s and 1970s, Mesulam and Damasio incorporated specific functional roles for the association cortex. With Mesulam and Damasio’s contributions, Geschwind’s model has evolved over the past 50 years to include connections between brain regions as well as specializations of association cortices. More recently, neurologists have been using imaging techniques such as diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to visualize association pathways in the human brain to advance the future of this disconnection theme.
Illness, though much rarer, can also cause anterograde amnesia if it causes encephalitis, which is the inflammation of brain tissue. There are several types of encephalitis: one such is herpes simplex encephalitis (HSV), which, if left untreated, can lead to neurological deterioration. How HSV gains access to the brain is unknown; the virus shows a distinct predilection for certain parts of the brain. Initially, it is present in the limbic cortices; it may then spread to the adjacent frontal and temporal lobes.
The prefrontal and frontal cortices are also active during this stage due to the need for increased attention on the task being learned. The main area involved in motor learning is the cerebellum. Some models of cerebellar- dependent motor learning, in particular the Marr-Albus model, propose a single plasticity mechanism involving the cerebellar long-term depression (LTD) of the parallel fiber synapses onto Purkinje cells. These modifications in synapse activity would mediate motor input with motor outputs critical to inducing motor learning.
Hippocampus as seen in red Although many psychologists believe that the entire brain is involved with memory, the hippocampus, and surrounding structures appear to be most important in declarative memory specifically. The ability to retain and recall episodic memories is highly dependent on the hippocampus, whereas the formation of new declarative memories relies on both the hippocampus and the parahippocampus. Other studies have found that the parahippocampal cortices were related to superior recognition memory. The Three Stage Model was developed by Eichenbaum, et.
Right-hand-side AC is more sensitive to tonality, left-hand- side AC is more sensitive to minute sequential differences in sound. Rostromedial and ventrolateral prefrontal cortices are involved in activation during tonal space and storing short-term memories, respectively. The Heschl’s gyrus/transverse temporal gyrus includes Wernicke’s area and functionality, it is heavily involved in emotion-sound, emotion-facial-expression, and sound- memory processes. The entorhinal cortex is the part of the ‘hippocampus system’ that aids and stores visual and auditory memories.
A question still debated today is to what extent improvements from perceptual learning stems from peripheral modifications compared with improvement in higher-level readout stages. Early interpretations, such as that suggested by William James, attributed it to higher-level categorization mechanisms whereby initially blurred differences are gradually associated with distinctively different labels. The work focused on basic sensory discrimination, however, suggests that the effects of perceptual learning are specific to changes in low-levels of the sensory nervous system (i.e., primary sensory cortices).
Finally, some fibers are sent to the intralaminar nucleus (IL) of the thalamus via the reticular formation. The IL projects diffusely to all parts of the cerebral cortex. The insular and cingulate cortices are parts of the brain which represent touch-position and pain-temperature in the context of other simultaneous perceptions (sight, smell, taste, hearing and balance) in the context of memory and emotional state. Peripheral pain-temperature information is channeled directly to the brain at a deep level, without prior processing.
The exact physiologic role(s) of TRAP is unknown, but many functions have been attributed to this protein. In knockout studies, TRAP−/− mice exhibit mild osteopetrosis, associated with reduced osteoclast activity. These result in thickening and shortening of the cortices, formation of club- like deformities in the distal femur, and widened epiphyseal growth plates with delayed mineralization of cartilage, all of which increase with age. In TRAP overexpressing transgenic mice, mild osteoporosis occurs along with increased osteoblast activity and bone synthesis.
Hippocampal PET activations of memory encoding and retrieval: The HIPER model. Hippocampus, 8:4: 313-322 This is referred to as the Hippocampal memory encoding and retrieval model or HIPER model. One study used PET to measure cerebral blood flow during encoding and recognition of faces in both young and older participants. Young people displayed increased cerebral blood flow in the right hippocampus and the left prefrontal and temporal cortices during encoding and in the right prefrontal and parietal cortex during recognition.
The parieto-frontal integration theory (P-FIT) considers intelligence to relate to how well different brain regions integrate to form intelligent behaviors. The theory proposes that large scale brain networks connect brain regions, including regions within frontal, parietal, temporal, and cingulate cortices, underlie the biological basis of human intelligence. These regions, which overlap significantly with the task-positive network, allow the brain to communicate and exchange information efficiently with one another. Support for this theory is primarily based on neuroimaging evidence, with support from lesion studies.
From post-mortem examinations it has also been shown that the cortices of patients with untreated major depressive disorder contain reduced concentrations of CREB compared to both healthy controls and patients treated with antidepressants. The function of CREB can be modulated via a signalling pathway resulting from the binding of serotonin and noradrenaline to post-synaptic G-protein coupled receptors. Dysfunction of these neurotransmitters is also implicated in major depressive disorder. CREB is also thought to be involved in the growth of some types of cancer.
The Homonculus is a visual representation of the intensity of sensations derived from different parts of the body. Dr. Wilder Penfield and his colleague Herbert Jasper developed the Montreal procedure using an electrode to stimulate different parts of the brain to determine which parts were the cause of the epilepsy. This part could then be surgically removed or altered in order to regain optimal brain performance. While performing these tests, they discovered that the functional maps of the sensory and motor cortices were similar in all patients.
CPA is an agonist of the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), and has weak and partial glucocorticoid activity at high doses. In animals, CPA suppresses the secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from the pituitary gland, suppresses the production of corticosteroids like cortisol and corticosterone by the adrenal cortices, and decreases the weights of the adrenal glands and thymus. Conversely however, CPA shows no anti- inflammatory or eosinophilic effects in animals. As such, CPA, as well as related antiandrogens, show only some of the typical effects of glucocorticoids.
The MRI of QR, a patient with a beahavioural variant frontotemporal dementia, shows bilateral fronto-temporal atrophy mostly in the right anterior temporal lobe but extending back within the temporal lobe and including the superior temporal sulcus. The MRI of KL showed bilateral anterior temporal lobe atrophy, with more damage on the right side and in the inferior temporal cortices. The clinical diagnosis of KL was temporal variant frontotemporal lobar degeneration with progressive right temporal lobe atrophy. More recently, there has been a study of developmental phonagnosia.
Despite this long history of reports on the claustrum, descriptions of its overall connectivity have been sparse. However, recent work has suggested that this mysterious structure is present in all mammals, with extensive connections to cortical and subcortical regions. More specifically, electrophysiological studies show extensive connections to thalamic nuclei and the basal ganglia, while isotopological reports have linked the claustrum with the prefrontal, frontal, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices. Additional studies have also looked at the relationship of the claustrum to well-described subcortical white matter tracts.
In general, somatosensory stimuli evoke early cortical components (N25, P60, N80), generated in the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex (S1), related to the processing of the physical stimulus attributes. About 100 ms after stimulus application, additional cortical regions are activated, such as the secondary somatosensory cortex (S2), and the posterior parietal and frontal cortices, marked by a parietal P100 and bilateral frontal N140. SEPs are routinely used in neurology today to confirm and localize sensory abnormalities, to identify silent lesions and to monitor changes during surgical procedures.
"Sexual desire and love not only show differences but also recruit a striking common set of brain areas that mediate somatosensory integration, reward expectation, and social cognition" Neuroimaging studies show that love and sexual desire share common chemical reactions in the brain. Both love and lust show neural activation in regions such as the cortical area (eg., middle gyrus, superior temporal guys, temporo-parietal junction, and occipital-temporal cortices) and the subcortical brain areas (eg., striatum, thalamus, hippocampus, anterior cingulate cortex, and ventral segmental area).
Global reductions in gray matter volume, thinning of the parietal and orbitofrontal cortices, and decreased hippocampal activity have been observed in long term users. The effects established so far for recreational use of ecstasy lie in the range of moderate to severe effects for serotonin transporter reduction. Impairments in multiple aspects of cognition, including attention, learning, memory, visual processing, and sleep have been found in regular MDMA users. The magnitude of these impairments is correlated with lifetime MDMA usage and are partially reversible with abstinence.
Rats raised with environmental enrichment have thicker cerebral cortices (3.3–7%) that contain 25% more synapses. This effect of environmental richness upon the brain occurs whether it is experienced immediately following birth, after weaning, or during maturity. When synapse numbers increase in adults, they can remain high in number even when the adults are returned to impoverished environment for 30 days suggesting that such increases in synapse numbers are not necessarily temporary. However, the increase in synapse numbers has been observed generally to reduce with maturation.
Theory of mind is the ability to understand the perspectives of others. The terms cognitive empathy and theory of mind are often used synonymously, but due to a lack of studies comparing theory of mind with types of empathy, it is unclear whether these are equivalent. Theory of mind relies on structures of the temporal lobe and the pre-frontal cortex, and empathy, i.e. the ability to share the feelings of others, relies on the sensorimotor cortices as well as limbic and para-limbic structures.
FCMS is primarily originates from damages in the posterior region of the inferior frontal gyrus and inferior region of the precentral gyrus. Anatomically, the word operculum is defined as the cortices encompassing the insula, which includes the pre and post-central, inferior-frontal, supramarginal, angular inferior parietal, and superior temporal convolutions. Parts of the brain such as Heschl's gyrus, Broadmann's area, Broca's Area, Wernicke's Area are amongst the most relevant in the operculum. These areas are responsible for auditory functions for language and speech.
As a result of previous experience to certain words, several studies have found that the action associated with a certain word is also activated in the motor cortices when processing that same word. For example, using event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), it was discovered that exposure to concrete action verbs referring to face, arm, or leg actions (e.g., to lick, pick, kick) activated motor regions that are stimulated when making actions with the foot, hand, or mouth.Hauk, O., Johnsrude, I., & Pulvermüller, F. (2004).
This activation decreases in people at risk of or currently diagnosed with depression. When the intrusive thoughts re-emerge, non depressed individuals also show higher activation levels in the anterior cingulate cortices, which functions in error detection, motivation, and emotional regulation, than their depressed counterparts. Roughly 60% of depressed individuals report experiencing bodily, visual, or auditory perceptions along with their intrusive thoughts. There is a correlation with experiencing those sensations with intrusive thoughts and more intense depressive symptoms as well as the need for heavier treatment.
The authors attribute this contradictory finding to the task-dependency of relationships between intellectual performance and these brain regions. Across functional studies, the authors found that more than 40% of the studies, included in the review, found correlations between bilateral activations in the frontal and occipital cortices and intelligence. In these studies, activation in the left hemisphere was usually significantly higher than that of the right hemisphere. Similarly, bilateral cortical areas in the occipital lobe, such as BA (Brodmann area) 19 were activated during reasoning tasks in more than 40% of studies.
The model, consisting of approximately 2.5 million neurons, includes features of the visual and motor cortices, GABAergic and dopaminergic connections, the ventral tegmental area (VTA), substantia nigra, and others. The design allows for several functions in response to eight tasks, using visual inputs of typed or handwritten characters and outputs carried out by a mechanical arm. Spaun's functions include copying a drawing, recognizing images, and counting. There are good reasons to believe that, regardless of implementation strategy, the predictions of realising artificial brains in the near future are optimistic.
Pyramidal cells in the visual cortex (or striate cortex) of the cuneus, project to extrastriate cortices (BA 18,19). The mid-level visual processing that occurs in the extrastriate projection fields of the cuneus are modulated by extraretinal effects, like attention, working memory, and reward expectation. In addition to its traditional role as a site for basic visual processing, gray matter volume in the cuneus is associated with better inhibitory control in bipolar depression patients. Pathologic gamblers have higher activity in the dorsal visual processing stream including the cuneus relative to controls.
The middle cerebral artery (MCA) is one of the three major paired arteries that supply blood to the cerebrum. The MCA arises from the internal carotid and continues into the lateral sulcus where it then branches and projects to many parts of the lateral cerebral cortex. It also supplies blood to the anterior temporal lobes and the insular cortices. The left and right MCAs rise from trifurcations of the internal carotid arteries and thus are connected to the anterior cerebral arteries and the posterior communicating arteries, which connect to the posterior cerebral arteries.
Alzheimer's is a neuropathological disease that is hypothesized to result from the loss of dendritic spines and/or deformation of these spines in the patient's frontal and temporal cortices. Researchers have tied the disease to a decrease in the expression of drebrin, a protein thought to play a role in long-term potentiation, meaning the neurons would lose plasticity and have trouble forming new connections. This malfunction presents itself in the form of helical filaments that tangle together in the neuropil. This same phenomenon seems to occur in the elderly as well.
There is also additional evidence that the neuropil may function in olfactory associative learning and memory. In humans, schizophrenia may be caused by deterioration of neuropil, with much evidence specifically pointing to dysfunction in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC). Research has shown reduced neuropil in area 9 of schizophrenics, as well as consistent findings of reduced spine density in layer III pyramidal neurons of the temporal and frontal cortices. Since neuropil is the location of most cortical synapses it is likely that the deterioration greatly affects processing and produces the symptoms schizophrenics exhibit.
In addition, PET studies of patients with Parkinson's disease have suggested that tests of executive function are associated with abnormal function in the globus pallidus and appear to be the genuine result of basal ganglia damage. With substantial cognitive load, fMRI signals indicate a common network of frontal, parietal and occipital cortices, thalamus, and the cerebellum. This observation suggests that executive function is mediated by dynamic and flexible networks that are characterized using functional integration and effective connectivity analyses. The complete circuit underlying executive function includes both a direct and an indirect circuit.
Recognition memory is critically dependent on a hierarchically organized network of brain areas including the visual ventral stream, medial temporal lobe structures, frontal lobe and parietal cortices along with the hippocampus. As mentioned previously, the processes of recollection and familiarity are represented differently in the brain. As such, each of the regions listed above can be further subdivided according to which part is primarily involved in recollection or in familiarity. In the temporal cortex, for instance, the medial region is related to recollection whereas the anterior region is related to familiarity.
Regions of the brain associated with stress and post-traumatic stress disorder A meta-analysis of structural MRI studies found an association with reduced total brain volume, intracranial volume, and volumes of the hippocampus, insula cortex, and anterior cingulate. Much of this research stems from PTSD in those exposed to the Vietnam War. People with PTSD have decreased brain activity in the dorsal and rostral anterior cingulate cortices and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, areas linked to the experience and regulation of emotion. The amygdala is strongly involved in forming emotional memories, especially fear-related memories.
The interplay between the prefrontal cortex and socioemotional system of the brain is relevant for adolescent development, as proposed by the Dual Systems Model. The medial prefrontal cortex has been implicated in the generation of slow- wave sleep (SWS), and prefrontal atrophy has been linked to decreases in SWS. Prefrontal atrophy occurs naturally as individuals age, and it has been demonstrated that older adults experience impairments in memory consolidation as their medial prefrontal cortices degrade. In monkeys, significant atrophy has been found as a result of neuroleptic or antipsychotic psychiatric medication.
Subjects who had suffered damage to their visual cortices due to accidents or strokes reported partial or total blindness. In spite of this, when they were prompted they could "guess" with above-average accuracy about the presence and details of objects, much like the animal subjects, and they could even catch objects that were tossed at them. The subjects never developed any kind of confidence in their abilities. Even when told of their successes, they would not begin to spontaneously make "guesses" about objects, but instead still required prompting.
Activity in many parts of the brain is associated with pain perception. Some of the known parts for the ascending pathway include the thalamus, hypothalamus, midbrain, lentiform nucleus, somatosensory cortices, insular, prefrontal, anterior and parietal cingulum. Then, there are also the descending pathways for the modulation of pain sensation. One of the brainstem regions responsible for this is the periaqueductal gray of the midbrain, which both relieves pain by behavior as well as inhibits the activity of the nociceptive neurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord.
The burst suppression pattern was first observed by Derbyshire et al. while studying effects of anesthetics on feline cerebral cortices in 1936, where the researchers noticed mixed slow and fast electrical activity with decreasing amplitude as anesthesia deepened. In 1948, Swank and Watson coined the term "burst- suppression pattern" to describe the alternation of spikes and flatlines in electrical activity in deep anesthesia. It wasn't until after the early 1960s that the burst suppression pattern began being used in medical settings; it had been primarily observed in animal studies and psychosurgeries.
Despite cross-talk between the dorsal and ventral cortices, fMRI results suggest that those with ventral cortex damage are less sensitive to object 3D structure than those with dorsal cortex damage. Unlike the ventral cortex, the dorsal cortex can compute object representations. Thus, those with object recognition impairments are more likely to have acquired damage to the dorsal cortex. Those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease show a reduction in stereognosis, the ability to perceive and recognize the form of an object in the absence of visual and auditory information.
The first mechanism has to do with cortical centers responsible for visual processing. Irritation of visual association cortices (Brodmann's areas 18 and 19) cause complex visual hallucinations. The second mechanism is deafferentation, the interruption or destruction of the afferent connections of nerve cells, of the visual system, caused by lesions, leading to the removal of normal inhibitory processes on cortical input to visual association areas, leading to complex hallucinations as a release phenomenon. The third mechanism has to do with the reticular activating system, which plays a role in the maintenance of arousal.
One meta analysis of functional neuroiamging during acute auditory verbal hallucinations has reported increased activations in areas implicated in language, including the bilateral inferior frontal and post central gyri, as well as the left parietal operculum. Another meta analysis during both visual and auditory verbal hallucinations, replicated the findings in the inferior frontal and postcentral gyri during auditory verbal hallucinations, and also observed hippocampal, superior temporal, insular and medial prefrontal activations. Visual hallucinations were reported to be associated with increased activations in the secondary and associate visual cortices.
Due to brain enlargement in humans, most of the human cerebral cortex lacks tightly evolved functions and so is open to acquire nonevolved skills. Even highly evolved cortical areas such as the primary visual and auditory cortices can to a surprising degree take on new functions. Semantics can develop in the visual cortex of those born blind, and vision can develop in the auditory cortex in experimental animals when retinal input is redirected into it. The association areas of the cerebral cortex lack the input constraints of primary areas.
Hippocampus (brain) The MTL memory system includes the hippocampal formation (CA fields, dentate gyrus, subicular complex), perirhinal, entorhinal, and parahippocampal cortices. It is known to be important for the storage and processing of declarative memory, which allows for factual recall. It is also known to communicate with the neocortex in the establishment and maintenance of long-term memories, although its known functions are independent of long-term memory. Nondeclarative memory, on the other hand, which allows for the performance of different skills and habits, is not part of the MTL memory system.
Regions of the brain associated with phobias Beneath the lateral fissure in the cerebral cortex, the insula, or insular cortex, of the brain has been identified as part of the limbic system, along with cingulated gyrus, hippocampus, corpus callosum and other nearby cortices. This system has been found to play a role in emotion processing and the insula, in particular, may contribute through its role in maintaining autonomic functions. Studies by Critchley et al. indicate the insula as being involved in the experience of emotion by detecting and interpreting threatening stimuli.
Similar studies involved in monitoring the activity of the insula show a correlation between increased insular activation and anxiety. In the frontal lobes, other cortices involved with phobia and fear are the anterior cingulate cortex and the medial prefrontal cortex. In the processing of emotional stimuli, studies on phobic reactions to facial expressions have indicated that these areas are involved in processing and responding to negative stimuli. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex has been said to influence the amygdala by monitoring its reaction to emotional stimuli or even fearful memories.
Transcranial Direct Current stimulation is thought to restore the neural activity in motor and prefrontal Cortices in PD. It promotes Motor learning and Consolidation and may enhance long-term retention. This is the basic rationale of using tDCS for neuro rehabilitative procedures in PD. tDCS works on the concept of priming which depends on pre-existing neural activity referred to as homeostatic plasticity. This effect on plasticity produce persistent effects. This makes it a useful tool to be combined with another non-invasive brain stimulation technique like rTMS.
Both components are related to processing of visual stimuli and are under the category of potentials called visually evoked potentials (VEPs). Both components are theorized to be evoked within the visual cortices of the brain with C1 being linked to the primary visual cortex (striate cortex) of the human brain and the P1 being linked to other visual areas (Extrastriate cortex). One of the primary distinctions between these two components is that, whereas the P1 can be modulated by attention, the C1 has been typically found to be invariable to different levels of attention.
By using case studies of bilingual patients with cerebral lesions, researchers theorized that language switching relies on the inhibition of the non-target language using the left basal ganglia alongside executive control processes with the anterior cingulate, prefrontal, and front cortices, or bilateral supramarginal gyri and Broca's area. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex has also been shown as significant in controlling language switching and inhibiting the unused language through observations of uncontrollable language switching in patients with damage to this brain area. Increased activation is seen in dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during language switching, but not regularly.
For species of mammals, larger brains (in absolute terms, not just in relation to body size) tend to have thicker cortices. The smallest mammals, such as shrews, have a neocortical thickness of about 0.5 mm; the ones with the largest brains, such as humans and fin whales, have thicknesses of 2–4 mm. There is an approximately logarithmic relationship between brain weight and cortical thickness. Magnetic resonance imaging of the brain (MRI) makes it possible to get a measure for the thickness of the human cerebral cortex and relate it to other measures.
The olfactory bulb sends olfactory information to be further processed in the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and the hippocampus where it plays a role in emotion, memory and learning. The main olfactory bulb connects to the amygdala via the piriform cortex of the primary olfactory cortex and directly projects from the main olfactory bulb to specific amygdala areas. The amygdala passes olfactory information on to the hippocampus. The orbitofrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and olfactory bulb have many interconnections directly and indirectly through the cortices of the primary olfactory cortex.
Common Keypad with Braille When a person has become blind, in order to “see” the world, their other senses become heightened. An important sense for the blind is their sense of touch, which becomes more frequently used to help them perceive the world. People that are blind have displayed that their visual cortices become more responsive to auditory and tactile stimulation. Braille allows the blind to be able to use their sense of touch to feel the roughness, and distance of various patterns to be used as a form of language.
In neuroscience, evidence for the common coding theory ranges from electrophysiological recordings in monkeys in which mirror neurons in the ventral premotor and posterior parietal cortices fire both during goal- directed actions and observation of the same actions performed by another individual,Rizzolatti, G., Fogassi, L., & Gallese, V. (2001). Neurophysiological mechanisms underlying the understanding and the imitation of action. Nature Review Neuroscience, 2, 661-670. to functional neuroimaging experiments in humans which indicate that the neural circuits involved in action execution partly overlap with those activated when actions are observed.
It allows detailed and direct comparison of neuron properties between brain areas that are not confounded by extraneous factors and examination of the temporal dynamics of activity between neurons.Miller, E.K., and Wilson, M.A. (2008) All my circuits: Using multiple-electrodes to understand functioning neural networks. Neuron 60:483–488 Miller's lab has used this approach to make a number of discoveries of how different brain areas collaborate to produce thought and action.Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2007) Top-down versus bottom-up control of attention in the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices. Science.
The sensory motor cortex provides an alternative pathway for sensing interoceptive stimuli. Although not following the conventional pathway for interoceptive awareness, skin afferents which project to the primary and secondary somatosensory cortices provide the brain with information regarding bodily information. This area of the brain is commonly engaged by gastrointestinal distension and nociceptive stimulation, but it likely plays a role in representing other interoceptive sensations as well. In one study, a patient with bilateral insula and ACC damage was given isoproterenol as a method of exciting the cardiovascular system.
The study found there was indeed activation of the motor cortices whilst listening to sentences expressing foot/leg and hand/arm actions. This activation specifically concerned the areas of the motor system ‘where the effector involved in the processed sentence is motorically represented’ (pp. 360). Specifically, the results showed that listening to hand-action-related sentences prompted a decrease of MEP amplitude recorded from hand muscles and listening to foot-action-related sentences prompted a decrease of MEP amplitude recorded from foot muscle.Buccino, G., Riggio, L., Melli, G., Binkofski, F., Gallese, V., & Rizzolatti, G. (2005).
These fibers provide very powerful, excitatory input to the cerebellum which results in the generation of complex spike excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) in Purkinje cells. In this way climbing fibers (CFs) perform a central role in motor behaviors. The climbing fibers carry information from various sources such as the spinal cord, vestibular system, red nucleus, superior colliculus, reticular formation and sensory and motor cortices. Climbing fiber activation is thought to serve as a motor error signal sent to the cerebellum, and is an important signal for motor timing.
Opinions of others immediately change the brain's reward response in the ventral striatum to receiving or losing the object in question, in proportion to how susceptible the person is to social influence. Having similar opinions to others can also generate a reward response. The amygdala and hippocampus have also been found to be recruited when individuals participated in a social manipulation experiment involving long-term memory. Several other areas have further been suggested to play a role in conformity, including the insula, the temporoparietal junction, the ventral striatum, and the anterior and posterior cingulate cortices.
The orbitofrontal cortex is reciprocally connected with the perirhinal and entorhinal cortices, the amygdala, the hypothalamus, and parts of the medial temporal lobe. In addition to these outputs, the OFC also projects to the striatum, including the nucleus accumbens, caudate nucleus, and ventral putamen, as well as regions of the midbrain including the periaqueductal grey, and ventral tegmental area. OFC inputs to the amygdala synapse on multiple targets, including two robust pathways to the basolateral amygdala and intercalated cells of the amygdala, as well as a weaker direct projection to the central nucleus of the amygdala.
Both cues play an equally important role of directing attention in Inhibition of Return, however the way in which they do so differs on a neurological level as well. Exogenous cues are automatic and are therefore considered to fall under the "bottom-up" approach regarding attention, while endogenous cues are under the person's control and are seen as "top-down". A 2007 experiment examined the way in which bottom-up and top-down processes affect attention during IOR. Electrodes were placed in both the parietal and frontal cortices as monkeys took part in a visual search task.
Sowell et al., reported that the first 6 decades of an individual's life were correlated with the most rapid decreases in grey matter density, and this occurred over dorsal, frontal, and parietal lobes on both interhemispheric and lateral brain surfaces. It is also worth noting that areas such as the cingulate gyrus, and occipital cortex surrounding the calcarine sulcus appear exempt from this decrease in grey matter density over time. Age effects on grey matter density in the posterior temporal cortex appear more predominantly in the left versus right hemisphere, and were confined to posterior language cortices.
Doublecortin is mutated in X-linked lissencephaly and the double cortex syndrome, and the clinical manifestations are sex-linked. In males, X-linked lissencephaly produces a smooth brain due to lack of migration of immature neurons, which normally promote folding of the brain surface. Double cortex syndrome is characterized by abnormal migration of neural tissue during development which results in two bands of misplaced neurons within the subcortical white, generating two cortices, giving the name to the syndrome; this finding generally occurs in females. The mutation was discovered by Joseph Gleeson and Christopher A. Walsh in Boston.
The idea of the cortical homunculus was created by Wilder Penfield. Cortical stimulation mapping is used for somatotopy to determine the areas of the cerebral cortex that connect through nerve fibers with different body parts. Cortical stimulation identifies which regions of the brain are vital for certain functions, thereby allowing a 'map' to be made which can be used to decide if brain areas are safe to remove. Cortical stimulation mapping led to the development of a homunculus for the motor and sensory cortices, which is a diagram showing the brain's connections to different areas of the body.
UC Davis’ equine orthopedic surgery program has developed an implant that has been successful in human surgery for a long time. The intermedullary interlocking nail is used to treat horses with long leg bone fractures. The nails are positioned within the medullary cavity and can be secured to the proximal and distal fracture segments using transcortical screws which penetrate both cortices of the bone, as well as pass through holes in the nail. The nail is placed centrally in the axis of the bone to give full support unlike bone plates that only give exterior support.
The majority of findings on memory have been the result of studies that lesioned specific brain regions in rats or primates, but some of the most important work has been the result of accidental or inadvertent brain trauma. The most famous case in recent memory studies is the case study of HM, who had parts of his hippocampus, parahippocampal cortices, and surrounding tissue removed in an attempt to cure his epilepsy. His subsequent total anterograde amnesia and partial retrograde amnesia provided the first evidence for the localization of memory function, and further clarified the differences between declarative and procedural memory.
The visual pathway consists of structures that carry visual information from the retina to the brain. Lesions in that pathway cause a variety of visual field defects. In the visual system of human eye, the visual information processed by retinal photoreceptor cells travel in the following way: Retina→Optic nerve→Optic chiasm (here the nasal visual field of both eyes cross over to the opposite side)→Optic tract→Lateral geniculate nucleus→Optic radiation→Primary and secondary visual cortices. The type of field defect can help localize where the lesion is located (see picture given in infobox).
The main source of the auditory evoked field is the auditory cortex and the association cortices. The earliest cortical components of AEF is equivalent to the middle latency response (MLR) of the EEG evoked potential, called the middle latency auditory evoked field (MLAEF), which occurs at 30 to 50 ms after the stimulus onset.Kuriki S, Nogai T, Hirata Y. Cortical sources of middle latency responses of auditory evoked magnetic field. Hearing Research 92 (1995) 47-51. M30 and M50, occurring at 30 and 50 ms after the stimulus onset, correspond to the Pa and Pb peaks of MLR.
Cognitive scientists are very interested in finding out what brain structures are involved with mental imaging in order to provide consistent, localized, and more tangible evidence. It has been established that auditory imagery makes use of the right lobe since people with right lobe lesions tend to have difficulty generating auditory images. This is because auditory imaging requires the usage of the frontal and superior temporal right lobe as well as a lot of the right auditory association cortices. These portions of the brain are usually involved with interpreting the inflections of sounds (such as sad or angry sounds).
A limited number of cases have been described in which patients with damage to other parts of the brain acquired anterograde amnesia. Easton and Parker observed damage to either the hippocampus or the surrounding cortices does not seem to result in severe amnesia in primate models. They suggested damage to the hippocampus and surrounding structures alone does not explain the amnesia they saw in patients, or increasing damage does not correlate with the degree of impairment. Furthermore, the data do not explain the dichotomy that exists in the MTL memory system between episodic and semantic memory.
As in other sensory cortices, S1 neurons are grouped together with similar inputs and responses into vertical columns that extend across cortical layers (e.g., As shown by Vernon Mountcastle, into alternating layers of slowly adapting and rapidly adapting neurons; or spatial segmentation of the vibrissae on mouse/rat cerebral cortex). This area of cortex, as shown by Wilder Penfield and others, is organized somatotopically, having the pattern of a homunculus. That is, the legs and trunk fold over the midline; the arms and hands are along the middle of the area shown here; and the face is near the bottom of the figure.
Lesions to the frontal cortices have long been known to precede spatial neglect and other visuospatial deficits. Specifically, frontal lobe damage has been associated with a deficit in the control of over attention (the production of eye movements). Lesions to the superior frontal lobe areas that include the frontal eye fields seem to disrupt some forms of overt eye movements. It has been demonstrated by Guitton, Buchtel, & Douglas that eye movement directed away from an abruptly appearing visual target (“antisaccade”) is remarkably impaired in patients with damage to the frontal eye fields, who frequently made reflexive eye movements to the target.
Several laboratories have managed to record signals from monkey and rat cerebral cortices to operate BCIs to produce movement. Monkeys have navigated computer cursors on screen and commanded robotic arms to perform simple tasks simply by thinking about the task and seeing the visual feedback, but without any motor output.Miguel Nicolelis et al. (2001) Duke neurobiologist has developed system that allows monkeys to control robot arms via brain signals In May 2008 photographs that showed a monkey at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center operating a robotic arm by thinking were published in a number of well-known science journals and magazines.
According to recent research, there is no neural evidence of statistical language learning in children with autism spectrum disorders. When exposed to a continuous stream of artificial speech, neurotypical children displayed less cortical activity in the dorsolateral frontal cortices (specifically the middle frontal gyrus) as cues for word boundaries increased. However activity in these networks remained unchanged in autistic children, regardless of the verbal cues provided. This evidence, highlighting the importance of proper Frontal Lobe brain function is in support of the "Executive Functions" Theory, used to explain some of the biologically related causes of Autistic language deficits.
Damasio has posited that the ability of humans to perform abstract thinking quickly and efficiently coincides with both the development of the ventromedial (VM) cortex and with the use of somatic markers to guide human behavior during evolution. Patients with damage to the VM cortices are more likely to engage in behaviors that negatively impact personal relationships in the distant future, but they never engage in actions that would lead to immediate harm to themselves or others. The evolution of the prefrontal cortex was associated with the ability to represent events that may occur in the future.
An example of such coupling is the ease with which people can engage in speech repetition when asked to shadow words heard in earphones. In humans, common neural activation during action observation and execution has been well documented. A variety of functional neuroimaging studies, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), positron emission tomography, and magnetoencephalography have demonstrated that a motor resonance mechanism in the premotor and posterior parietal cortices occurs when participants observe or produce goal directed actions. Such a motor resonance system seems to be hard wired, or at least functional very early in life.
Social information processing refers to a theory of how individuals, especially children, establish (or fail to establish) successful relationships with society.Reid Griffith Fontaine, "Applying systems principles to models of social information processing and aggressive behavior in youth" (2006) Studies show the parts of the brain which are active during the whole social interaction are the amygdala, ventromedial frontal cortices and right somatosensory-related cortex and others. In a social situation, children match the facial expressions of anonymous people with memories of past experiences. This helps them perceive the mood or apparent nature of the person they have to interact with.
The amygdala is central to the processing of fear and anxiety, and its function may be disrupted in anxiety disorders. Sensory information enters the amygdala through the nuclei of the basolateral complex (consisting of lateral, basal, and accessory basal nuclei). The basolateral complex processes sensory-related fear memories and communicates their threat importance to memory and sensory processing elsewhere in the brain, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and sensory cortices. Another important area is the adjacent central nucleus of the amygdala, which controls species-specific fear responses, via connections to the brainstem, hypothalamus, and cerebellum areas.
People with bulimia exhibit several interoceptive deficits, in which one experiences impairment in recognizing and discriminating between internal sensations, feelings, and emotions. People with bulimia may also react negatively to somatic and affective states. In relation to interoceptive sensitivity, hyposensitive individuals may not detect feelings of fullness in a normal and timely fashion, and therefore are prone to eating more calories. Examining from a neural basis also connects elements of interoception and emotion; notable overlaps occur in the medial prefrontal cortex, anterior and posterior cingulate, and anterior insula cortices, which are linked to both interoception and emotional eating.
All stimuli received by the receptors listed above are transduced to an action potential, which is carried along one or more afferent neurons towards a specific area of the brain. While the term sensory cortex is often used informally to refer to the somatosensory cortex, the term more accurately refers to the multiple areas of the brain at which senses are received to be processed. For the five traditional senses in humans, this includes the primary and secondary cortices of the different senses: the somatosensory cortex, the visual cortex, the auditory cortex, the primary olfactory cortex, and the gustatory cortex.Brynie, F.H. (2009).
Genes determine the general form of the brain, and genes determine how the brain reacts to experience. Experience, however, is required to refine the matrix of synaptic connections, which in its developed form contains far more information than the genome does. In some respects, all that matters is the presence or absence of experience during critical periods of development. In other respects, the quantity and quality of experience are important; for example, there is substantial evidence that animals raised in enriched environments have thicker cerebral cortices, indicating a higher density of synaptic connections, than animals whose levels of stimulation are restricted.
Tāne Mahuta ("Lord of the Forest"), a massive Agathis australis tree from New Zealand Members of Araucariaceae are typically very tall evergreen trees, reaching heights of or more. They can also grow very large stem diameters; a New Zealand kauri tree (Agathis australis) named Tāne Mahuta ("The Lord of the Forest") has been measured at tall with a diameter at breast height of . Its total wood volume is calculated to be , making it the third-largest conifer after Sequoia and Sequoiadendron (both from the Cupressaceae subfamily Sequoioideae). The trunks are columnar and have relatively large piths with resinous cortices.
Pre-adolescent children can olfactorily detect their full siblings but not half-siblings or step siblings, and this might explain incest avoidance and the Westermarck effect. Functional imaging shows that this olfactory kinship detection process involves the frontal-temporal junction, the insula, and the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, but not the primary or secondary olfactory cortices, or the related piriform cortex or orbitofrontal cortex. Since inbreeding is detrimental, it tends to be avoided. In the house mouse, the major urinary protein (MUP) gene cluster provides a highly polymorphic scent signal of genetic identity that appears to underlie kin recognition and inbreeding avoidance.
The presence of these "synesthesia- like mappings" suggest that this effect might be the neurological basis for sound symbolism, in which sounds are non-arbitrarily mapped to objects and events in the world. In 2019, researchers published the first study using fMRI to explore the bouba/kiki effect. They found that prefrontal activation is stronger to mismatching (bouba with spiky shape) than to matching (bouba with round shape) stimuli. Interestingly, they also found that sound-shape matching also influences activations in the auditory and visual cortices, suggesting an effect of matching at an early stage in sensory processing.
The insula is well-situated for the integration of information relating to bodily states into higher-order cognitive and emotional processes. The insula receives information from "homeostatic afferent" sensory pathways via the thalamus and sends output to a number of other limbic-related structures, such as the amygdala, the ventral striatum, and the orbitofrontal cortex, as well as to motor cortices. A study using magnetic resonance imaging found that the right anterior insula is significantly thicker in people that meditate. Other research into brain activity and meditation has shown an increase in grey matter in areas of the brain including the insular cortex.
While there is a substantial body of neuroscience research on information integration, or the representation of belief, in perceptual decision-making tasks using both animal and human subjects, there is relatively little known about how the decision to stop gathering information is arrived at. Researchers have studied the neural bases of solving the secretary problem in healthy volunteers using functional MRI. A Markov decision process (MDP) was used to quantify the value of continuing to search versus committing to the current option. Decisions to take versus decline an option engaged parietal and dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, as well ventral striatum, anterior insula, and anterior cingulate.
Much of the current knowledge of memory has come from studying memory disorders, particularly amnesia. Loss of memory is known as amnesia. Amnesia can result from extensive damage to: (a) the regions of the medial temporal lobe, such as the hippocampus, dentate gyrus, subiculum, amygdala, the parahippocampal, entorhinal, and perirhinal cortices or the (b) midline diencephalic region, specifically the dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus and the mammillary bodies of the hypothalamus. There are many sorts of amnesia, and by studying their different forms, it has become possible to observe apparent defects in individual sub-systems of the brain's memory systems, and thus hypothesize their function in the normally working brain.
Aardonyx compared to a human in size The genus is known from disarticulated bones belonging to two immature individuals. The material consists of cranial elements, vertebrae, dorsal and cervical ribs, gastralia, chevrons, elements of the pectoral and pelvic girdles, and bones of the fore and hind limbs, manus, and pes. The presence of these bones in a single dense accumulation in a localized channel fill suggests that they came from relatively complete carcasses. Both individuals are thought to have been less than 10 years old at the time of their death because of the lack of peripheral rest lines in the cortices of sampled bones.
The prefrontal cortices in the post-mortem brains of patients with major depression and bipolar depression contain increased quinolinic acid immunoreactivity compared to the brains of patients never having suffered from depression. The fact that NMDA receptor antagonists possess antidepressant properties suggests that increased levels of quinolinic acid in patients with depression may overactivate NMDA receptors. By inducing increased levels of quinolinic acid in the cerebral spinal fluid with interferon α, researchers have demonstrated that increased quinolinic acid levels correlate with increased depressive symptoms. Increased levels of quinolinic acid might contribute to the apoptosis of astrocytes and certain neurons, resulting in decreased synthesis of neurotrophic factors.
During consolidation, the hippocampus acts as an intermediate tool that quickly stores new information until it is transferred to the neocortex for the long-term. The temporal lobe, which holds the hippocampus, entorhinal, perirhinal and parahippocampal cortices, has a reciprocal connection with the neocortex. The temporal lobe is temporarily needed when consolidating new information; as the learning becomes stronger, the neocortex becomes more independent of the temporal lobe. Studies on specific cases demonstrate how particular impaired areas of the hippocampus are associated with the severity of RA. Damage can be limited to the CA1 field of the hippocampus, causing very limited RA for about one to two years.
Subjective well-being draws from both cognitive and affective components, combining general evaluations of ones' life with overall affective sensitive-impressions. Neural measures of affective quality of life have been positively correlated with greater left alpha activity in the superior PFC, gray matter volume in multiple prefrontal cortices, spontaneous activity in the right amygdala, and even emotional intelligence. Those with affective disorders may also demonstrate differences in affective sensation as a result of mood-dependent alterations in brain arousal regulation, especially seen between those with mania, depression, and those without the disorder. Negative affectivity tends to be related to greater levels of social anxiety, anxious arousal, and anxiety sensitivity.
Pachyostotic bone is a general/local increase in skeletal mass which can be caused by osteosclerosis (inner compaction of bone), pachyostosis (hyperplasy of compact cortices) or pachyeosclerosis (combination of the two). Research on dyrosaur bone performed by Rafael César Lima Pedroso de Andrade, Juliana Manso Sayao revealed that this family had osteoporotic bone tissue indicative of a fast- swimming ecology as well as some osteosclerosis which is a component of pachyostotic bone tissue. Osteoporosis is associated with a fully aquatic lifestyle whereas pachyostotic is not fully aquatic but is associated with fast swimming ecology. Therefore, dyrosaurs are semi-aquatic fast swimmers as indicated by their bone structure.
A subcortical loop exists within the brain linking upper motor neurons originating in the primary motor and pre-motor cortices and the brainstem, with the basal ganglia. These upper motor neurons eventually initiate movement by controlling the activity of lower motor neurons, located in the brainstem and spinal cord, and project out to innervate the muscles in the body. Upper motor neurons also modulate activity of local circuit neurons, whose synapses are a large input to these lower motor neurons, in turn affecting subsequent movement. Thus, the basal ganglia indirectly influence movement via regulation of the activity of the upper motor neurons, which ultimately determine activity of the lower motor neurons.
The basal ganglia include groups of motor nuclei located deep within the cerebral hemispheres, including the corpus striatum, which contains two nuclei named the caudate and putamen, and also the pallidum, which contains the globus pallidus and substantia nigra pars reticulate. The corpus striatum is the main input center of the basal ganglia, specifically upper neurons of motor areas in the frontal lobe that control eye movement link to neurons in the caudate, while upper neurons from pre-motor and motor cortices in the frontal lobe connect to neurons in the putamen. The main neurons found within these structures are named medium spiny neurons.
Her electroencephalography, auditory brainstem response evaluation, and chromosomal analysis were relatively normal. A brain MRI revealed thickened cerebral cortices with few and large gyri prominently in the frontal and posterior temporal regions, incomplete development of the Sylvian fissures, and dilatation of the posterior horns of the lateral ventricles (colpocephaly). Usually only mild brain malformations are associated with MOPD type II. The imaging findings of this child’s brain most likely represent diffuse pachygyria, a mild form of lissencephaly. This child’s neurodevelopmental findings were mild when compared to previous reports of a well-defined chromosome 17-linked and X-linked lissencephaly in a bedridden patient with severe developmental delays.
Amygdala (in red) brain structures linked to anxiety disorders Generalized anxiety disorder has been linked to disrupted functional connectivity of the amygdala and its processing of fear and anxiety. Sensory information enters the amygdala through the nuclei of the basolateral complex (consisting of lateral, basal and accessory basal nuclei). The basolateral complex processes the sensory-related fear memories and communicates their threat importance to memory and sensory processing elsewhere in the brain, such as the medial prefrontal cortex and sensory cortices. Another area, the adjacent central nucleus of the amygdala, controls species-specific fear responses in its connections to the brainstem, hypothalamus and cerebellum areas.
The brain analyzes the temporal (rhythmic) components of music in two ways: (1) it segments the ongoing sequences of music into temporal events based on duration, and (2) it groups those temporal events to understand the underlying beat to music. Studies on rhythmic discrimination reveal that the right temporal auditory cortex is responsible for temporal segmenting, and the left temporal auditory cortex is responsible for temporal grouping. Other studies suggest the participation of motor cortical areas in rhythm perception and production. Therefore, a lack of involvement and networking between bilateral temporal cortices and neural motor centers may contribute to both congenital and acquired amusia.
Goldman-Rakic was the first to discover and describe the circuitry of the prefrontal cortex and its relationship to working memory. Previously, scientists thought that the higher cognitive functions of the prefrontal cortex were beyond the scope of scientific study. Goldman-Rakic's research showed that methods employed to study the sensory cortices could be adapted to the highest order prefrontal cortical areas, revealing the circuit basis for higher cognitive function. Because of Goldman- Rakic, scientists began to better understand the neurobiological basis of higher cognitive function, and of such disorders as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, and dementia.
Results showed that some participants created false memories, reporting the verbal misinformation conflicting with the photographs. During the original event phase, increased activity in left fusiform gyrus and right temporal/occipital cortex was found which may have reflected the attention to visual detail, associated with later accurate memory for the critical item(s) and thus resulted in resistance to the effects of later misinformation. Retrieval of true memories was associated with greater reactivation of sensory-specific cortices, for example, the occipital cortex for vision. Electroencephalography research on this issue also suggests that the retrieval of false memories is associated with reduced attention and recollection related processing relative to true memories.
These perception/action codes are also accessible during action observation. Other authors suggest a new notion of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic origin of action understanding that utilizes the motor system; motor cognition hypothesis. This states that motor cognition provides both human and nonhuman primates with a direct, prereflexive understanding of biological actions that match their own action catalog. The discovery of mirror neurons in the ventral premotor and parietal cortices of the macaque monkey that fire both when it carries out a goal-directed action and when it observes the same action performed by another individual provides neurophysiological evidence for a direct matching between action perception and action production.
Reduced cortical thickness was reported in the bilateral OFC, ACC, insula, middle temporal gyri, fusiform gyri, and posterior cingulate cortices, while surface area deficits were found in medial occipital, inferior parietal, orbitofrontal and precentral regions. Subcortical abnormalities, including reductions in hippocampus and amygdala volumes, which were especially pronounced in early onset depression. MDD is associated with reduced FA in the ALIC and genu/body of the CC Multiple meta analysis have been performed on studies assessing white matter integrity using fractional anisotropy (FA). Reduced FA has been reported in the corpus callosum (CC) in both first episode medication naive, and general major depressive populations.
The fourth and final condition exposed the rats to both social interaction and some form of object enrichment. In measuring intellectual capacity, the rats who had both forms of enrichment performed best, the ones with social enrichment performed second best, and the ones with a toy in their cage performed still better than the rats with no toy or other rats. When the volume of the rat's cortices was measured the amount of enrichment again correlated with larger volume, which is an indicator of more synaptic connections, and greater intelligence. Attaining this sort of information in humans would be difficult as it requires histological research.
Several studies in brain traumas and insults have demonstrated significant associations between disinhibition syndromes and dysfunction of orbitofrontal and basotemporal cortices, affecting visuospatial functions, somatosensation, and spatial memory, motoric, instinctive, affective, and intellectual behaviours. Disinhibition syndromes have also been reported with mania-like manifestations in old age with lesions to the orbito-frontal and basotemporal cortex involving limbic and frontal connections (orbitofrontal circuit), especially in the right hemisphere. Behavioural disinhibition as a result of damage to frontal lobe could be seen as a result of consumption of alcohol and central nervous system depressants drugs, e.g., benzodiazepines that disinhibit the frontal cortex from self-regulation and control.
Falk observed that these studies exclude the internal brain structures that cannot be described by paleoneurologists because they do not show up on endocasts. These parts of the brain also evolved, and they are extremely important for processing memories, gut-level feelings, and social interactions in ways that set humans apart from other animals. In 2018, Falk and colleagues published an in vivo MRI study of the cerebral cortices of eight adult chimpanzees in which they identified sulcal patterns and compared them to those known from australopithecines and Homo naledi. This study showed that the frontal lobe sulcal patterns of australopiths (and H. naledi) were not derived compared to extant apes, contrary to Falk's 2014 paper.
In 1937, Wilder Penfield and Boldrey were able to show that stimulating the precentral gyrus elicited a response contralaterally; a significant finding given that it correlated to the anatomy based on which part of the brain was stimulated. In the early 1900s Charles Sherrington began to use monopolar stimulation in order to elicit a motor response. This technique allowed Sherrington to determine that the precentral gyrus (pre-Rolandic area) is a motor cortex and the postcentral gyrus (post-Rolandic area) is a sensory cortex. These findings, which were repeated by Harvey Cushing through the early 1900s, show that the Rolandic fissure is the point of separation between the motor and sensory cortices.
They were asked to either put themselves explicitly in the shoes of the patient (imagine self), or to focus on their feelings and affective expressions (imagine other). The behavioral data confirmed that explicitly projecting oneself into an aversive situation leads to higher personal distress whereas focusing on the emotional and behavioral reactions of another's plight yields greater empathic concern and less personal distress. The neuroimaging data were consistent with this finding and provided insights into the neural correlates of these distinct behavioral responses. The self-perspective evoked stronger hemodynamic responses in brain regions involved in coding the motivational-affective dimensions of pain, including bilateral insular cortices, anterior cingulate cortex, the amygdala, and various structures involved in motor preparation.
The pediatric brain undergoes dramatic changes and significant pruning of neural networks throughout development. Whereby the areas for primary senses and motor skills are mostly developed by age 4, other areas, like the frontal cortices involved in higher level reasoning, decision-making, emotion, and impulsivity continue to develop well into the late teens to early 20s. Therefore, the patient's age and brain developmental state influence what neuronal systems become most affected post-injury. Key structural features of the pediatric brain make the brain tissue more susceptible to the mechanical injury during TBI than the adult brain: a larger water content in the brain tissue and reduced myelination results in diminished shear resistance after injury.
Various areas of the prefrontal cortex have been implicated in a multitude of critical functions regarding speech production, language comprehension, and response planning before speaking. Cognitive neuroscience has shown that the left ventrolateral prefrontal cortex is vital in the processing of words and sentences. The right prefrontal cortex has been found to be responsible for coordinating the retrieval of explicit memory for use in speech, whereas the deactivation of the left is responsible for mediating implicit memory retrieval to be used in verb generation. Impaired recollection of nouns (explicit memory) is impaired in some amnesic patients with damaged left prefrontal cortices, but verb generation remains intact because of its reliance on left prefrontal deactivation.
A study, "The cerebral cortex of Albert Einstein: a description and preliminary analysis of unpublished photographs", was published on November 16, 2012, in the journal Brain. Dean Falk, an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University, led the study - which analyzed 14 recently discovered photographs - and described the brain: "Although the overall size and asymmetrical shape of Einstein's brain were normal, the prefrontal, somatosensory, primary motor, parietal, temporal and occipital cortices were extraordinary." There was a fourth ridge (apart from the three normal people have) in Einstein's mid-frontal lobe involved in making plans and working memory. The parietal lobes were markedly asymmetrical and a feature in Einstein's primary motor cortex may have been associated with his musical ability.
This disorder is usually acquired in one of four ways: One cause is benzodiazepine drugs such as; midazolam, flunitrazepam, lorazepam, temazepam, nitrazepam, triazolam, clonazepam, alprazolam, diazepam, and nimetazepam; all of which are known to have powerful amnesic effects. This has also been recorded in non- benzodiazapine sedatives or "z-drugs" which act on the same set of receptors; such as zolpidem (also known as Ambien), eszopiclone (also known as Lunesta), and zopiclone (also known by brand names Imovane and Zimovane). A second cause is a traumatic brain injury in which damage is usually done to the hippocampus or surrounding cortices. It may also be caused by a shocking event or an emotional disorder.
The neuroanatomy of memory is widespread throughout the brain; however, the pathways important to motor memory are separate from the medial temporal lobe pathways associated with declarative memory. As with declarative memory, motor memory is theorized to have two stages: a short-term memory encoding stage, which is fragile and susceptible to damage, and a long-term memory consolidation stage, which is more stable. The memory encoding stage is often referred to as motor learning, and requires an increase in brain activity in motor areas as well as an increase in attention. Brain areas active during motor learning include the motor and somatosensory cortices; however, these areas of activation decrease once the motor skill is learned.
Although the postcranial anatomy of Ichtyolestes is similar to that of Eocene artiodactyls and implies cursoriality, the assessment of bone morphology and microstructure indicate that they, and other Pakicetids, were semi-aquatic like Protocetids. Hypermineralization occurs in all regions of the skeleton; in particular, the long bones and ribs had small or absent marrow cavities due to the thick cortices which developed. Hypermineralization of load-bearing skeletal elements put Ichtyolestes at an increased risk of fractures during prolonged terrestrial loading and this risk increased with velocity, implying that terrestriality was limited. Additionally, the dense skeletons may have allowed bottom-walking or wading in shallow pools as it would counteract buoyancy created by inflated lungs and fur-trapped air.
The auditory N100 is generated by a network of neural populations in the primary and association auditory cortices in the superior temporal gyrus in Heschl's gyrus and planum temporale. It also could be generated in the frontal and motor areas. The area generating it is larger in the right hemisphere than the left. The N100 is preattentive and involved in perception because its amplitude is strongly dependent upon such things as the rise time of the onset of a sound, its loudness, interstimulus interval with other sounds, and the comparative frequency of a sound as its amplitude increases in proportion to how much a sound differs in frequency from a preceding one.
In contrast to the anterior auditory fields, tracing studies reported that the posterior auditory fields (areas CL-CM) project primarily to dorsolateral prefrontal and premotor cortices (although some projections do terminate in the IFG. Cortical recordings and anatomical tracing studies in monkeys further provided evidence that this processing stream flows from the posterior auditory fields to the frontal lobe via a relay station in the intra-parietal sulcus (IPS). This pathway is commonly referred to as the auditory dorsal stream (ADS; Figure 1, bottom left-blue arrows). Comparing the white matter pathways involved in communication in humans and monkeys with diffusion tensor imaging techniques indicates of similar connections of the AVS and ADS in the two species (Monkey, Human).
The study concluded that in Alzheimer's disease, deficits in inferior temporal structures were not the main source of the disease. Rather, atrophy in the entorhinal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus was prominent in the Alzheimer’s inflicted subjects of the study. With respect to semantic dementia, the study concluded that “the middle and inferior temporal gyri [cortices] may play a key role” in semantic memory, and as a result, unfortunately, when these anterior temporal lobe structures are injured, the subject is left with semantic dementia. This information shows how, despite often being grouped in the same category, Alzheimer's disease and semantic dementia are very different diseases, and are characterized by marked differences in the subcortical structures they are associated with.
Speech and music, as well as various modulated noise stimuli have such temporal structure. For these stimuli, cortical responses phase-lock to both the envelope and fine-structure induced by interactions between unresolved harmonics of the sound, thus reflecting the pitch of the sound, and exceeding the typical lower limits of cortical phase-locking to the envelopes of a few 10’s of Hertz. This paradoxical relation between the slow and fast cortical phase-locking to the carrier “fine structure” has been demonstrated both in the auditory and visual cortices. It has also been shown to be amply manifested in measurements of the spectro-temporal receptive fields of the primary auditory cortex giving them unexpectedly fine temporal accuracy and selectivity bordering on a 5-10 ms resolution.
In 2001, Billard proposed a biologically plausible model of human imitation and discussed its applicability in robot teaching. The model was able to learn the principal features of an arm trajectory in a throwing/catching imitation task, was able to generalize across different demonstrations, was able to learn on- line, and its movements were robust to perturbations. Billard continued to explore more biologically inspired connectionist architectures with which to train robots to learn complex arm movements by imitation. She based her artificial neural networks on brain regions such as the visual and motor cortices and incorporated a decision making occurs region as well. This allowed Billard’s model to imitate a teacher just as well as a human subject would imitate in the same task.
DNMT1 inhibitors in animals have been shown to increase the expression of both reelin and GAD67, and both DNMT inhibitors and HDAC inhibitors shown in one study to activate both genes with comparable dose- and time-dependence. As one study shows, S-adenosyl methionine (SAM) concentration in patients' prefrontal cortex is twice as high as in the cortices of non-affected people. SAM, being a methyl group donor necessary for DNMT activity, could further shift epigenetic control of gene expression. Chromosome region 7q22 that harbours the RELN gene is associated with schizophrenia, and the gene itself was associated with the disease in a large study that found the polymorphism rs7341475 to increase the risk of the disease in women, but not in men.
It is important to note that music unfolds over time, thus the "auditory cognitive system must depend to a large degree on mechanisms that allow a stimulus to be maintained on-line to be able to relate one element in a sequence to another that occurs later" (Peretz 2005). Research has shown that working memory mechanisms for pitch information over a short period of time may be different from those involved in speech. In addition to the role that auditory cortices play in working memory for music, neuroimaging and lesion studies prove that frontal cortical areas also play an important role.Gaab N, Gaser C, Zaehle T, J¨ancke L, Schlaug G (2003) Functional anatomy of pitch memory—an fMRI study with sparse temporal sampling.
Motor sequencing has been explored in terms of either the ordering of individual movements, such as finger sequences for key presses, or the coordination of subcomponents of complex multi-joint movements. Implicated in this process are various cortical and sub-cortical regions, including the basal ganglia, the SMA and the pre-SMA, the cerebellum, and the premotor and prefrontal cortices, all involved in the production and learning of motor sequences but without explicit evidence of their specific contributions or interactions amongst one another. In animals, neurophysiological studies have demonstrated an interaction between the frontal cortex and the basal ganglia during the learning of movement sequences. Human neuroimaging studies have also emphasized the contribution of the basal ganglia for well-learned sequences.
Specifically, neurons located along the midline in the vertical limb of the diagonal band of Broca project through the dorsal fornix to all CA fields of the dorsal hippocampus and adjacent subicular cortex. Other fibers from this region project through the stria medullaris to the medial and lateral habenular nuclei, the paratenial and anteromedial nucleus of the thalamus, and through the medial forebrain bundle to the pars posterior of the medial mammillary nucleus. Cells located in the intermediolateral septum also project through the lateral part of the fimbria to all CA fields of the ventral hippocampus and adjacent subicular and entorhinal cortices. These cells also send fibers through the stria medullaris to the lateral habenular nucleus and mediodorsal thalamic nucleus.
UPSIT has been used to detect Alzheimer's (AD). Smell loss can be a very early sign of detecting AD. It has been suggested that AD affects odor identification and odor detection, this shows that AD patients have more trouble performing higher olfactory tasks that involve specific cognitive processes. During a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, blood oxygen level-dependent was found more strongly in control patients than AD patients, who showed a weaker signal. It has also been found through several studies that olfactory function and cognition correlates to the severity of AD. Therefore, UPSIT is a very good clinical test to be able to determine the severity of AD. During AD, a patient's olfactory bulb, amygdala and temporal cortices are affected.
These coordination signals are sent simultaneously to their effectors. In bimanual tasks (tasks involving two hands), it was found that the functional segments of the two hands are tightly synchronized. One of the postulated theories for this functionality is the existence of a higher, "coordinating schema" that calculates the time it needs to perform each individual task and coordinates it using a feedback mechanism. There are several areas of the brain that are found to contribute to temporal coordination of the limbs needed for bimanual tasks, and these areas include the premotor cortex (PMC), the parietal cortex, the mesial motor cortices, more specifically the supplementary motor area (SMA), the cingulate motor cortex (CMC), the primary motor cortex (M1), and the cerebellum.
Dendritic arbor formation for pyramidal neurons in the cortices occurs progressively beginning in late embryonic stages of development and extending well into post-natal periods. Many dendrites of pyramidal neurons in deep layers branch and form connections in layer IV, while some extend to more superficial layers. Pyramidal cell dendrites in layer III branch to form arbors in layer I. Thalamocortical afferents will make synaptic contact with dendrites in layer IV while myriad of other inputs will meet dendrites in layer I. The post-synaptic structure is driven in part by signals from incoming afferent fibers and through life there is plasticity in the synapses. The formation of these arbors is regulated by the strength of local signals during development.
This connectivity pattern is also corroborated by a study that recorded activation from the lateral surface of the auditory cortex and reported of simultaneous non-overlapping activation clusters in the pSTG and mSTG-aSTG while listening to sounds. Downstream to the auditory cortex, anatomical tracing studies in monkeys delineated projections from the anterior associative auditory fields (areas AL-RTL) to ventral prefrontal and premotor cortices in the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) and amygdala. Cortical recording and functional imaging studies in macaque monkeys further elaborated on this processing stream by showing that acoustic information flows from the anterior auditory cortex to the temporal pole (TP) and then to the IFG. This pathway is commonly referred to as the auditory ventral stream (AVS; Figure 1, bottom left-red arrows).
When consumers select less well known products or products that are completely unfamiliar, several areas of the brain are activated to help with the decision making process that are not activated when consumers select more well known products. There is an increased synchronization between the right dorsolateral cortices (associated with consideration of multiple sources of information), there is increased activity in the right orbitofrontal cortex (associated with evaluation of rewards) and there is increased activity in the left inferior frontal cortex (associated with silent vocalization). Activation in these brain structures indicates that the decision between less well known products is difficult in some way. MEG findings also suggest that even repetitive daily shopping that is apparently simple actually relies on very complex neural mechanisms.
The authors recorded the activity of surface- and edge-cells (cells whose receptive fields pointed either to the filled-in surface or to the border between the disk and the ring) in the visual cortices V1 and V2 while the monkey was performing the filling-in task. The activity of surface-cells correlated with the physical stimulus change in both areas V1 and V2, but not with the perceived colour change induced by filling-in. The activity of edge- cells followed the stimulus contrast when the disk colour changed physically; when the colours were constant, the edge signals also decayed, but more slowly. Together, the data was incompatible with the isomorphic filling-in theory, which assumes that colour signals spread from the borders into uniform regions.
Results indicated significantly fewer errors/sequence in the night-sleep group compared to the day wake group. FMRI output for the night-sleep group indicated increased activation in the right primary motor cortex/M1/Prefrontal Gyrus (contra lateral to the hand they were block tapping with), right anterior medial prefrontal lobe, right hippocampus (long-term memory, spatial memory), right ventral striatum (olfactory tubercle, nucleus accumbens), as well as regions of the cerebellum (lobules V1, V11). In the day-wake group, fMRI showed "decreased" signal activation bilaterally in the parietal cortices (integrates multiple modalities), in addition to the left insular cortex (regulation of homeostasis), left temporal pole (most anterior of temporal cortex), and the left inferior fronto-polar cortex. Previous investigations have shown that signal increases indicate brain plasticity.
Researchers interpreted their results of this increase in activity of the anterior cingulate and orbitofrontal cortices to be an indication of an early stage of video game addiction. The World Health Organization has included "gaming disorder" in the 11th edition of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, which was approved by May 2019. It was defined as "a pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour ('digital gaming' or 'video-gaming')", defined by three criteria: the lack of control of playing video games, priority given to video games over other interests, and inability to stop playing video games even after being affected by negative consequences. The addition was contested by the video game industry and several academics, believing that its inclusion was too early and that more studies were needed.
She found that neurons project from areas in the sensory and motor cortices governing the same body part and cluster together in the striatum, forming matrisomes. Graybiel went on to show that matrisomes exist for each body part and were organized into loops connecting the neocortex, a region responsible for cognition, perception and motor control, to the brain stem, a region coordinating movement. Studies of rodents and primates revealed that matrisomes were crucial to habit formation. In later work, Graybiel demonstrated, first in the striatum and later in the infralimbic cortex, that a task-bracket or “chunking” pattern of neuronal activity emerges when a habit is formed, wherein neurons activate when a habitual task is initiated, show little activity during the task, and reactivate when the task is completed.
In vertebrates, the olfactory epithelium consists of a three basic cell types: bipolar olfactory receptor neurons; sustentacular cells, a type of supporting cell; and basal cells, the stem cells that continuously give rise to new olfactory receptor neurons and sustentacular cells. Cells in the olfactory mucosa have been used in clinical trials for adult stem cell therapeutic treatments and successfully harvested for future applications.Eskitis Institute for Cell and Molecular Therapies Type 1 cannabinoid receptors (CB1 receptors) are present in the sustentacular cells of the olfactory mucosa, in the periglomerular cells of the olfactory bulb, and in the anterior olfactory nucleus and olfactory cortices. A study in 2008 in mice has shown, that the level of CB1 expression in various brain regions, including the olfactory nucleus, is modulated by diet-induced obesity.
In the last two decades, significant advances occurred in our understanding of the neural processing of sounds in primates. Initially by recording of neural activity in the auditory cortices of monkeys and later elaborated via histological staining and fMRI scanning studies, 3 auditory fields were identified in the primary auditory cortex, and 9 associative auditory fields were shown to surround them (Figure 1 top left). Anatomical tracing and lesion studies further indicated of a separation between the anterior and posterior auditory fields, with the anterior primary auditory fields (areas R-RT) projecting to the anterior associative auditory fields (areas AL-RTL), and the posterior primary auditory field (area A1) projecting to the posterior associative auditory fields (areas CL-CM). Recently, evidence accumulated that indicates homology between the human and monkey auditory fields.
315: 1860–1862, Pasupathy, A. and Miller, E.K. (2005) Different time courses for learning-related activity in the prefrontal cortex and striatum. Nature, 433:873–876., Freedman, D.J., Riesenhuber, M., Poggio, T., and Miller, E.K (2003) A comparison of primate prefrontal and inferior temporal cortices during visual categorization. Journal of Neuroscience, 23(12):5235–5246. This includes recent discoveries that oscillating "brain waves" may control the timing of shifts of attentionBuschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2009) Serial, covert, shifts of attention during visual search are reflected by the frontal eye fields and correlated with population oscillations. Neuron, 63: 386–396.Buschman, T.J. and Miller, E.K. (2009) Serial, covert, shifts of attention during visual search are reflected by the frontal eye fields and correlated with population oscillations. Neuron, 63: 386–396.
Researchers have looked to discover the differences between brains with superior memory and those with average memory both in structure and capabilities, and whether their capabilities are innate or developed. Some research has found that there are no fundamental differences between brains with superior memory and the average person. Instead many superior memorizers, like those in the World Memory Championships, use mnemonic learning strategies to practice preferential engagement of areas of the brain such as the hippocampus and the medial parietal and retrosplenial cortices which allows them to store and access more information in their working memory. However, other research into the causal factors of superior memory found that such performance could derive from either the practice of mnemonic strategies or in some cases a natural superiority in memory efficiency.
In cats, the ability to disengage visual attention and redirect it to a new location is normally localizable to posterior middle suprasylvian (pMS) cortex, and investigators wanted to determine if, when primary visual cortical areas 17 and 18 are removed at birth, the neural functions of these areas are redistributed across other sections of the visual cortex, such as the pMS. This neural compensation would spare the function of areas 17 and 18 but at a possible cost of reducing the functional capabilities of the compensating cortex. After birth, areas 17 and 18 were lesioned in four cats, and they were then trained on behavioral tasks requiring detection and orienting to a visual or sound (as a negative control) stimulus. Then bilaterial cryoloops were implanted over the pMS and ventral posterior suprasylvian (vPS) cortices.
Broca's area has been previously associated with a variety of processes, including phonological segmentation, syntactic processing, and unification, all of which involve segmenting and linking different types of linguistic information. Although repeating and reading single words does not engage semantic and syntactic processing, it does require an operation linking phonemic sequences with motor gestures. Findings indicate that this linkage is coordinated by Broca's area through reciprocal interactions with temporal and frontal cortices responsible for phonemic and articulatory representations, respectively, including interactions with the motor cortex before the actual act of speech. Based on these unique findings, it has been proposed that Broca's area is not the seat of articulation, but rather is a key node in manipulating and forwarding neural information across large-scale cortical networks responsible for key components of speech production.
Functional neuroimaging research suggests the insula is involved in two types of salience. Interoceptive information processing that links interoception with emotional salience to generate a subjective representation of the body. This involves, first, the anterior insular cortex with the pregenual anterior cingulate cortex (Brodmann area 33) and the anterior and posterior mid- cingulate cortices, and, second, a general salience network concerned with environmental monitoring, response selection, and skeletomotor body orientation that involves all of the insular cortex and the mid-cingulate cortex. An alternative or perhaps complementary proposal is that the right anterior insular regulates the interaction between the salience of the selective attention created to achieve a task (the dorsal attention system) and the salience of arousal created to keep focused upon the relevant part of the environment (ventral attention system).
Given its identity as a potential neural morphogen and its expression in the cerebral and cerebellar cortices from the earliest stages in their development, it is not unreasonable to suggest that this level of DSCAM over-expression may contribute to the pre- and post-natal defects of DS, particularly, the cerebral and cerebellar hypoplasia and the abnormalities of the dendritic tree. Further, a role for DSCAM over-expression in contributing to the defects of cortical lamination seen in DS is supported by the fact that disruptions in other genes expressed by Cajal–Retzius cells, such as Reelin and LIS1, cause severe defects in neuroblast migration and cortical lamination. A study of congenital heart defect (CHD) investigated the polygenic effect of DSCAM with other genes. Under normal physiological conditions, DSCAM and COL6A2 work jointly in the drosophila to mediate cell matrix adhesion.
Electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging studies involving human subjects have been used to describe the neural mechanisms underlying attentional biasing. Most studies have looked for activation at the 'sites' of biasing, such as in the visual or auditory cortices. Early studies employed event-related potentials to reveal that electrical brain responses recorded over left and right visual cortex are enhanced when the subject is instructed to attend to the appropriate (contralateral) side of space. The advent of bloodflow-based neuroimaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) has more recently permitted the demonstration that neural activity in a number of sensory regions, including color-, motion-, and face-responsive regions of visual cortex, is enhanced when subjects are directed to attend to that dimension of a stimulus, suggestive of gain control in sensory neocortex.
People from East Asian and Western cultures were also studied to learn more about cross-cultural differences in understanding both the self and other people. Findings from a 1991 study by Markus and Kitayama presented that people from Eastern cultures view the self in relation to others in their community, while people from Western cultures have a more independent perspective of the self. A 2007 fMRI study observed differences in activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, a brain region highly active during self perception, when Western and Chinese subjects were thinking about themselves versus when they were thinking about their mothers. The results interestingly showed that there was still activity in the ventral medial prefrontal cortices of Chinese subjects even when they thought about their mothers, while activity was only detected in American subjects when they thought about themselves.
At this early stage PCA patients will show brain atrophy more centrally located in the right posterior lobe and occipital gyrus, while AD brain images show the majority of atrophy in the medial temporal cortex. This variation within the images will assist in early diagnosis of PCA; however, as the years go on the images will become increasingly similar, due to the majority of PCA patients also having AD later in life because of continued brain atrophy. A key aspect found through brain imaging of PCA patients is a loss of grey matter (collections of neuronal cell bodies) in the posterior and occipital temporal cortices within the right hemisphere. For some PCA patients, neuroimaging may not result with a clear diagnosis; therefore, careful observation of the patient in relation to PCA symptoms can also assist in the diagnosis of the patient.
Using principal component analysis and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) the main source of early BP was determined to be Area 6 of the precentral gyrus bilaterally, and the main sources of late BP were determined to be Area 4 (also known as the Primary Motor Cortex) and Area 6. The current consensus is that the early BP starts first in the SMA, including pre-SMA and SMA proper, and then approximately 400ms later in the lateral premotor cortices bilaterally prior to the movement onset, and the late BP starts in the M1 and premotor cortex contralaterally. The two factors that most greatly influence the BP are the effect of discreteness and complexity of movement. A study conducted in 1993 compared isolated extensions of the middle finger with simultaneous extensions of the middle and index fingers.
Nitrous oxide, a common anesthetic for humans (especially in dentistry), has also been shown to cause vacuolization in rats' brains, but caused no irreversible lesions. Dextromethorphan, a common antitussive often found in cough medicines, has been shown to cause vacuolization in rats' brains when administered at doses of 75 mg/kg. However, oral administration of dextromethorphan hydrobromide (DXM HBr) to female rats in single doses as high as 120 mg/kg did not result in detectable neurotoxic changes at 4–6 hours or 24–26 hours post-dose (female rats are more sensitive to NMDA antagonist neurotoxicity). The same researchers also found no evidence of neurotoxic changes in retrosplenial or cingulate cortices of male rats orally administered up to 400 mg/(kg day) DXM HBr or female rats orally administered 120 mg/(kg day) DXM HBr, both for 30 days.
Hallucinations are associated with structural and functional abnormalities in primary and secondary sensory cortices. Reduced grey matter in regions of the superior temporal gyrus/middle temporal gyrus, including Broca's area, is associated with auditory hallucinations as a trait, while acute hallucinations are associated with increased activity in the same regions along with the hippocampus, parahippocampus, and the right hemispheric homologue of Broca's area in the inferior frontal gyrus. Grey and white matter abnormalities in visual regions are associated with visual hallucinations in diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, further supporting the notion of dysfunction in sensory regions underlying hallucinations. One proposed model of hallucinations posits that overactivity in sensory regions, which is normally attributed to internal sources via feedforward networks to the inferior frontal gyrus, is interpreted as originating externally due to abnormal connectivity or functionality of the feedforward network.
In a review of the auditory agnosia literature, Phillips and Farmer showed that patients with word deafness are impaired in their ability to discriminate gaps between click sounds as long as 15-50 milliseconds, which is consistent with the duration of phonemes. They also showed that patients with general auditory agnosia are impaired in their ability to discriminate gaps between click sounds as long as 100–300 milliseconds. The authors further showed that word deafness patients liken their auditory experience to hearing foreign language, whereas general auditory agnosia described speech as incomprehensible noise. Based on these findings, and because both word deafness and general auditory agnosia patients were reported to have very similar neuroanatomical damage (bilateral damage to the auditory cortices), the authors concluded that word deafness and general auditory agnosia is the same disorder, but with a different degree of severity.
Along the length of the primary motor and sensory cortices, the areas specializing in different parts of the body are arranged in an orderly manner, although ordered differently than one might expect. The toes are represented at the top of the cerebral hemisphere (or more accurately, "the upper end", since the cortex curls inwards and down at the top), and then as one moves down the hemisphere, progressively higher parts of the body are represented, assuming a body that's faceless and has arms raised. Going further down the cortex, the different areas of the face are represented, in approximately top-to-bottom order, rather than bottom-to- top as before. The homunculus is split in half, with motor and sensory representations for the left side of the body on the right side of the brain, and vice versa.
In the second half of the 19th century, many motifs of the nervous system were identified such as the neuron doctrine and brain localization, which related to the neuron being the basic unit of the nervous system and functional localisation in the brain, respectively. These would become tenets of the fledgling neuroscience and would support further understanding of the visual system. The notion that the cerebral cortex is divided into functionally distinct cortices now known to be responsible for capacities such as touch (somatosensory cortex), movement (motor cortex), and vision (visual cortex), was first proposed by Franz Joseph Gall in 1810. Evidence for functionally distinct areas of the brain (and, specifically, of the cerebral cortex) mounted throughout the 19th century with discoveries by Paul Broca of the language center (1861), and Gustav Fritsch and Edouard Hitzig of the motor cortex (1871).
Notably, Smith noticed that the position of the lunate sulcus was more posterior in human, especially those of European descent, as compared to monkey brains. Based on this observation, he was the first to hypothesize that the caudal shift of the lunate sulcus in Homo sapiens was due to the evolutionary rapid overgrowth of the cerebral cortex that is unique to human neurodevelopment. Smith’s observation that the caudal shift of the lunate sulcus could also be used as a predictor for determining both the evolutionary posterolateral shift of the occipital lobes/V1 and the corresponding expansion of the neighboring parietotemporo- occipital visual association cortices was supported by recent research. However, some scientists today disagree with Smith’s assertion that a lunate sulcus exists in humans, arguing that there is only an Affenspalte which is solely unique to apes.
Described as “a longing for union”, love is a state that is strongly associated with behaviours that are approach-related, linked to happiness, and self-reports of love correlate to affiliation cues such as smiles and gesticulation. In keeping with an association to happiness, love is associated with the stimulants dopamine, norepinephrine and serotonin. Research has shown that parts of the brain activated when viewing pictures of partners of individuals with whom they are in love, as compared to pictures of friends, are the same areas that have been associated in previous studies with positive emotions, opioid-induced euphoria, attention to both the emotional states of partners as well as one's own personal emotional states. Heightened activation was found in the middle insula and the anterior cingulate cortex, as well as deactivation of the posterior cingulate gyrus, the amygdala, and the right prefrontal, parietal, and middle temporal cortices.
This argument, however, was refuted by Bonvicini (1905), who measured the hearing of an auditory agnosia patient with tuning forks, and confirmed intact pure tone perception. Similarly, Barrett's aphasic patient, who was incapable of comprehending speech, had intact hearing thresholds when examined with tuning forks and with a Galton whistle. The most adverse opponent to the model of Wernicke and Lichtheim was Marie (1906), who argued that all aphasic symptoms manifest because of a single lesion to the language reception center, and that other symptoms such as auditory disturbances or paraphasia are expressed because the lesion encompasses also sub-cortical motor or sensory regions. In the following years, increasing number of clinical reports validated the view that the right and left auditory cortices project to a language reception center located in the posterior half of the left STG, and thus established the Wernicke-Lichtheim model.
There may be a connection between the temporoparietal junction and how individuals with autism spectrum disorder's recognition of socially awkward situations may differ from neurotypicals’. Research reported in 2015 from an experiment in which participants, high-functioning adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and neurotypical (NT) controls, were asked to watch socially awkward situations (a complete episode of the sitcom The Office) under an fMRI, which measured their brain activity. Several brain regions implicated in social perceptual and cognitive processes were of interest: "the dorsal, middle and ventral parts of medial prefrontal cortex (DMPFC, MMPFC and VMPFC), right and left temporo-parietal junctions (RTPJ and LTPJ), right superior temporal sulcus (RSTS) and temporal pole, and posterior medial cortices [posterior cingulate, precuneus (PC)]." In general, participants’ activity in several of those brain regions tracked the episode's socially awkward moments to similar extents—the results were evidence of a of group difference : their activity near the RTPJ, spanning into the posterior end of the RSTS, showed notable quantitative differences between the ASD and NT groups (with ASD group showing lower activity).
In more recent research, subcortical regions (those lying below the cerebral cortex such as the putamen and the caudate nucleus), as well as the pre-motor areas (BA 6), have received increased attention. It is now generally assumed that the following structures of the cerebral cortex near the primary and secondary auditory cortices play a fundamental role in speech processing: · Superior temporal gyrus (STG): morphosyntactic processing (anterior section), integration of syntactic and semantic information (posterior section) · Inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, Brodmann area (BA) 45/47): syntactic processing, working memory · Inferior frontal gyrus (IFG, BA 44): syntactic processing, working memory · Middle temporal gyrus (MTG): lexical semantic processing · Angular gyrus (AG): semantic processes (posterior temporal cortex) The left hemisphere is usually dominant in right-handed people, although bilateral activations are not uncommon in the area of syntactic processing. It is now accepted that the right hemisphere plays an important role in the processing of suprasegmental acoustic features like prosody; which is “the rhythmic and melodic variations in speech”. There are two types of prosodic information: emotional prosody (right hemisphere), which is the emotional that the speaker gives to the speech, and linguistic prosody (left hemisphere), the syntactic and thematic structure of the speech.

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