A condition that can occur in people that have experienced a shocking, scary, or violent event. It impacts the amygdala.
What is PTSD?
These animals can detect cancer, Covid19, and a host of other medical conditions using their olfactory senses. Scientists are trying to replicate this ability using computers and machinery, but they don't fully understand how olfactory systems work.
What are dogs?
The opening in the center of the iris that allows light to pass into our eyes.
What are pupils?
Nerve cells that pass electrical chemical signals throughout the nervous system.
What is a neuron?
The largest structure of the brain. Its prominent outer portion, the cerebral cortex, not only processes sensory and motor information but enables consciousness, our ability to consider ourselves and the outside world. It is divided into two hemispheres, each hemisphere can be divided into four lobes: the frontal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe, and parietal lobe.
What is the cerebrum?
A learning disability which impacts reading because of problems with understanding speech sounds, decoding, word recognition and spelling. It affect Broca's area of the cerebrum.
What is dyslexia?
The category of savory flavors corresponding to amino acids like glutamates. It's associated with meats, mushrooms, broths, cured, smoked, and fermented foods.
What is umami?
The colored sphincter, or ring of muscles, that controls how much light can pass into the eye.
What is the iris?
The bundle of nerve tissues that runs through the middle of your vertebrae, connecting your brain to your peripheral nervous system.
What is the spinal cord?
The second largest part of the brain. It sits below the posterior (occipital) lobes of the cerebrum and behind the brain stem. Its primary function is to maintain posture and balance.
The most common form of dementia. It involves memory loss, loss of language, and other cognitive functions. It impacts the hippocampus.
What is Alzheimer's?
Medical devices surgically attached to some people who are deaf or severely hard of hearing. They use microphones and processors to send electrical signals to the brain. Despite their relative simplicity compared to the complex anatomy of our ears and auditory nervous system patients with these devices can adapt to hear voices and sounds that help them navigate their environment. However some deaf people prefer to communicate through sign language.
What are cochlear implants?
The transparent biconvex structure that focuses light onto the retina. Unlike in a camera where this structure must be moved closer and farther to focus, in humans this structure can change shape through a series of tiny muscles.
What is the lens?
The rest of the nervous system outside the brain and spinal cord. These nerves carry signals to and from sensory organs, muscles, and organs.
What is the peripheral nervous system?
It controls involuntary functions and connects the spinal cord to the higher-thinking centers of the brain. It consists of three structures: the medulla oblongata, the pons, and the midbrain.
The pons helps control breathing rhythms. The medulla handles respiration, digestion, and circulation, and reflexes such as swallowing, coughing, and sneezing. The midbrain contributes to motor control, vision, and hearing, as well as vision- and hearing-related reflexes.
What is the brain stem?
A mental health condition where people experience depressive and manic episodes. It impacts the hypothalamus.
What is Bipolar 1?
The active compound in chili peppers. Spicy is not a flavor sensed by our taste buds, but a heat and pain response to this chemical irritant and neurotoxin.
What is capsaicin?
The cells in the retina that are receptive to color and help us to see detail. Most people have three distinct types of these, each sensitive to different spectrums of light. Some people have two and experience "colorblindness", and some rare people are born with four distinct types.
What are cones?
This controls the involuntary processes of the body, including breathing, heartbeat, and digestion. It is made up of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic controls the "fight, flight, freeze" responses. The parasympathetic is responsible for "rest and digest"
What is the autonomic nervous system?
It determines which signals require conscious awareness, and which should be available for learning and memory.
"The sorting station"
What is the Thalamus?
Somnambulism.
What is sleepwalking?
The sense of where your body is in space.
What is proprioception?
A condition when the eyeball is shaped such that light does not focus on the retina. This condition can be corrected through the use of glasses, contact lenses, or surgery.
It is also used metaphorically to describe shortsightedness in planning.
What is myopia?
The connection point where two neurons meet. Neurotransmitters jump a tiny gap between dendrites of neurons. Neural pathways in the brain are formed by chains of these connections between neurons.
What are synapses?
It helps to process sensory impulses of smell, taste, and vision. It manages emotions such as pain and pleasure, aggression and amusement. The visceral control center, regulating the endocrine system and internal functions that sustain the body day to day. It signals sleep cycles and other circadian rhythms, regulates food consumption, and monitors and adjusts body chemistry and temperature.
What is the hypothalamus?