Animal Nervous Systems
Cnidarians and echinoderms have this loose mesh of neurons with no brain.
What is a nerve net?
The embryonic nervous system begins as this hollow structure.
What is the neural tube?
The pons, medulla, and midbrain together form this structure.
What is the brain stem?
This is the largest part of the human brain, organized into left and right hemispheres.
What is the cerebrum?
The primary visual cortex is found in this lobe.
What is the occipital lobe?
In sea stars, this structure surrounds the centrally located mouth.
What is the nerve ring?
The anterior end of the neural tube develops into this, while the rest becomes the spinal cord.
What is the brain?
This hindbrain structure controls vital involuntary tasks such as respiration and blood circulation.
What is the medulla oblongata?
This thick bundle of axons connects the two cerebral hemispheres.
What is the corpus callosum?
This area coordinates the lips, tongue, and jaws to produce the sounds of speech.
What is Broca's area?
This group of mollusks has the most pronounced cephalization of any invertebrate group.
What are cephalopods?
Early in development, the anterior neural tube enlarges into these three regions.
What are the hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain?
This outgrowth of the pons fine-tunes movements to keep the body in balance.
What is the cerebellum?
This structure receives sensory input and relays it to regions of the cerebral cortex.
What is the thalamus?
This limbic structure routes information about experiences that have an emotional component.
What is the amygdala?
In flatworms, the small brain is made of a pair of these clusters of neurons at the anterior end.
What are ganglia?
The cavity of the neural tube becomes these fluid-filled spaces in the brain.
What are ventricles?
This network runs from the spinal cord to the thalamus, and its ascending part controls the sleep-wake cycle.
What is the reticular formation (reticular activating system)?
This nucleus of the hypothalamus is the main generator of the biological clock.
What is the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN)?
This part of the frontal lobe is key for planning, decision making, creativity, and personality traits.
What is the prefrontal association cortex?
In insects, this structure enlarges into a pair of ganglia in each body segment.
What is the ventral nerve cord?
In the 5-week embryo, the forebrain divides into these two regions.
What are the telencephalon and diencephalon?
This many of the twelve pairs of cranial nerves originate from the brain stem.
What is ten?
These gray-matter centers surround the thalamus and moderate voluntary movement, and damage to them is seen in Parkinson's disease.
What are the basal ganglia?
This process strengthens synaptic connections after brief periods of repeated stimulation and underlies memory storage.
What is long-term potentiation?