Brain Basics and Senses & Perception
Name 3 parts of the limbic system.
hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus, hypothalamus, etc.
What is the term for muscles that bend a joint, bringing bones closer together?
flexor
What are the two types of declarative memory?
semantic and episodic
What area of the frontal lobe is responsible for speech production?
Broca's area
What three steps constitute the journey of nerve cells?
formation and induction, proliferation, migration
What does the suprachiasmatic nucleus control?
circadian rhythm
The death of what type of neurons causes amyotrophic lateral sclerosis?
motor neurons
What do we call the ability of synapses to remodel themselves?
synaptic plasticity
What disorder is characterized by difficulty in comprehending speech due to damage in the left temporal lobe?
Wernicke's aphasia, or fluent aphasia
What are progenitor cells?
special cells that can divide and become a variety of mature cell types ("descendants" of stem cells)
The death of the Basal Ganglia leads to what disease?
Parkinson's disease
Huntington's Diseases's symptoms which include uncontrolled jerking or twitching movements, stem from a selective loss of inhibitory neurons in which brain region?
basal ganglia
What are the two processes that are key to synaptic plasticity?
long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD)
What three core skills make up executive function?
inhibition, working memory, and shifting
In what region of the hippocampus are new neurons formed throughout life?
dentate gyrus
Neuroscience research indicates that human brains continue to develop until how many years old?
30
A physician striking the tendon just below the knee with a small rubber hammer causes a slight stretch of which muscle?
knee extensor muscle
What is a possible reason for changes in emotionally centered decisionmaking as age increases?
the lateral prefrontal cortex, responsible for self-regulation, matures gradually in adolescents
What two areas of the brain does working memory depend on?
the pre-frontal cortex and parietal lobe
What is saltatory conduction?
the fast movement of electrical signals due to an alternating pattern of insulation (myelin) and nodes of Ranvier along an axon
What are the three layers of the embryo?
endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm
An alpha motor neuron plus all the muscle fibers it controls form a functional unit known as what?
a motor unit
What two parts of the brain does the mesolimbic pathway, sometimes called the “reward pathway” because it is a major pathway for dopamine, connect?
the midbrain’s ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the nucleus accumbens
Mutations in what gene result in difficulty making mouth and jaw movements in the sequences required for speech, and difficulty with spoken and written language?
FOXP2
What supporting cells are crucial to the process of synaptic pruning?
astrocytes and glial cells