runs up and down your back and is protected by the vertibrae in your back
if you damage your spinal chord, you are cutting your body off from the brain (in a sense)
brain modulation (the brain becoming involved)
the brain can inhibit the spinal ark
Quadriplegics - has 4 limbs that are inoperable
the has been damage, very high in the spinal chord
- A male can achieve an erection and ejaculation
There would be no control though because of the brain modulation
- He would have no feeling and no sensation - would not be aware of when he climaxed
- Mind would still become excited, and body would react, only no sensations
Paraplegics - has had damage in lover spinal chord (so only legs are effected)
The Brain
- the brain is app. 3 pounds, pinkish in tone, feels like jello.
Hind brain
contains basic functions an organism needs to live
Medulla - magority of the nerves that go up through the nerve - controls one for your breathing and one for your heart
Pons - just above the Medulla it forms a number of functions - relay station up and around other sections of the brain, controls motor movement - especially those associated with the jaw and the face
Cerebellum - Relay station, helps with smooth and coordinated motor movements.
Those that have damaged this part are consistently clumsy.
- First aspect of the brain when alcohol first effects
Also gages movement and time cordination
MidBrain
Reticular Formation
reticular formation - dense network of cells, involved in attention, sleep, waking and arousal
ex. when alarm clock rings, making you conscious
comatose - they do not have any of those signals going to the brain, there is nothing there to alert them or make them conscious again
narcolepsy - inappropriate sleep during waking hours, when you dont want to - none to very little control.
Limbic system
Hypothalamus system - controls the pituitary gland
sexual behavior, reproductive cycle, aggression, along with eating, drinking and regulating your body tempature
Pituitary gland - controls sexual development, sexual behavior, releasing hormones when puberty hits
Amygdala - almond shaped tissue - responsible for different types of emotion, fear response, rage and aggression (Also known as the seed of emotion)
Hippocampus - involved in short term memory and memory foundation, people can not form new memories if this is damaged
Forebrain
Basic Gangalia - related to Parkinson disease and Huntingtons chorea
Chorea means losing control of limbs, become hostile, speak is uncontrolled
Cerebal Cortex - seperates us from lower species of animals - human beings have the most highly developed cerebal cortex on earth
- Contains millions and millions of neurons, doing all higher levels functions of speach and mathmatics
Frontal Lobe
if part of your frontal lobe is damaged lack the ability to order events in time
ex. when was your exam, or which summer was your vacation
Involved in mathematics, especially math involved in abstract thoughts
Language - difficult to put a full sentence together, understands what others say
You can go from being a soft spoken person to a rough person. If frontal lobe is damaged, your IQ is not affected, nor would your cognitive functions or vision.
Lack empathy and unable to feel concern and obligation
Do not know when to stop, - can carry jokes or sexual inuendo to far.
Lack social awareness, unaware of being rude or offensive
Temporal Lobe
Involved in hearing and stores your personal information
Involved in language - If damanged a person can appear to speak in fluid language that appears to make sense, though if you look closer it is meaningless
Occipital lobe - visual cortex is here, recieves signals from the eye can recognize visual forms
Pariatal Lobe - handles touch recognizng objects by touch. if damanged - wouldnt be able to recognize things by tough
Aphasia - loss of the ability to speak or understand spoken language, depending on the extent of damage
Agnosia - The inability to recognize through a paticular sensory channel
- not being able to recognize by touch or feeling, can do high leve of abstract math but cna not to simple addition
Apraxia - simple motor deficits complex moments like playing piano are doable, though simple movements like picking something up are difficult.
Alexia - general term for reading problems pure alexia may result in loss of the ability to recognize written word, but still be able to write it.
Agraphia - writing disablitly, can speak and reading though can not rewrite it
Split Brain
- Corpus Callosum - thick band of tissue that connects the left and right hempisheres of the brain together, transfers information back and forth
-Anterior Commissure - nerve pathways that send information.
the left hemisphere controls the left side of the body, right hemisphere controls the left
left side - right side of body, right hand, mathematics, language, logic science, writing
right side - left side of body, left hand, fantasy, music, art, dance perception, sculpture, sport automation, simple language
- both sides must work together to make a function
85% of the population is right handed, most of that percent uses their left hemisphere dominantly
92 - 93% have left hemisphere dominance
tachistoscope is a machine that presents stimulation to the eye so fast it can not move and directs and image into one side of the brain or the other.
left hemisphere communicates, right hemisphere needs non-verbal action
-ipsilateral pathways - left side of body to left hemisphere, right side to right hemisphere
Recent Developments
right - they call the minor hemisphere
left - major hemisphere
others consider you should measure the brian as a whole, and not in major and minor
You can read music notes through right side, though understand them through your left side.
