Cognitive Neuroscience

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Fascicles

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Groupings in which muscle fibers are arranged in

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Myofibrils

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Constituents of muscle fibers

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Sarcomeres

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Constituents of myofibrils of muscles , attached end to end

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Muscle spindles

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Sense length and prevent overstretching

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Golgi tendon organs

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Sense tension, prevent excessive tension

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Slow-twitch fibers

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(Type 1) muscle fibers specialized for endurance

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Fast-twitch fibers

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(Type 2) muscle fibers specialized for speed and power

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Neuromuscular junction and its process

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Where endplates of muscle fibers are contacted by motor neurons - action potentials in a motor neuron release ACh into synapse and cause a miniature end-plate potential

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Myasthenia gravis

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Blocks ACh at neuromuscular juncture so muscular activation is inhibited

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Rocuronium

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Blocks ACh at neuromuscular juncture

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Botulinum toxin

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Prevents ACh vesicles from fusing with presynaptic membrane (botox), muscular paralysis

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Ventral horn

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In spinal cord, origin of lower motor neurons

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Alpha motor neurons

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Stimulate contractions in skeletal muscle to cause body movements

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Gamma motor neurons

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Maintain tension in muscle spindles

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Motor unit

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Single alpha motor neuron + the muscle fibers it innervates

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Motor pool

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Collection of motor units working together within one muscle.

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Polio

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Affects motor neurons on spinal cord, flaccid paralysis

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West Nile Virus

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Can damage ventral horn or spinal cord, severe long lasting muscle weakness

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Pastellar tendon reflex

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Knee reflex ( a spinal motor reflex)

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Strychnine poisoning

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Loss of inhibitory feedback, causing muscle spasms, death by asphyxiation

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Tetanus

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Loss of inhibitory feedback in muscle systems, lethal effects

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Corticospinal tract

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Fine motor control, upper motor neurons from primary motor cortex can modulate lower motor neurons in spinal cord. They also connect to interneurons to modulate spinal reflexes.

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Motor homunculus

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Somatotopic map in the primary motor cortex

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Premotor cortex

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Guides complex movements ( voluntary eye movements etc)

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Cerebellum (motor control)

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Critical for many forms, including smoothness and accuracy, correction of movements.

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Cognitive affective syndrome

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Damage to cerebellum that leads to variety of impairments of cognitive and and emotional functions

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Basal ganglia (motor function)

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Works with cortex to coordinate movements, initiates and maintains cortical activity. Initiates and maintains cortical activity.

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Cortico-striatal loops

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Loop circuits through the basal ganglia that serve cortical areas. (Direct -excitatory, indirect - inhibitory)

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Huntington's disease

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Genetic disorder - abnormal Huntingtin proteins cause the caudate and putamen to degenerate. Chorea, dementia..

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Parkinsons disease

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Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the substantia nigra. Inhibitory pathway dominates - resting tremor, rigidity, bradykinesia, dementia, cognitive decline

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Lateral motor system

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External stimuli

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Medial motor system

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Internal state and motivation influence

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Change blindness

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Inability to detect differences between two visual scenes

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Inattentional blindness

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Failure to detect an otherwise salient stimulus when our attention is focused elsewhere

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Posner cueing test

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Allows to see spotlight of attention. (Valid- reaction time benefit, invalid - reaction time cost)

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Endogenous attention

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Voluntary attention (top-down), motivated by goals

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Exogenous attention

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Involuntary, (bottom up) attention jumps to unexpected but salient features

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Perceptual rivalry

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Same stimulus can produce more than one type of conscious percept

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Binocular rivalry

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When a completely different image is presented to each eye consciousness flips back and forth

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Brain regions for consciously detected changes

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Ventral temporal cortex and frontoparietal regions (latter is the difference between undetected change regions)

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Masking

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Brief presentation of stimulus, followed by a different stimulus - used to study consciousness

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Hemispatial neglect

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Patient is unable to pay attention to half of the environment. Lesions in right tempoparietal regions, etc. Combined with anosagnosia often. Senses beyond vision, as well as imagination.

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Extinction

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A milder form of hemineglect - stimulus can be detected when presented alone in the neglected field only

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Biased-competition model

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Different sensory inputs will compete with one another to control behavior but competition can be biased by attention (top-down)

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Signal-to-noise ratio

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Magnitude of activity elicited for an attended, preferred stimulus will be higher than the baseline firing rate (more likely to be transmitted to higher order brain areas)

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Attention at single-neuron level caveats

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Sensory stimuli primarily represented by population coding, attention may sculpt patterns of activity

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Neural synchronization

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Attention increases synchronization of neural ensembles- simultaneous firing of neurons in two distinct areas (coordinated activity can lead to APs and neuron responses)

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Cartesian Dualism and caveat

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Body is material, mind non-material. Caveat: functions of mind are linked to brain activity.

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Functionalism

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Mental states defined by functional roles (rather than their hardware)

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Higher-order theory and caveat

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Consciousness arises from lower-order representation of a stimulus, higher-order representation (essential) and a functional link in between. Caveat - higher order areas are hard to define

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Global workspace theory

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Consciousness arises from coordinating the activity of functionally specialized brain areas into an integrated global workspace (frontoparietal areas). Synchronized activity is essential.

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Visuospatial sketchpad

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Memory device for visual images

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Phonological loop

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Memory device for sounds (words, numbers, etc)

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Long term memory division

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Implicit (w/o conscious awareness) and explicit memory (declarative)

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Anterograde amnesia

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Unable to form new memories, except procedural ones (how to perform skills and habits)

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Priming

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Past experience influences a response to a sensory stimulus

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Operant conditioning

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Behavior made more likely by providing a reward (reinforcer) or less likely with punishment

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Habituation

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Repeated exposure leads to decrease in response

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Sensitization

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Response increases following exposure to strong/noxious stimuli

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Explicit memory divisions

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Episodic (experiences) and semantic (facts)

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Severe amnesia

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Retain semantic memory for events and concepts learned prior to injury.

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Alzheimers

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Episodic memory suffers before semantic

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Semantic dementia

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Episodic memory is preserved while basic forms of semantic knowledge are lost

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Place cells

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Fire when animal is in a particular location

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Grid cells

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Fire in multiple places in the animals environment per one grid cell

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Spatial memory brain region

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Hippocampus

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Declarative theory

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Hippocampus is critical for all forms of declarative memory but has a time limited role (eventually memories become independent and are consolidated into MTL cortical areas instead)

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Hippocampus theory

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Multiple trace theory

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Hippocampus acquires semantic and episodic memories but only semantic become independent later (become supported by cortex as result of repeated retrieval and rehearsal)

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Hippocampus theory

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Dual -process theory

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Hippocampus is critical for recollection and medial temporal lobe cortex is critical for assessing familiarity of past event when no recollection

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Hippocampus theory

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Relational theory

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Hippocampus is critical for storing relations between elements of events (can be used flexibly in novel situations).

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Hippocampus theories

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Cognitive map theory

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Hippocampus evolved to create and store spatial maps for navigation, orientation, etc.. system co-opted to create and store episodic memories which are fundamentally spatial

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Prospection

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Episodic memory systems help us to predict future (opposite of recollection)

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Confabulation

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Unintentional production of false or distorted recollections or narratives even in the face of contradictory evidence. Provoked or spontaneous (medial prefrontal cortex damage because it suppresses irrelevant memories)

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Misattribution

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Attributing an idea to a wrong source

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Suggestibility

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False memories can be created by providing a fictitious suggestion about a past experience, then encouraging elaboration via imagination

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Bias

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Ones current knowledge and beliefs can create unconscious distortions in what we recall about the past

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Hebbian learning

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Cells that fire together, wire together (LTP and LTD)

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Long term potentiation (LTP)

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Long lasting increases in synaptic strength that are induced when a presynaptic cell consistently activates along with a post synaptic cell (post synaptic receptors contain NMDA receptors for glutamate)

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Long-term depression (LTD)

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Decreases from pre- and post synaptic cell not consistently activated at the same time

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Dendritic spines

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Tiny protrusions from dendrites which may undergo structural changes w/ experience (new memories?)

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REM sleep

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Similar to wakefulness, fast heart rate and breathing. Twitching muscles, major muscle group paralysis. High frequency brain oscillation

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Non REM sleep

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80% of sleep. Stages 1-3. Slow heart rate and breathing. Stage 3 is slow wave sleep - low frequency and high amplitude

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Sleep paralysis

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Waking up while still being paralyzed from REM sleep, unable to move or speak, can be accompanied by hallucinations

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Ventrolateral pre-optic nucleus

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Promotes sleep when active, inhibits arousal network

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Arousal network

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Promotes wakefulness and alertness, inhibits the VLPO

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Atonia

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Paralysis of major muscles

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Pontogeniculo-occipital waves

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Originate in the pons, move to LGN and to occipital cortex and cause dreaming

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Suprachiasmic nucleus

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Primary pacemakers for circadian rhythm. Sends signals to pineal gland which produces melatonin.

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Entrainment

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Synchronization of internal rhythm to external one

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Zeitgebers

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External environmental cues, help align the circadian rhythm with 24 hour cycle

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4 Sleep theories and caveats

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1. Restoration. Caveat - brain is still active

2. Survival advantage. Caveat - could have evolved night vision instead

3. Simulating rare situations. Caveat - people in high crime areas dont have more threat dreams

4. Processing info - learning and memory, consolidation

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Microsleeps

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Brief sleep periods associated with sleep deprivation.

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Fatal familial insomnia

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Genetic disorder, individuals lose ability to sleep leading to dementia, anxiety, hallucinations and death

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Hypersomnia

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Excessive chronic sleepiness

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Narcolepsy

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Characterized by hypersomnia and cataplexy (transient, sudden muscle weakening often leading to collapse), no NREM before REM.

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Parasomnias

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Involuntary actions performed during sleep

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NREM parasomnias

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Brain tries to move from SWS to wake but gets caught in between

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Somnabulism

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Sleep walking during NREM

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REM parasomnias

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Muscle atonia that usually accompanies REM is absent - REM sleep behavior disorder

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Phonemes

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Sequences that comprise words

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Aphasia

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Impairment or loss of language skills caused usually by damage to left hemisphere

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Broca's aphasia

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Loss of the ability to produce language. Damage to inferior frontal gyrus. Agrammatical speech, anomia (word finding difficulty)

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Wernickes aphasia

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Loss of the ability to comprehend language, with preserved ability to produce fluent but meaningless speech. Damage to left superior temporal gyrus. Word salad, neologisms (invented words), paraphasia (substituting incorrect word for a correct word). Understand prosody (intonations etc)

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Wernicke-Gerschwind Model

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Input from A1 and V1 > Wernickes area >arcuate fasciculus > Brocas area >motor cortex

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Conduction aphasia

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Impaired ability to repeat words. Damaged arcuate fasciculus

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Global aphasia

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All aspects of language are impaired.

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Apraxia

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Difficulty performing skilled movements when asked to do so

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Amusia

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Inability to understand music and to recognize musical tones and reproduce them (damage to right hemisphere)

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Hemispherectomies

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Removing an entire hemisphere surgically

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Collosotomy

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Removal of corpus callosum which connects the hemisphere. Split brain patients experience two brains, with each learning and performing independently and simultaneously

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Universal grammar

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Noam Chomsky suggested infants are born with innate set of grammatical rules