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Brain
Braintastic!
A Stiles Original Production
Brain Imaging Techniques
• PET Scan-reflects
blood flow; chemical
activity.
• MRI-unsurpassed in
anatomical detail
• fMRI-combines
strategies
• CT Scan- x-ray, shows
structure, not function.
• Angiography
• EEG-brain waves
Lobes
and I don’t mean ear lobes
• Frontal lobes: reasoning,
personality, emotions, and
motor behaviors.
• Parietal lobes: perception
and sensory experiences.
• Occipital lobes: processes
visual information
• Temporal lobes: is
involved with hearing and
speaking.
Frontal Lobe
The frontal lobe can be kind of confusing because it has
such a wide range of functions (motor movements to
cognitive process)
Phineas Gage’s Skull
Frontal Lobotomy: 1936- Egas Moniz (Portugal) Removed about a
1/3 of the frontal lobe. This surgical procedure ended in the 1950’s
because of mixed results and antipsychotic drugs.
Would you like to meet
Phineas Gage?
The MOTOR CORTEX (Frontal Lobe)
The body’s parts (muscles) are
individually controlled by the
MOTOR CORTEX
Motor Homunculus
This bizarre drawing uses sizes of body
parts to show the ability to perform
complex movements. (The larger the
space on the “MC” the body part
occupies the more complex movement it
will be able to make)
The right motor cortex controls muscles on
the left side of the brain and vice versa.
PARIETAL LOBE:
This model shows what
a man's body would
look like if each part
grew in proportion to
the area of the cortex
of the brain concerned
with its sensory
perception.
Processes sensory info. (pressure, touch, pain)
Touch, location of limbs, spatial coordination
The sensory
cortex is a narrow
strip located on
the front edge of
the parietal lobe.
Notice the size of
the lips. Body
parts that occupy
more space on the
SC are more
sensitive to
external
stimulation.
Temporal Lobe: involved in hearing, speaking coherently, and
understanding verbal and written material.
Primary auditory cortex
Auditory Association Area
The Primary Auditory
Cortex (top edge) receives
electrical signals from
receptors in the ears.
Auditory Association Area.
Further processing—makes
sense out of sensations.
Damage to Wernicke’s area results in
aphasia, which is a difficulty in
understanding spoken or written words
and a difficulty in putting words into
meaningful sentences.
Wernicke’s Area (left
temporal lobe) is necessary
for speaking in coherent
sentences and for
understanding speech.
If you have ever been hit on the back if the head and saw “Stars”, you
already know that vision is located in the OCCIPITAL LOBE.
Primary visual cortex
Visual Association Area
In visual agnosia, the individual fails to
recognize some object, person, or color, yet
has the ability to see and even describe pieces
of parts of some visual stimulus
Neglect Syndrome
Corpus
Callosum
Connects
hemispheres
limbic system
Emotional link
Thalamus
Relay sensory
information
Pituitary Gland
Secretes hormonesgrowth
Hypothalamus
Controls body
Metabolism
Regulates
Drives
Maintenance
Duties
Connects the brainstem to the forebrain. The
midbrain is responsible for controlling
sensory processes.
Survival Functions
The hindbrain functions collectively to coordinate motor activity, posture, equilibrium
and sleep patterns and regulate unconscious
but essential functions, such as breathing and
blood circulation.
Anencephaly: Born with little or no brain tissue.
Always Fatal.
Survival is limited to days. The
longest a baby has survived with
anencephaly is 2 months.
Joseph Loren, 1999
One reason babies can survive for a
short while with virtually no
Forebrain is because they may have
parts of their hindbrain. (Pons,
Medulla) Medulla controls vital
reflexes.
It is the functions of the forebrain that
define us as human and distinguish us
from other creatures.