schema activator silently read the story of phineas gage. in your journals respond to the following...
TRANSCRIPT
Schema Activator
• Silently read the story of Phineas Gage. In your journals respond to the following question:
What can neuroscientists learn about the brain from this incident?
The Brainstem
• Medulla: – Controls heartbeat and breathing
• Pons:– Coordinates movements
• Crossover point:– Nerves connect right brain to left body and left
brain to right body
Parts of the Old Brain• Thalamus:– Receives info from all senses
except smell– Forwards messages to parts
of the brain that deal with each sense
• Reticular Formation:– Filter for sensory messages
traveling from spinal cord to thalamus
– Enables arousal (cat example)Ex. Sleeping cat with reticular formation stimulated = awake. Cut off connection of reticular formation to rest of brain = coma.
Parts of the Old Brain
• Cerebellum– The “little brain”– Judges time, discriminates sounds, textures, and
controls emotions– Coordinates voluntary movement– Process and stores memories we cannot
consciously recall
Critical Thinking
• All of the functioning in the brainstem or “old brain” occurs without our awareness. Which of the 4 big ideas of psychology does this relate to? Why?
Limbic System• Amygdala– Aggression and fear
• Hypothalamus– Hunger, thirst, body
temperature, sexual behavior– Provides pleasurable rewards
• Hippocampus– Processes conscious memories
Motor Cortex
• Located at back of frontal lobe• Controls all physical movements• Outputs information about movement
• Critical thinking:– What happens when an electrode stimulates the
motor cortex?
• Future of robots?
Sensory Cortex
• Runs parallel to motor cortex, in the front of the parietal lobe
• Processes sensory information• More sensitive areas have higher brain mass
• Critical Thinking:– What happens when an electrode stimulates the
sensory cortex?
Visual and Auditory Cortex
• Visual– In occipital cortex– Just gets information and sends to other places for
processing• Auditory– In temporal cortex
• Critical Thinking:– If a schizophrenic person is having a hallucination,
what would the brain look like?
Association Areas
• What does the rest of the brain do?– Higher level mental functions: judgment, planning,
processing• Association areas are found in all four lobes• Difficult to be mapped because does not have
a specific function
Can we read minds with science?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jc8URRxPIg