Lecture notes Brain And Behaviour I

Brain and Behaviour session 3: the Human Nervous System

 The brain of a psychopath
 Raine – studied the minds of psychopaths- less activity in prefrontal cortex and more
activity in the amygdala and occipital cortex
 Neurons – brain is made up of nerves cells-all different shapes and size – organised in
different architecture in cerebral cortex (87 billion neurons)
 Glial cells – support cells – astrocytes – helps with the reuptake of neurotransmitters
and increase blood flow in the brain – oligodendrocytes – produce myelin –
microglial cells – eat up dead cells to keep brain healthy (3 times more glial cells than
neurons)
 Central and peripheral nervous system - central is the brain and spinal cord
peripheral is all outside of the brain and spinal cord – autonomic nervous system:
sympathetic nervous system gets the body ready for action parasympathetic slows
the body down
 Grey matter and white matter – grey matter is where the neurons are and white
matter is where axons are found
 The lobes of the cerebrum: brain is composed of four lobes (four areas of the skull
not fused in early years of human life)
 Frontal lobe
 Parietal lobe
 Temporal lobe
 Occipital lobe
 Anatomical terminology: anterior front/posterior back/superior-dorsal
above/inferior-ventral below
 Gyri and sulci – the brain is folded making it more complex increasing surface area
(some primates have smooth brains) – only the outer surface (cerebral cortex) – gyri
are the hills and sulci are the valleys – central sulcus divided the precentral gyrus
(frontal lobe) and the postcentral gyrus (parietal lobe) – sylvian fissure divides the
temporal lobe from the frontal and parietal lobe
 Lateral surface of the brain – superior middle and inferior areas of the lobe – orbital
gyri is where the eye sockets are
 Ventral surface of the human brain – brain stem, temporal lobes and olfactory bulbs
 Can cut the brain in a sagittal way (splitting of hemispheres), a coronal (frontal) way
(separate anterior from posterior) and a horizontal (axial) way (superior from
inferior)
 Medial surface of the brain – the middle of the brain – corpus callosum – white
matter tract which connects the two hemisphere (serial killers have an imbalance
here where the corpus callosum is under-developed/ split brain condition occurs in
epilepsy patients who have had corpus callosum is severed to stop spread) singular
gyrus embodies the corpus callosum – the calcarine sulcus shows the location of the
primary vision region
 Basal ganglia and amygdala – outer surface of the brain contains most neurons and
higher cognitive functions occur in the cerebral cortex – basal ganglia- hidden in the
brain and are affected in Tourette’s, Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases- related
to control in movement (difficulty in making movement or having an uncontrollable