RNSG 1363 Week 3 – Neuroscience Study Guide Graded A 2025

Week 3 – Neuroscience The chief function of the body carries the brain around. -Edison What is neuroscience? • Scientific way of studying how the nervous system works • How the nervous system carry out is its function • Nervous system: consists of 2 main systems o CNS: Central nervous system brain and spinal cord ▪ Integrates sensory information to make a decision. o PNS: Peripheral nervous system rest of the nerves that are connected to the brain orspinal cord branch through the o body. ▪ Nerves that initially detect external signals. • Integration/Association: o Detect information from the environment o Receive information to o Visual system, factory system. o Generate response according to input: MOTOR RESPONS • Thoughts, perceptions, behaviors, and CONSCIOUSNESS. • Sensory organs: o Eye: Visual o Ear: Sound o Skin: Haptic, touch o Noise: smell o Tongue: taste • PNS and CNS exchange information to keep the process going o Afferent (sensory) nerves: From sensory organs to CNS o Efferent (motor) nerves: From CNS to sensory organs lOMoAR cPSD| pg. 2 • Autonomic nervous system (ANS): bizim farkında olmadığımız, bilinçli olarak control etmediğimiz o Part of peripheral nervous system. o Regulates body’s internal environment. o Composed of afferent and efferent nerves. o Ex: ▪ Size change in blood vessels ▪ Body temperature ▪ Metabolism ▪ Heart and breathing rates • Somatic nervous system (SNS): Control voluntary muscle o Part of the peripheral nervous system. o Specifically uses acetylcholine: one of nerve transmitter. o Ex: walking The main goal of neuroscience: • Understanding relation between the operation of mind and brain neurophysiology. o Operation of mind: ▪ Perception ▪ Consciousness ▪ Language ▪ Attention o Brain neurophysiology: ▪ One single neuron ▪ Cell level explanations Other goals: • Understanding mechanism o How brain and nervous system carries out all function ▪ Sensory processing ▪ Cognition ▪ Motor functions • To develop treatments, understand what failures in those mechanisms lead to particulardisorders of the brain • Develop treatments for those disorders to restore function. 3 main goals: Relation between brain and mind Understand failures to fix the function lOMoAR cPSD| pg. 3 Important question: How does conscious thought arise from the little electrical signaling that occurs between neurons? o No simple answer o Brain is complex History of brain: Hippocrates describe epilepsy as a disease of the brain, 430 B.C. o Before, it was considered as disease of the spirit. Claudius Galen: 177 A.D. o People thought it was the heart that controlling body o Experiments on pig by cutting different places of spinal cord o They realized brain is controlling Al-Hasan/Ibn al-Haytham: 1021 A.D. o Learning to truth: critical thinking; be suspicious of readings o Worked on vision o Experiments: light from objects travels in a straight line into our eyes o Light coming to eye is projected into opposite wall o He realized light coming to eye was only the beginning of process. o Color of object depends on color of surrounding. Mansur’s Anatomy: 1390 A.D. o first written anatomy textbook The Renaissance: o Leonardo da Vinci: 1508 ▪ Drawing of brain o Berengario da Carpi: 1523 ▪ More detailed than Da Vinci o Andreas Vesalius: 1543 ▪ Finalized drawing ▪ More details, includes spinal cord There was a need of proper measurement. 1609: invention of microscope o Ability of look more in-depth brain tissue 1791: Luigi Galvani: o Studied frogs o Observed nerve conduction: sinir iletimi o Animal electricity o There is actually electricity going on in body Paul Broca:1861,Paris o Leborgne and Lelong lOMoAR cPSD| pg. 4 Paul Broca: experiment Two different brains, similar disorders. Discovered that damage on left hemisphere makes it very difficult to a person to speak.That specific region is called nBrocae broca area. Founder of neuropsychology. Wernicke’s area: 1874 Left temporal lobe Damage back of the head makes it difficultfor a person to understand the speech. Functionality of this area: o 1 o 2 o 3 Differences between Broca and Wernicke: The language region is mainlythe on left hemisphere of the brain. Broca: o Left frontal lobe damage: o difficultyty in speaking/ producing speech o they can understand multiple choice question Wernicke: o Posterior part of left cerebral hemisphere: temporal region o difficult in understanding speech. o They can’t understand what they read Broca’s aphasia: can’t talk but understand as fuck Tono: o Language deficient Wernicke’s aphasia: inability to understand language Making proper sentences but making no sense Random words get together. lOMoAR cPSD| pg. 5 Reticular Theory: understanding neurons 1873: Camillo Golgi Invented black reaction Silver nitrate allowed him to see the neurons He thought he saw these individual cell structures, but they were wrinkled together, they are not working individually. Neurons are not the distiunitsunit but fuser Neurol Doctrine: understanding neurons 1889: Ramon Cajal Golgi found the technique, What Cajal did: used the same technique but used silver nitrate in discrete time which prevented neurons to become a mash and improved the visual quality. Realized neurons are discrete cells. Golgi and Cajal shared the novel prize. Today neurol doctrine is the theory that explains neurons’ structure. lOMoAR cPSD| pg. 6 85-100 billion neurons and more connectionsHow much of our brain do we use? %100: because brain is always active even in sleep Do more wrinkles mean smarter: NO These wrinkles are for to fit all these neurons to fit in the brain. Neuroscience of Intelligence: Brain and intelligence: • Left vs right o No clear distinction o Might be a correlation • Brain size? o Bigger is better? o There is a correlation between brain size and intelligence o Brain to body ratio between humans and mice: same o Einstein had an average size of brain • Number of connections? o Grey and white matter Correlation between grey, white matter in the brain and intelligence: • Grey matter: o have neuron cell body, volume, the pinkish color of the brain • white matter: more white matter, more connections may lead to more intelligence o Have axons. • Signal transfers are happening through the axons, having more white matter can mean moreconnections in brain. • This may correlate with intelligence. lOMoAR cPSD| pg. 7 Structure and function of the neuron: • Dendrites input o Tree-likeke structures, connected to multiple neurons • Axon o consist of the myelin sheath ▪ speeds up the signal speed • Axon terminals release information to another neuron. • Release information through synapses to other neurons. Myelinated neuron cell is faster Two different types of synapses: Electrical synapse: • No physical gap Chemical synapse: we will more talk about this • Communication with changes in chemicals o Change in sodium and potassium • Physical gap called synaptic cliff • We have a lot more of this • Synaptic vesicle There are two ways neurons can communicate: • Sending electrical signals • Change in chemicals In resting state: • More K+ in intracellular space • More NA+ and Cl- in extracellular space Action potential: • Electric signal traveling down the axon • Like Mexican wage: nothing physically carried.