1. Unit 3
Neuroscience

2. Bellringer Pick up your handouts.
Review your reading notes with your partner.
Reading quiz will be on pages 69-83
Think about
EEG scans, MRI scans, Limbic System, Lobes of the brain, the functions of Broca’s and Wernikes areas, and brain part vocabulary.

3. Agenda
1. Brain Review (5) 2. The Cerebral Cortex and Divided Brain Notes (20) 3. Wagner Preference Inventory (20) 4. What does it mean to be ambidextrous? (5) 5. Living with one half of a brain (10)

4. The Brain’s Plasticity
The brain is sculpted by our genes but also by our experiences.
Plasticity refers to the brain’s ability to modify itself after some type of injury or illness.
Example: a blind person who reads Braille will have an expansion to the parietal lobe that controls the touch of the finger
Phantom Body Parts – a man has his hand amputated so brain area that controls that area are also near the face. When the man’s face is stroked, he will have a sensation in his missing hand due to its closeness in the brain.
OBJECTIVE 18| Discuss brain’s plasticity following injury or illness.

5. http://www. youtube. com/watch
–Split Brain Video
Plasticity:

6. Our Divided Brain Our brain is divided into two hemispheres.
The left hemisphere processes reading, writing, speaking, mathematics, comprehension skills and positive emotions. In the 1960s, it was termed as the dominant brain.
OBJECTIVE 19| Describe split-brain research, and explain how it helps us to understand the functions of our left and right hemispheres.

7. The right hemisphere is responsible for facial recognition, music, spatial interpretation, creativity, and negative emotions.

8. Why do you think the right brain was not termed the “dominant” brain?

9. Splitting the Brain
A procedure in which the two hemispheres of the brain are isolated by cutting corpus callosum, the thick ribbon-like band of connecting fibers between them.
Corpus Callosum
Courtesy of Terence Williams, University of Iowa
Martin M. Rother

10. Split Brain Patients
With the corpus callosum severed, objects (apple) presented in the right visual field can be named. Objects (pencil) in the left visual field cannot.

11. Divided Consciousness

13. Non-Split Brains
People with intact brains also show left-right hemispheric differences in mental abilities.
A number of brain scan studies show normal individuals engage their right brain when completing a perceptual task and their left brain when carrying out a linguistic task.

14. Do not write down! Right Brain Left Brain and Handedness
Is handedness inherited? Yes. Archival and historic studies, as well as modern medical studies, show that the right hand is preferred. This suggests genes and/or prenatal factors influence handedness.
OBJECTIVE 20| Discuss the relationship among brain organization, handedness, and mortality.

15. Agenda
1. Left/Right Questionaire. Discussion and analysis (20) 2. Imaging and the Endocrine System Notes (20) 3. The Brain in Film (Butterfly Effect)(Beautiful Mind)(The Notebook) (20) 4. Additional Parts of the Brain to know (5) 4. Revised Schedule (10)

16. Is it Alright to be Left Handed?
Being left handed is difficult in a right-handed world.

17. Is it Alright to be Left Handed?
The percentage of left-handed individuals decreases sharply in samples of older people (Coren, 1993).

18. Techniques to Study the Brain
A brain lesion experimentally destroys brain tissue to study animal behaviors after such destruction.
OBJECTIVE 11| Describe several techniques for studying the brain.
Hubel (1990)

19. Clinical Observation
Clinical observations have shed light on a number of brain disorders. Changes in the brain caused by neurological and psychiatric diseases are now being catalogued.
Tom Landers/ Boston Globe

20. Electroencephalogram (EEG)
An amplified recording of the electrical waves sweeping across the brain’s surface, measured by electrodes placed on the scalp.
Older approach to studying overall brain activity, especially with regard to wakefulness, sleep, and other states of consciousness.
A graph is produced showing peaks when many neurons are firing at the same time; if neurons are firing without synchronization, the graph looks irregular.

21. CT (Computed technology)
Examines the brain by taking x-ray photos from different angles and combining them on a computer into one representation
Normally used to reveal brain damage, pressures, fractures, or tumors.

22. PET Scan
A visual display of brain activity that detects a radioactive form of glucose while the brain performs a given task.
Used for mapping the brain and can show differences between a “normal” brain and one of someone with mental disorders.
Provides no information about what causes what.
Courtesy of National Brookhaven National Laboratories

23. Bottom image shows brain regions when a participants lies.
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) uses magnetic fields and radio waves to produce computer-generated images that distinguish among different types of brain tissue.
The head is placed into a magnetic field which aligns spinning atoms. A brief pause of radio waves disorients the atoms . When they return to a normal spin, they release detectable signals that become computer generated images.
Top images show ventricular enlargement in a schizophrenic patient.
Both photos from Daniel Weinberger, M.D., CBDB, NIMH
James Salzano/ Salzano Photo
Lucy Reading/ Lucy Illustrations
Bottom image shows brain regions when a participants lies.

24. Follow along with the video questions.
Movie
Follow along with the video questions.