1. The Brain: Source of Mind and Self (hyperlink)
Chapter 2
The Brain:
Source of Mind and Self
(hyperlink)

2. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Neuropsychology, Biopsychology, Neuroscience….
Biological Psychology
branch of psychology concerned with the links between biology and behavior
some biological psychologists call themselves behavioral neuroscientists, cognitive neuroscientists, neuropsychologists, behavior geneticists, physiological psychologists, or biopsychologists

3. What biopsy can feel like

4. Jill Bolte Taylor
While you watch, focus on the beautiful complexity of the brain and the different subjective differences of life based on the activity of neurons

5. The Neuron
The information processing and information-transmitting element of the nervous system.

6. MS is currently classified as an autoimmune disease of the central nervous system (brain, spinal cord). The disease attacks myelin, the protective covering of the nerves, causing inflammation and often damaging the myelin.
If damage to myelin is slight, nerve impulses travel with minor interruptions; however, if damage is substantial and if scar tissue replaces the myelin, nerve impulses may be completely disrupted, and the nerve fibres themselves can be damaged.
Symptoms can include extreme fatigue, lack of coordination, weakness, tingling, impaired sensation, vision problems, bladder problems, cognitive impairment and mood changes. Its effects can be physical, emotional and financial.

8. Sensory neurons activated by sensory input from the environment
Ex. touching a hot surface with your fingertips, the sensory neurons will be sending info to the rest of the nervous system
The inputs that activate sensory neurons can be physical or chemical
physical input can be things like sound, touch, heat, or light.
chemical input comes from taste or smell, which neurons then send to the brain.
Most sensory neurons are pseudounipolar

9. Motor Neurons
Motor neurons of the spinal cord are part of the central nervous system (CNS) and connect to muscles, glands and organs throughout the body
They transmit impulses from the spinal cord to skeletal and smooth muscles (such as those in your stomach), and so directly control all of our muscle movements.

10. Interneurons
Interneurons are the ones in between - they connect spinal motor and sensory neurons.
transfer signals between sensory and motor neurons
communicate with each other, forming circuits of various complexity

11. Reflexes
A simple spinal reflex has a single sensory neuron and a single motor neuron that communicate through an interneuron

12. Types of Neurons in a nutshell
Sensory Neurons (afferent neurons)
take in info from the outside world and send it to the brain and spinal cord
Motor Neurons (efferent neurons)
bring messages to the muscles from the brain and spinal cord
Interneurons communicate between neurons

13. Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
The Nervous System
Central Nervous System (CNS)
the brain and spinal cord
Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
the sensory and motor neurons that connect the central nervous system (CNS) to the rest of the body
further subdivided into the autonomic and the somatic systems

14. The Nervous System Central (brain and spinal cord) Nervous system
Autonomic (controls
self-regulated action of
internal organs and glands)
Skeletal (controls
voluntary movements of
skeletal muscles)
Sympathetic
(arousing)
Parasympathetic
(calming)
Peripheral

16. Digest and Rest

18. Fight or flight

20. Is it electrical or chemical?
Until 1921 it was unclear how the nervous system communicated
The dream of Otto Loewi and frog hearts

21. It had been known for 70 years that stimulation of the vagus nerve slowed the heart. In a simple but visionary experimental twist, Loewi placed a beating frog's heart, with its vagus nerve still attached, in a saline bath.
The saline in the bath was allowed to flow into a second bath containing a second beating heart, this time with the vagus nerve removed. Stimulating the vagus nerve slowed the first heart, as expected; after the latent period, the second heart also slowed.

23. Loewi reasoned that a soluble chemical, which he called “vagusstoff,” had transmitted the nerve stimulus to the second heart, indicating that the process of neurotransmission is inherently chemical. Chemical analysis of vagusstoff revealed it to be acetylcholine.

24. Threshold and firing the action potential…

25. Action Potential: Electrical & Chemical Communication
A brief electro/chemical signal that travels down the axon to the terminal buttons.
Cell body end
of axon
Direction of neural impulse: toward axon terminals

28. The Synapse
A junction between the terminal buttons of the sending cell and a portion of the membrane of the receiving cell

29. The Flow of Transmission

30. A Closer Look at a Neuron
Neural impulse - hyperlink
Details of an action potential - hyperlink