CHAPTER 3.12: The Cortex

Question 1

what is gray matter?

Answer 1

outer brain matter made of cell bodies/dendrites of neurons.

Question 2

what is the cerebral cortex?

Answer 2

outermost wrinkly looking part of brain. made of gray and white matter.

Question 3

what is white matter?

Answer 3

inner brain matter made of myelinated axons that connects different parts of the brain

Question 4

what is localization?

Answer 4

idea that parts of the brain are exclusively used for a certain function (not rly true)

Question 5

what are circuits?

Answer 5

idea that any specific function is controlled by pathways interconnected by white matter in the brain.

Question 6

what part of the brain has evolved the most in human evolution?

Answer 6

cerebral cortex (increased size)

Question 7

what features of other mammalian brains do humans retain?

Answer 7

midbrain, brainstem

Question 8

what is a reason why the human cerebral cortex has folds?

Answer 8

when humans gained bipedalism, birth canal narrowed. to minimize the size of heads being birthed, cerebral cortex developed folds

Question 9

what are occipital lobes?

Answer 9

located at the rear of the brain, associated with visual processing

Question 10

what are temporal lobes?

Answer 10

located on sides of the brain, involved in hearing, language, and visual processing like object and face recognition.

Question 11

what are frontal lobes?

Answer 11

located at the front of the brain, important for “higher” cognitive functions like planning, , inhibition of impulses and emotion, language production and some motor control

Question 12

what is the primary motor cortex?

Answer 12

a band in the frontal lobe that is the “first step” for control of voluntary movement.

there is a spot in the band for each part of the body, with some (hands, lips) taking up more space than other parts.

Question 13

what is the parietal lobe?

Answer 13

to the top and back of the cerebral cortex, also containing a band of tissue called the somatosensory cortex.

Question 14

what is the somatosensory cortex?

Answer 14

band in the parietal lobe responsible for processing touch sensation for various body parts.

different parts of our body ae mapped onto this band based on how much neural tissue we need to reserve for feeling. (ex. hands)