Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology of Everyday Life

The four functions

- Voluntary movement
- Perception – appreciate from our sensation
- Homeostasis
- Abstract functions – thinking, feeling, language, learning

Motorneurons – brain stem, spinal cord, movement

Perception – forebrain, cerebral cortex

Forebrain – the seat of consciousness

Homeostatis – distributed process: forebrain (hormonal), brainstem (autonomic, automatic changes),

spinal cord (auto changes)

Abstract functcions – forebrain

Neurons

- The longest cell in the body

- 4 parts
o Soma – cell body, cell central, nucleus, DNA, proteins made, powerplant
o Dendrites – branch 2,3,5 times, receive information
 Arbor – dendritic tree – to gather information
o Axon – information send out, can fo far distances
o Synaptic terminal / synapse – place of communication between neurons 9space
between synapse and cell/dendrite)
- Excitability of neurons (if a neuron is likely or not likely to fire action potentials) (how do they
speak – neurotransmitter)

Glial Cells

- Astrocytes – sanitation workers of the brain

- Oligodendrocytes – make myelin – Central Nervous System
- Schwann cells – also make myelin – Peripheral NS
- Microglia – immune cells
- 86 billion neurons; 85 billion glia

Myelin

- Fatty wrap that goes around some axons

- Naked axon – unmyelinated – can transfer info in a slow rate
- Myelinated axon – much faster 12 milliseconds (0.012)
Demyelinating diseases

- Get it either in CNS or PNS but not in both (since myelin are made from these two)
- CNS: Multiple sclerosis / oligodendrocytes
- PNS: Charcot-Marie-Tooth / Schwann Cells / Guillian-Barre (acute demyelinating disease)
- Symptoms is that the neural code is disrupted anywhere there is demyelination
- DD in the PNS – affect motor neurons – coz they transfer info fastest
o Motor symptoms
- DD in CNS – depends on which axons are affected since there are axons all over

Central NS vs Peripheral NS

- Demarcation – 3 membranes – 3 meningal layers

o Pia – very weak, innermost
o Dura – tough sack, keep us from having concussions, coat our brain in fluid, outermost
o Arachnoid – between

Peripheral Disease

- Repair is greater than in CNS

- Can’t regenerate or repair within CNS