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Lecture 1: The brain and cognition over the life span............................................................................. 2
Lecture 2: Genes and Pharmacology ..................................................................................................... 15
Lecture 3: Memory ................................................................................................................................ 27
Lecture 4: Attention .............................................................................................................................. 36
Lecture 5: Emotion, motivation, and reward ........................................................................................ 47
Lecture 6: Executive Function ............................................................................................................... 55
Lecture 7: Motor Function .................................................................................................................... 65
Lecture 8: Interpretation of Results ...................................................................................................... 77
,Lecture 1: The brain and cognition over the life span
Brain structure and anatomy
Parts of the cells
- Cell body
- Axon: sends out signal from the axon hillock
- Axon hillock
- Dendrites: receives signal
- Synapse / synaptic cleft
o Pre- and postsynaptic side
o Vesicles and receptors
- Myelin sheath
o Nodes of Ranvier
Neurons: different types, categorized by shape and function
- Sensory (afferent) → Towards the brain
- Interneurons (stellate, pyramidal, Purkinjean)
- Motor (efferent) → Away from the brain
Action potential: thresholded, non-decremental, all-or-nothing response
- There is a threshold when it fires, it doesn’t decrease in strength. It just goes.
- It can vary in rhythm and how many potentials are fired. Not the intensity of the potential
- Triggered by summation of excitatory potentials
o Along the cell body more signals arrive and lift the potential on the membrane. There
is some threshold where the signal is being send out
- Driven by varying ion permeability of the cell membrane
- Propagates along the axon and can travel for a meter or more
- Triggers neurotransmitter release in the axon terminal
Synapse: Action potential leads to neurotransmitter release into the synaptic cleft.
- Neurotransmitters can be varied. Some neurons can release more than one type of
neurotransmitter, depending on type of stimulation (e.g. low vs high frequency stimulation)
o Acetylcholine
o Dopamine
o Norepinephrine
o Serotonin
o Glutamate
o Gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
- Receptor cells in the postsynaptic membrane can adapt to under or over use
- Distribution of synapses connecting to a cell influences its excitability. It determines if a cell is
going to fire or not.
Glia:
- Astrocytes
o Form the blood-brain barrier
o Structural support of the brain
- Oligodendrocytes
o Make myelin for CNS neurons
- Microglia cells
o Fight infections
o Waste disposal
, - Ependymal cells
o Ventricular surface epithelium
o Creating CSF
- Schwann cells
o Create myelin for peripheral neurons
Cortical cell layers
- Different types of neuron are often
organized in layers in the brain
- Sensory (input) interneurons (relay) and
motor neurons (output) neurons are
grouped
- Layers are different in different cortical
areas, depending on primary function
➔ Brain area mostly focused on vision has a thicker layer for sensory neurons than for motor
neurons.
Each layer has a specific function
- Input layers from
o Thalamus, cortex and brainstem
- 6 layers often interconnected with subdivisions
- Output layers to
o Thalamus, cortex, brainstem and spinal cord
White matter tracts: bundles of myelinated axons (myeline is fatty and looks white)
- Connecting neurons throughout the central and peripheral nervous system
o Association fibres connecting areas within a hemisphere
o Commissural fibres crossing to the other hemisphere, to the same (homotopic) or a
different area (heterotopic)
o Projection fibres connect outward, to subcortical regions, cerebellum or the spinal
cord.
- The tracts are quite similar between individuals. Connection between motor and auditory
areas can be similar connected.
Grey matter consists of neuronal cell bodies and glia cells, situated on the outer layer of the
hemispheres (cortex) and in subcortical nuclei
Major components of the CNS
, - Forebrain: including hemispheres, corpus callosum and subcortical deep structure
(telencephalon)
- Diencephalon including thalamic structures
- Midbrain (mesencephalon), top of brain stem including sensory and motor relay nuclei
- Hindbrain (metencephalon) including pons and cerebellum, medulla oblongata
- Spinal cord
Hindbrain and midbrain
- Hindbrain:
o Medulla oblongata
▪ Contributes to vital reflexes
▪ Damage is often fatal
o Pons
▪ Crossing over of many fibres in the
motor and sensory pathways for contralateral motor control
o Cerebellum
▪ Automated movement, balance, timing and time perception, sensorimotor
coupling, attention shifting, other cognitive functions
o Origin of cranial nerves V-XII
- Midbrain / mesencephalon
o Superior / inferior colliculi: contribute to sensory processing
o Substantia nigra: contributes to movement
initiation
o Origin of cranial nerves II-IV
- Diencephalon
o Thalamus
▪ Important relay station, all the
information going into the brain passes
the thalamus
▪ Delivers signals trough the entire brain
▪ Damage to the thalamus can lead to a
big variety of problems
▪ Has many subnuclei
Telencephalon or cerebrum: subcortical (everything under the cortex is subcortical)
- Basal ganglia
o Caudate nucleus
o Putamen
o Globus pallidus
o Subthalamic nucleus (STN)
o Substantia nigra
➔ Does a lot more than movement!
o Multiple circuits in the brain go
through the basal ganglia
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