Nervous systemIn biology, the nervous system is the highly complex part of an animal that coordinates its actions and sensory information by transmitting signals to and from different parts of its body. The nervous system detects environmental changes that impact the body, then works in tandem with the endocrine system to respond to such events. Nervous tissue first arose in wormlike organisms about 550 to 600 million years ago. In vertebrates it consists of two main parts, the central nervous system (CNS) and the peripheral nervous system (PNS).
Two-streams hypothesisThe two-streams hypothesis is a model of the neural processing of vision as well as hearing. The hypothesis, given its initial characterisation in a paper by David Milner and Melvyn A. Goodale in 1992, argues that humans possess two distinct visual systems. Recently there seems to be evidence of two distinct auditory systems as well. As visual information exits the occipital lobe, and as sound leaves the phonological network, it follows two main pathways, or "streams".
Gamma spectroscopyGamma-ray spectroscopy is the qualitative study of the energy spectra of gamma-ray sources, such as in the nuclear industry, geochemical investigation, and astrophysics. Gamma-ray spectrometry, on the other hand, is the method used to acquire a quantitative spectrum measurement. Most radioactive sources produce gamma rays, which are of various energies and intensities. When these emissions are detected and analyzed with a spectroscopy system, a gamma-ray energy spectrum can be produced.
Alpha motor neuronAlpha (α) motor neurons (also called alpha motoneurons), are large, multipolar lower motor neurons of the brainstem and spinal cord. They innervate extrafusal muscle fibers of skeletal muscle and are directly responsible for initiating their contraction. Alpha motor neurons are distinct from gamma motor neurons, which innervate intrafusal muscle fibers of muscle spindles. While their cell bodies are found in the central nervous system (CNS), α motor neurons are also considered part of the somatic nervous system—a branch of the peripheral nervous system (PNS)—because their axons extend into the periphery to innervate skeletal muscles.
Brain–computer interfaceA brain–computer interface (BCI), sometimes called a brain–machine interface (BMI) or smartbrain, is a direct communication pathway between the brain's electrical activity and an external device, most commonly a computer or robotic limb. BCIs are often directed at researching, mapping, assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. They are often conceptualized as a human–machine interface that skips the intermediary component of the physical movement of body parts, although they also raise the possibility of the erasure of the discreteness of brain and machine.
Brain sizeThe 'size of the brain' is a frequent topic of study within the fields of anatomy, biological anthropology, animal science and evolution. Brain size is sometimes measured by weight and sometimes by volume (via MRI scans or by skull volume). Neuroimaging intelligence testing can be used to study the volumetric measurements of the brain. Regarding "intelligence testing", a question that has been frequently investigated is the relation of brain size to intelligence.
CerebrumThe cerebrum, telencephalon or endbrain is the largest part of the brain containing the cerebral cortex (of the two cerebral hemispheres), as well as several subcortical structures, including the hippocampus, basal ganglia, and olfactory bulb. In the human brain, the cerebrum is the uppermost region of the central nervous system. The cerebrum develops prenatally from the forebrain (prosencephalon). In mammals, the dorsal telencephalon, or pallium, develops into the cerebral cortex, and the ventral telencephalon, or subpallium, becomes the basal ganglia.
Large-scale brain networkLarge-scale brain networks (also known as intrinsic brain networks) are collections of widespread brain regions showing functional connectivity by statistical analysis of the fMRI BOLD signal or other recording methods such as EEG, PET and MEG. An emerging paradigm in neuroscience is that cognitive tasks are performed not by individual brain regions working in isolation but by networks consisting of several discrete brain regions that are said to be "functionally connected".
Cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loopThe cortico-basal ganglia-thalamo-cortical loop (CBGTC loop) is a system of neural circuits in the brain. The loop involves connections between the cortex, the basal ganglia, the thalamus, and back to the cortex. It is of particular relevance to hyperkinetic and hypokinetic movement disorders, such as Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease, as well as to mental disorders of control, such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), and Tourette syndrome.
Embodied cognitionEmbodied cognition is the theory that many features of cognition, whether human or otherwise, are shaped by aspects of an organism's entire body. The cognitive features include high-level mental constructs (such as concepts and categories) and performance on various cognitive tasks (such as reasoning or judgment). The bodily aspects involve the motor system, the perceptual system, the bodily interactions with the environment (situatedness), and the assumptions about the world built the functional structure of organism's brain and body.
Language processing in the brainIn psycholinguistics, language processing refers to the way humans use words to communicate ideas and feelings, and how such communications are processed and understood. Language processing is considered to be a uniquely human ability that is not produced with the same grammatical understanding or systematicity in even human's closest primate relatives. Throughout the 20th century the dominant model for language processing in the brain was the Geschwind-Lichteim-Wernicke model, which is based primarily on the analysis of brain-damaged patients.
Sensory-motor couplingSensory-motor coupling is the coupling or integration of the sensory system and motor system. Sensorimotor integration is not a static process. For a given stimulus, there is no one single motor command. "Neural responses at almost every stage of a sensorimotor pathway are modified at short and long timescales by biophysical and synaptic processes, recurrent and feedback connections, and learning, as well as many other internal and external variables".
