Transcript Brains and such - Mount Mansfield Union High School

Brains
By: Olivia Honigman
Nervous System
• Central
-spinal cord and brain
-receives information
-sends instructions
• Peripheral
-nerves
-sends messages between brain and body
Other parts
Limbic system:
• Thalamus- sensory and motor functions
• Hypothalamus- emotion (hunger, thirst…etc), homeostasis,
rhythms.
• Amygdale- memory, emotion, fear
• Hippocampus- learning and memory
Cerebellum:
-helps to coordinate movement (balance, position…ect)
Brain stem:
-connects brain to spinal cord, control involuntary muscles, and sorts
messages that brain and body send back and forth
Spinal cord:
-connects peripheral nervous system to brain
Central Nervous system: The Brain
• 2 cerebral hemispheres
• Sits in viscous fluid- shock absorber
• Different lobes:
-
Frontal Lobe: reasoning, planning parts of speech, emotions, and problem
solving.
Pariental Lobe: movement, orientation, recognition, and perception of
stimuli.
Occipital Lobe: visual processing
Temporal Lobe: perception and recognition of auditory stimuli, memory
and speech.
Peripheral Nervous System
• We are born with neurons but not all are
connected
• Throughout life, connections in the brain are
created as neurons pass messages to each other
• Explains why things are harder at first but
become second nature (such as bike riding).
• Difficult to learn things as you grow older
because brain has a harder time making new
neuron paths
Nerves
• Neurons run throughout body and carry messages back and
forth
• 3 different types:
Sensory= send messages to brain through spinal cord
Motor nerves= carry messages back from brain to muscles
Interneurons= transfer and interpret impulses
• Pass messages by chemistry- become stimulated (heat,
cold, touch, sound…etc) and generate electric pulse
• electricity + chemical change travel full length of neuron to
“fingers” and are passed on to the next neuron
• Neurotransmitters= allow impulses to go across cell gaps
Right brain vs. Left brain
• Right and Left cerebral hemispheres
• Right side of brain controls left side of body and vice
versa
• Separated by corpus callosum- a thick band of fibers
that allows them to communicate and work together
• Many common misconceptions
-right brain being used only for creative things, and left brain being used only
for linear things such as math- it’s not that simple
• Right side of brain= spatial abilities, face recognition,
visual imagery,
• Left side of brain= language, math, logic
Research
• In 1870s Paula Broca and Karl Wenicke
(neurosurgeons) observed that people with
damage to left side of brain had speech and
language problems
• People with damage on the right side however,
didn’t have these problems as often
• Brain named after their discoveries- Broca area
(production of language center of left side of
brain) and Wenicke (processing of words)
More research
• Great deal of information comes from people whose
hemispheres have been split (surgery for epileptic
patients)
• Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzniga- studied patients
with this surgery
• Patients appeared to be normal after surgery
• Used tachistoscope to present visual information to
one hemisphere or the other- the person must focus
on a point in the center of the visual field
• Noticed that a patient with language in left hemisphere
would be able to see a word flashed on right side of
dot, but not on left
Handedness
• In most right-handed people (around 90%)
language is controlled in left side of brain
• In left-handed people as well however, around
70% have language controlled on left side of
brain.
• This causes handedness to be confusing to many
scientists- a phenomenon not quite understood
• Also a dominant eye and ear.
• Eyes compensate for split of hemispheres- are
able to communicate with both left and right
brain.
Music and brains
• Music= vibrations the brain
must give order to
• Music training can shift
some music processing
from right hemisphere to
left hemisphere
• Many studies around music
and its affect on the brain
• Many different theories
about it
- Some have more proof
than others
Gets brain working
• Data from UCLA brain scan research studies show
that music involves brain functions more fully
than any other activity
• Dr. Levitin (cognitive psychologist who runs
Laboratory for Music Perception, Cognition, and
Expertise, at McGill) observed 13 people listening
to music with and MRI
-found “a cascade of brain activity”- music registers in multiple
parts of brain
-stimulates physical control centers- brain tries to guess where
the music will go next
Improves spacial abilities
• Classical music is processed in the brain using
passages that are similar to those used for
spatial reasoning
• Several studies have shown that children who
took piano lessons for 6 months improved
ability to work puzzles and solve other spatial
tasks by as much as 30 percent
Improves memory
• In 1982 researchers set out to find the effect of combining
music and memory
-chose 300 graduates and post graduates with PhDs, and split them into two groups.
One group was taught vocab words with no other sound in the room, and the
other was taught vocab words with classical music in background
-later when asked to recall words could remember almost all the words, while the
other group could hardly remember any.
• This could be because of the amygdala
-it is the emotional center of your brain and aids in the sorting of memories
-music tends to have an emotional affect on the brain- the amygdala would have
tagged the memory as something more important when listening to music
-scientists are still trying to discover the mystery of our strong reactions to music- why
does it make us so emotional?
• Not all tests prove that music works this powerfully, but do
show that music is better than no background noise in many
cases
Music sparks memory
• Memories= encoded in a group of neurons
that when configured in a certain way, will
cause a memory to be retrieved and replayed
• The more we access the memory, the most
active the retrieval circuits become
• Music you have listened to at certain
moments, is cross coded with the events of
those times.
Music used in therapy
• Music has been used to help people suffering from all
different types of brain injuries and disabilities
• Strokes:
-stroke patients who have had damage to the left side of
their brain are unable to use language, but are able to
reach right side of brain which has some language
capabilities
-singing or playing music can engage the right
hemisphere
-some patients have been able to talk again after
numerous sessions of music therapy
Music Savants
• Savant syndrome= condition in which people of severe
developmental disabilities display astonishing brilliance
or talent that most people are incapable of
• Not always autistic (common misconception)sometimes appears after stroke, seizure, or other
illness or head injury.
• Often are uncomfortable interacting with people and
don’t have fully developed emotions
• Have trouble with seemingly simple tasks
• Savant syndrome does not yet have an explanationthere are only theories
Theories:
• Inherited skills
• Eidetic imagery- “seeing” an object that is no
longer objectively present
• Left brain imagery with right brain compensation
-most plausible
-studies have shown that many savants have left
hemisphere damage
-also damage to higher-level, cognitive memory
with compensatory take over of lower level, habit
memory
A movie!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6HCXx8U6Ko
Works Cited
Pictures:
•
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nsdivide.html
•
http://visual.merriam-webster.com/human-being/anatomy/nervous-system/peripheral-nervous-system.php
•
http://www.saskschools.ca/curr_content/adapthandbook/learner/cdbrain.html
•
http://www.msnsymbols.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/msn-music-note-symbol-300x280.jpg
•
http://www.tobywilliams.net/therapy.sht
•
http://www.karger.com/gazette/70/altenmueller/art_4.htm
•
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/25/60minutes/main575161.shtml
Sources:
•
Levitin, Daniel J. This Is Your Brain on Music: the Science of a Human Obsession. New York, NY: Dutton, 2006. Print.
•
"Brain and Nervous System." KidsHealth - the Web's Most Visited Site about Children's Health. Web. 09 June 2011.
<http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/body_basics/brain_nervous_system.html>.
•
"Neuroscience For Kids - Hemispheres." UW Faculty Web Server. Web. 09 June 2011.
<http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html>.
•
Pearce, Alicia. "Music and Memory Go Hand In Glove." Songs of Scripture Written for the Purpose of Memorization & Edification. Web.
10 June 2011. <http://www.songsofscripture.com/music-and-memory.html>.
•
A., Darold. "Autism Today, Latest News and Resources for Autism and Autism Related Issues."TWM - World Leader in Advanced
Weather Modification. Web. 10 June 2011. <http://twm.co.nz/savsyndr.html>.
•
"Building Baby's Brain: The Role of Music." Education Oasis - Teaching Resources for Educators. Web. 09 June 2011.
<http://www.educationoasis.com/resources/Articles/building_babys_brain.htm>.
•
President and Fellows of Harvard College. "The Pleasure of Improvising." Heath and Wellness Resource Center. Gale Cengage Learning,
2009. Web.
•
Thompson, Clive. "Music of the Hemispheres." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 09 June 2011. Web. 09
June 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/arts/music/31thom.html?pagewanted=3>.