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Frank Amthor. Neurobiology For Dummies
Neurobiology For Dummies® To view this book's Cheat Sheet, simply go to www.dummies.com and search for “Neurobiology For Dummies Cheat Sheet” in the Search box. Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Guide
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Getting Started with Neurobiology
Welcome to the World of Neurobiology
Introducing Neurons
Evolving cells on early earth
Looking at the origin of single cells
Catalyzing reactions in the primordial soup
Separating inside from out: Membranes
Comparing eukaryotes to prokaryotes
Multicellularity: Sensing and moving
Detecting food, waste, and toxins
Detecting other cells: Hormones and neurotransmitters
Detecting energy
Cellular motors
Cilia and flagella
Contraction
Coordinating responses in simple circuits
Robotics and bionics
Organizing the Nervous System
Movement basics: Muscles and motor systems
The spinal cord and autonomic nervous system
The brainstem, limbic system, hypothalamus, and reticular formation
Basal ganglia, cerebellum, motor and premotor cortex, and thalamus
The neocortex
The neocortex goes digital
Perceiving the World, Thinking, Learning, and Remembering
Looking at vision and audition
Feeling, smelling, and tasting
Learning and memory: Circuits and plasticity
The frontal lobes and executive brain
Language, emotions, lateralization, and thought
Developmental, Neurological, and Mental Disorders and Treatments
Developing the brain and nervous system
Movement disorders and symptoms
Neural dysfunctions and mental illness
Repair and enhancement with artificial brains
Building Neurons from Molecules
Getting into Genetics
Introducing inheritance
Doubling genes
Phenotype and genotype
Determining dominant and recessive traits
Greeting chromosomes and genes
Replicating DNA and the cell life cycle
DNA replication
The cell cycle
Coding for proteins: RNA and DNA
The genetic code
Transcription mechanisms
Protein synthesis
Regulating genes
Introns and exons
Protein synthesis versus regulation
Post-translational processing
Epigenetics
Meeting Cell Molecules: Important Ions and Proteins
Eyeing important ions
Sizing up proteins
Going through membrane proteins
Peeking at the Parts of a Cell
Cytoplasm and organelles
Nucleus
Secretion and hormones
Setting Boundaries: Cell Membrane Lipids
Focusing on phospholipid chemistry
Seeing cells’ differences
Regulating Water and Cell Volume
Observing osmotic pressure
Responding to osmotic challenges
Moving water with aquaporins
Knowing the Neuron: Not Just Another Cell
Noticing neuron anatomy
Understanding what neurons do
Taking in information: Receptors
Transforming information: Interneurons
Moving our limbs: Motor neurons
When Things Go Wrong: Genetics and Neurological Illness
Mutations and transcriptional errors
Modifying genes: Fixing or Frankenstein?
Animal research
Gene therapy
Gating the Membrane: Ion Channels and Membrane Potentials
Looking at Membrane Channels
Talking about transporters
Checking out channels
Ion-selective channels
Secretory mechanisms
Membrane receptors
Getting a Charge Out of Neurons
Pumping Ions for Information
Sodium-potassium pump
Other important pumps
Discovering Diffusion and Voltage
The Nernst equation
The Goldman–Hodgkin–Katz equation
Signaling with Electricity in Neurons
Exploring potential
Controlling ion permeability: Gated channels
Making Spikes with Sodium and Potassium Channels
Getting back to resting potential
Voltage-dependent channels
Reaching action potential
Refractory periods and spike rate coding
Cable properties of neurons: One reason for action potentials
Passive electrotonic conduction
Active propagation of depolarization
Insulating with Glial Cells
Sending Signals: Chemical Release and Electrical Activation
Looking at Synaptic Transmission
Checking out chemical synapses and neurotransmitter release
Synthesis of neurotransmitters
Presynaptic nerve terminals and neurotransmitter release
Excitatory neurotransmitters
Embracing your inhibitions
Inhibitory neurotransmitters
Neuromodulators and neuropeptides
Eyeing electrical synapses at gap junctions
Being Receptive to Neurotransmitter Receptors
Introducing ionotropic receptors
Meeting metabotropic receptors and second messenger systems
Dale’s law
Making connections with the neuromuscular junction
Dividing and Conquering: Interneurons and Circuits
Pooling sensory input
Coordinating motor output
Comparing brains to computers
Neuroanatomy: Organizing the Nervous System
Movement Basics: Muscles and Motor Neurons
Making a Move: Muscle Types and What They Do
Processing with smooth muscle
Striated muscle for hearts and limbs
Skeletal muscle
Cardiac muscle
Twitching fast and slow: Muscle composition
Pulling Your Weight: How Muscle Cells Contract
Releasing acetylcholine
Patterning muscle contractions
Alpha motor neurons
The motor unit
Sliding filaments: Actin and myosin
Calcium
Troponin
Controlling Muscle Contraction
Modulating firing rate
Receiving inputs
Moving through action potentials
Recruiting motor neurons
Knowing Where Your Limb Is Located
Muscle spindle and gamma motor neurons
Golgi tendon organs
Joint receptors for position
Reflexing without Reflecting
Withdrawing a limb
Staying put
Seeing the spinal flexor reflex
Keeping the spinal cord in the loop
Monosynaptic and polysynaptic reflexes
Overriding a reflex
Exercise and Aging
Use it or lose it: The effects of exercise
Slowing down with age
Muscle mass in men and women
The Spinal Cord and the Autonomic Nervous System
Segmenting the Spine
Cervical nerves
Thoracic nerves
Lumbar nerves
Sacral nerves
Spinal membranes
Spying on the Spinal Cord
Dorsal inputs, ventral outputs
Coming in the back
Going out the front
Reflecting on what hit you: The basic spinal reflex
Defining reflexive action
Opposing forces: Flexor-extensor muscle pairs
Mechanics: Monosynaptic reflex pathway
Modulating reflexes
Overriding the reflex
Spinal pattern generators
Locomoting with alternate limb movement
Changing pace, walking, and running
Feeling and Acting: The Peripheral Nervous System
Getting stimulated by neural sensors
Moving around: Neural effectors
Zeroing in on motor neurons-effectors
Doing the heavy lifting: Muscle cells
Correcting Errors: The Cerebellum
Cerebellar structure
Stepping in holes and what to do about it
Carrying the load: Feed-forward force calibration
Cerebellar circuits
Fighting or Fleeing: The Autonomic Nervous System
The two main subdivisions of the autonomic nervous system
Getting ready for action: The sympathetic system
Taking care of yourself: The parasympathetic system
The autonomic nervous system input and output
Sensory projections to the nucleus of the solitary tract
Control of the endocrine system
The Busy Brain: Brainstem, Limbic System, Hypothalamus, and Reticular Formation
The Brainstem: Medulla, Pons, Midbrain
Meeting the medulla
Carrying information
Examining important functions
Noting the nuclei
Presenting the pons
Mentioning the midbrain
Moving the eyes
Localizing sound
Other functions
Counting the Cranial Nerves
Controlling Your Motives: The Limbic System
Emotional processing
A look back on the limbic system
Mesocortex and allocortex versus neocortex
Organizing thoughts and activities: The cingulate gyrus
Making memories: The hippocampus
Creating a memory
Making associations
The amygdala
Short- and long-term memory: The case of H.M
Regulating the Autonomic Nervous System: The Hypothalamus
Sleeping and waking: Circadian rhythms
REM sleep
Learning during sleep
NREM sleep
Brain oscillations and function
Hypothalamic body function regulation
Homeostasis: Temperature, blood pressure, breathing, and heart rate
Autonomic hormones and behavior
The insula (insular cortex)
Perceiving pain
Other roles
Reading Up on the Reticular Formation
Starting with the spine
Moving through the brainstem
Controlling functions
Reticular activating system
Continuing through the thalamus and cortex
Generating Behavior: Basal Ganglia, Thalamus, Motor Cortex, and Frontal Cortex
The Basal Ganglia and Its Nuclei
Striatum inputs and output to the thalamus
The basal ganglia neural circuit
Controlling Muscles: The Primary Motor Cortex
The homunculus
Population coding
Coordinating Muscle Groups: Central Control
The supplementary motor area and learned sequences
Externally monitored performance and the premotor cortex
The frontal eye fields and superior colliculus
The Thalamus: Gateway to the Neocortex
Reaching all the senses
Seeing visual inputs
Listening for auditory inputs
Sampling taste inputs
Feeling out touch inputs
Sniffing out olfactory inputs
Paying attention to the pulvinar
Moving through motor pathways
Reticular zones of the thalamus
Focusing on Goals with the Prefrontal Cortex
Making plans with the lateral prefrontal cortex
Processing emotions withthe orbitofrontal cortex
Anterior and posterior cingulate cortex
Knowing, or Not Knowing, Who’s In Control
Topping It Off: The Neocortex
Looking Inside the Skull: The Neocortex and Its Lobes
Noticing uniform structure and circuits
Big brains
Communicating with the diencephalon and the rest of the nervous system
Getting to the Brain You Have Today: The Neocortex versus Your Reptilian Brain
Looking at how cortical areas developed
Enlarging the frontal lobes for complex behavior
Setting and accomplishing goals
Making Decisions: The Lateral Prefrontal Cortex
Keeping it all in mind
Changing your plans
Dialing that number: Working memory
Recalling that number: Long-term memory and executive control
Doing the Right Thing
Responding with the orbitofrontal cortex and learned emotional reactions
Getting that bad feeling: The amygdala, emotional learning, and cortical connections
Going with your gut
Seeing Both Sides: The Left and Right Hemispheres
Specializing for language
Broca’s area
Wernicke’s area
Taking in the big picture: Spatial processing
Managing with two brains in one head
Appreciating the style of each hemisphere
Holistic processing
Analytical processing
Processing by rules
Epilepsy and split brain surgery
Gender and the Brain
Sizing up the male and female brain
Zeroing in on certain areas
Lateralization
Thinking in different styles
Knowing the role of hormones
Autism and the extreme male brain
Perceiving the World, Thinking, Learning, and Remembering
Looking at Vision and Hearing
Imaging and Capturing Light: Vision
Making movies on the retina: Optics and eye movements
Converting photons to chemical reactions: Photoreception
Dark currents and synaptic release
Photoreceptor adaptation
Photoreceptor distribution in the retina
Joining the Nervous System: Photoreceptor Output
Converting light to contrast: Bipolar and horizontal cells
Making symmetry with On and Off bipolar cells
Integrating patterns in space and time
Coloring it in: Photons and color vision
Mismatching your socks: Color blindness and anomalies
Making nerve pulses in the retina
Sculpting the message with amacrine cells
Seeing in different colors
Projecting a neural image with ganglion cells
Color and fine detail
Movement and low contrast
Specific features
Covering distance with action potentials
Sending the Message to the Brain
Relaying at the thalamus
Parallel processing in diverse visual centers
Fanning Out in the Occipital Lobe
Layering and concurrent processing in V1
Selecting for orientation and movement
Streaming the Message to the Temporal and Parietal Lobes
Seeing complex shapes and colors in the ventral stream
Seeing where and how-to in the dorsal stream
Communicating between dorsal and ventral streams
Seeing without meaning: Agnosias
Listening In: Capturing Sound Waves
Good vibrations: Gathering and transmitting sound to the brain
Tuning and directing in the outer ear
Amplifying in the middle ear
Toning up: Frequency transduction in the Organ of Corti
Channeling Sounds to the Brain
Comparing and relaying in the superior olive, inferior colliculus, and thalamus
Localizing by intensity and delay comparisons
Relaying at the medial geniculate nucleus of the thalamus
Analyzing sounds in the superior temporal lobe
Perceiving tones in music and voices
Understanding language
Losing Hearing
Conductive versus neural hearing loss
Eh? Aging, environment, and hearing loss
Aiding hearing: Amplifying and replacing
Ringing and tinnitus
Balancing via the Vestibular System: “Hearing” the Fluid Sloshing in Your Head
Feeling, Smelling, and Tasting
Getting in Touch with the Skin
Feeling your way with mechanoreceptors
The skin’s structure
Quick touch versus pressure
Localizing touch
Avoiding pain: Axonal endings for temperature and skin damage
Temperature receptors
Feeling no pain
Complex aspects of pain
Running high on endorphins
Easing pain with distraction
Losing the pain sense
Locating your limbs with skin, muscle, and joint receptors
Spinal processing and cranial nerves
Sending the message to the thalamus
Recognizing What We Touch at Somatosensory Cortex
Mapping senses with the homunculus
Specialized somatosensory areas
Perceiving pain
Sniffing Out the World around You
Nosing around: Olfactory receptors
Exploring the olfactory bulb
Reaching the cortex before the thalamus
Smelling badly versus smelling bad
Communicating with pheromones
Tasting Basics: Sweet, Sour, Salt, and Bitter Receptors
Coding for taste: Labels versus patterns
Understanding the umami problem
Supertasters
Tasting with the Brain
Projecting taste to the thalamus
Discriminating taste in the cortex
Combining taste and smell for flavor
Losing taste through injuries
Feeling full
Monitoring Internal Body Functions with Internal Chemoreceptors
Memory and Learning
Evolving with Adaptation and Instinct
Moving through evolution
Going into development
Looking at learning
Implicit (Non-Declarative) Memory
Getting used to habituation
Responding to sensitization
Kandel’s habituation work
Preparing for priming
Conditioning classically and operantly
Classical conditioning
Operant (instrumental) conditioning
Pavlov’s dog
Learning motor sequences: Procedural memory
The Long and Short of It: Immediate versus Permanent Memory
Sensory/iconic memory
Fleeting iconic memories
Seeing iconic memory in action
Working/short-term memory
The lucky seven of short-term memory
Working memory
Explicit (declarative) memory
Does your cat have episodic memory?
Memory Mechanisms and Brain Loci
Associating context with results in the hippocampus
Strengthening synapses
Living for today: The case of HM
Sleeping for better long-term memory
Remembering pain with the amygdala
Learning by Changing Synaptic Strengths
Increasing response: NMDA receptor changes
Making presynaptic strength changes
Animal versus computer memory
Forgetting It: Amnesia and Other Memory Loss
Losing yourself in amnesia
Damaging the hippocampus
Ignoring consequences: Frontal lobe damage
Examining Alzheimer’s disease
Improving Your Learning
Studying hard versus studying well: Schedules
Traveling the path to better memory
The Frontal Lobes and Executive Brain
Reflexes versus Conscious or Goal-Generated Action
Turning ideas and goals into action
Representing actions at multiple levels
Deciding How to Do It: The Frontal Lobes and Action Execution
Originating abstract plans
Role of frontal lobes
Complexity of contingency planning
Converting plans to body control
Initiating Action in the Basal Ganglia
Preparing for action
Patterning and oscillating
Coordinating through the Supplementary and Premotor Cortices
Feeding back to guide movement
Learning motor sequences: Supplementary motor cortex
Learning motor sequences
Practicing mentally
Sequencing in the cerebellum and strengthening synaptic pathways
Mirroring Others: Mirror Neurons
Defining mirroring behaviors
Imitating others as a function of mirroring
Language, Intelligence, Emotions, and Consciousness
Adapting Our Brains for Language
Knowing how the brain is organized
Thinking thanks to the neocortex
Processing in gray matter
Transmitting in white matter
Sensory processing in occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes
Specializing for memory
Following Thought through Sensory Pathways and Hierarchies
Relaying to the thalamus and cortex
Projecting back to the thalamus
Gating and integrating functions
Speaking Your Mind: Language, Vision, and the Brain Hemispheres
Comparing communication and language
Locating language in the brain
Losing language from neural dysfunction
Examining visual processing asymmetries
Considering where consciousness lives
Defining Intelligence
Math, language, and social intelligence
Intelligence components for decisions, abstract thinking, problem solving
Investigating intelligence factors
Brain size
Processing speed
Emotional Intelligence
Feeling the basic emotions
Engaging basic drives (hunger, thirst, anger fear, sex) as emotions
Expressing emotions to communicate
Reacting quickly
Applying instincts to new situations
Storing memories of strong emotional reactions
Understanding Consciousness
Learning language instinctually
Developing internal language and consciousness
Developmental, Neurological, and Mental Disorders and Treatments
Developing the Brain and Nervous System
Dividing and Differentiating after Conception
Meiosis, gametes, and zygotes
Crossover
Degeneracy
Genetic disorders
Partitioning the body: Endoderm, mesoderm, ectoderm
The purpose of junk DNA
Specialization
Migration
Descending from the ectoderm into the nervous system
Blastulating into the neural groove and tube
Embryos in evolution
Differentiating along the anterior posterior axis
Covering the brain with meninges: Dura, arachnoid, and pia
Polarizing the Brain: Ganglia versus Brains
Basic body plan
Differentiating the spinal cord from the brain proper
Differentiating into the hindbrain, midbrain, and forebrain
Layering the Neocortex
Migrating along radial glia and other glial roles
Differentiating at journey’s end
Pyramidal cells
Cortical interneurons
What’s so magic about six layers?
Forming neurons: Dendrites and axons
Cortical maps
Competing for cortical space
Critical periods: Failure to interact with the environment
Correlating firing and wiring
The critical period in vision
Hebb’s law
Birth defects through teratogens
Developmental Neural Disorders
Tracing genetic development using mice
Known single mutation disorders
Multi-locus mutation disorders
Birth defects
Spina bifida
Hydrocephalus
Aging effects over the lifespan
The aging process
Theories of aging
Aging and brain dysfunctions
Alzheimer’s disease
Parkinson’s disease
Autoimmune disorders
Vascular disease and stroke
Tumors
Movement Disorders
When the Wheels Come Off: Motor Disorders
Major early developmental disorders
Injuries and diseases
Lifespan motor disorders
Failing Forces: Muscle Diseases
Muscular dystrophy
Inflammatory myopathies
Neuromuscular Junction Disorders
Myasthenia gravis
Lambert–Eaton syndrome
Toxins
Motor Neuron Damage
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Multiple sclerosis
Viral infections
Polio
Rabies
Hijacking pinocytosis
Basal Ganglia and Other Diseases
Parkinson’s disease
Huntington’s disease
Neuropathies: Losing peripheral sensation
Strokes and Injuries
Suffering a stroke
Stroke without symptoms
Injuring the brain
Spinal cord injuries
Substituting machines: Motor prostheses
Brain Dysfunction and Mental Illness
Understanding Mental Illness as Neural Dysfunction
Building brains
Developing while growing
Turning thoughts into synapses
Exploring the Genetic Causes of Brain Dysfunction
Mutations at single locations
Fragile X syndrome
Rett syndrome
Williams syndrome
Down syndrome
Autism
Knowing How the Nervous System Can Be Damaged in Utero
Fetal alcohol syndrome
Maternal stress and infections
Mixing Genetic and Developmental Components
Depression and mania
Monoamine hypothesis
Brain dysfunction theories of depression
Network theories
Brain regions involved in depression
Non-pharmacological depression therapies
Schizophrenia
Symptoms
The genetic basis for schizophrenia
Treatment options
Obsessive compulsive disorder
Post traumatic stress disorder
Epilepsy
Eating and Drinking for Brain Function
Naturally occurring psychoactive substances
Feeding the brain properly
Psychoactive substances in nature
Looking at commonly abused drugs
Making Better Brains
Fixing the Brain with Surgery, Electricity, and Magnetism
Lobotomies and other brain surgery
Electroconvulsive therapy
Deep brain stimulation
Transcranial magnetic stimulation
Transcranial direct current stimulation
Meditation, lighting, and soothing sounds
Repairing Brain Damage
Genes and growth factors
Stem cells
Brain–Machine Interfaces
Inputting information to the brain
Hearing
Vision
Seeing progress in visual prostheses
Reading the brain’s output code
Augmenting Brain Function
Stimulation and function enhancement
Your teacher, Ms. Avatar
Genetic modification
Simulating Brain Function on Computers
Comparing brain and computer power
Crunching the numbers by computer and human brain
Downloading the Brain
Reading out what’s in your brain
Inserting knowledge and memories into the brain
Is the singularity near? Is super-machine intelligence about to occur?
The Part of Tens
The Ten Most Important Brain Circuits
The Reticular Formation in the Brainstem
The Spinal Reflex
The Thalamic Relay to the Cortex
Cerebellar Modulation of Motion Sequences
Hippocampal Reciprocal Activation with the Cortex
The Amygdala Orbitofrontal Cortex Loop
The Spinal Pattern Generator
The Conscious Triangle: Frontal and Sensory Cortex with the Thalamus
The Basal Ganglia Thalamus Loop
The Anterior Cingulate and Pulvinar Central Executives
Ten Technologies Revolutionizing Brain Science
Optogenetics: Controlling Neurons with Light
Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation and Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation
Genetic Disease Models: Knockouts and Knockins
Brain Imaging: Optical, Magnetic, and Electrical
Interfacing Brains with Computers
Deep Brain Stimulation
Multi-Electrode Array Recording
Fluorescence and Confocal Microscopy
Advances in Electrophysiological Recording
Tissue Culture and Brain Slices
Index. A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
K
L
M
N
O
P
R
S
T
U
V
W
Z
About the Author
Dedication
Author’s Acknowledgments
WILEY END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
