Abstract
A major goal of exploring the brain is to understand how the cognitive process are
supported at the level of the brain system and network presentations. The brain’s complexity is
staggering. For end of two hemispheres, each along with midbrain, brainstem and cerebellum,
the brain does not look like a unitary structure at all. Its many structures and regions combine
with a vast connectivity to form a complex universe that drives human thought actions, desire
and cognition.
Introduction.
To understand the brain, we need to first understand some of the constituent parts such as
the cortex, the thalamus, and brainstem and again zoom into different subregions to understand
in more depth. We will therefore explore the inner dimensions of the brain using 5 aspects of
neuroscientific investigation: Brain structure, Cellular properties, Brain function, Brain
pathways, Brain rhythms.
Neuroanatomy
This involve the study of brain structures, regions, and where they are located within the
brain. The Cortex-the outer potion of the brain, full of wrinkles and bulges. Cortex plays role of
sensory processing of visual ‘auditory, somatosensory, smell and teste inputs, to internal process
such as decision making and planning for the future. The Four lobes-frontal, parietal, temporal,
and occipital-form the key regions of the cortex. Pains of Brain-The brain is sliced using three
planes that is axial slice, sagittal slice and mid –sagittal slice. Left and Right Hemisphere which
are the two cerebral hemisphere that are completely separate except for the massive connectivity
bridge called the corpus collosum. Cortical landmarks are three, that is sylvian Fissure, central
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sulcus and the longitudinal Fissure. The Sub Cortex region contains many bodies or nuclei that
performs important functions ranging from control of movement to emotional processing.
The Thalamus- located deep in the center of the brain, the two thalami (A, one in the left
hemisphere, one in the right) they are all inter connected The Amygdala which function as our
emotional processors. The Basal Ganglia are group of bodies that are engaged in influencing
motor control along with the motor cortex and the spinal cord. The Cerebellum, located at the
posterior portion of the brain behind the temporal and occipital lobes, has a variety of roles in
human movement, learning and cognition. The Brainstem connects the brain to the spinal cord
and the rest of the body.
Neurophysiology
Here we study different cells in the brain performing vital functions The tiny cells in the
brain are the worker bees that transmit information and provide the key basis for human thought
and cognition. The mighty neurons which receive and send signals. Dendrites are tree –structures
around the cell body or soma of the neuron, they receive incoming signals. Extending from the
cell body is the axon which aids in the electrical conductivity. The gaps in the myelin sheath that
exposes the axon aid in action potential generation.
Action Potentials; There are many complex ways in which brain cells interact, the action
potential forms the key communication method for a neuron to communicate with another
neuron or group of neurons. The neurons communicate through a combination of electric and
chemical process.
Functional Neuroanatomy
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This involves the brain study, potential differing functions the hemispheres and the lobes
of the brain perform. The basic way to divide the brain’s function is to look at the ‘front ‘of the
brain and ‘back, of the brain. The most sensory information arrives from the back of the brain
where most of the outgoing motor acts or movements are generated. This senses, vision,
audition, and somatosensory are the three key cortical senses. Rounding out the five senses are
the chemical senses of teste and smell which have non-cortical landing places.
Primary Sensory Regionals; Sensory information comes to the cortex from pathways from the
eyes, ears, and body to regions of cortex specialized for processing that sensory information. The
motor system is complex, however, with many layers of circuitry that control fine-motor skills
such as speech, breathing, swallowing and reflexes.
The Frontal Lobe, the sight for motor planning and motor output. The Prefrontal Cortex
that is the area in the front region of the frontal lobe. The Parietal Lobe, corresponds to finer
senses of touch, pressure, pain, in regions such as the hands, mouth, and face. The Parietal Lobe,
this a key region of the visual ‘where’ pathway. Another important function of the Parietal lobe
is the integration of multiple maps of body space. Temporal lobe, speech perfection pathways in
the brain, face recognition among many other visual things. The Middle Temporal Lobe, is a
home to the hippocampus and related regions that are associated with, memory functions, it’s the
key to the memory formation and memory storage. The occipital Lobe, contains the complex
multifaceted neural ensembles that form the basis for human vision and visual perception.
Neuroconectivity; The brain has massive interconnectivity which brings linkage, it
involves the fiber pathways. Aspect of the brain is elucidating how these many bidirectional
pathways form our mind / brain, with an integrated sense of awareness of our world around us,
our inner thoughts, and our very consciousness.
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Neurodynamics-Brain rhythms and Oscillations, Singer and his colleagues describe the cortex as
a system comprised of many distinct, distributed networks that process information in parallel
through these bidirectional pathways that are called ‘re- entrant’.
Sound, Speech, and Music Perception
Auditionary Processing begins and ends at the Ear. The vibrating objects because sound
waves to move through air to reach the tympanic membrane or ear drum, propagate through the
middle ear. The information in sound ascends many transformations as it ascends the auditory
cortex then to the central system. The auditionary cortex is specialized for sound processing.
Music perception, like speech, music perception is uniquely human. Music perception allow for
the recognition of melodies despite indifference in instruments, keys, tempos, thus music
perception system built on absolutes and must have relative presentation. Music and Emotion in
the Brain, the difference between music and speech is the strong emotions that music raises to
listeners. Auditionary Imagery are sounds not heard, they play in our mind whole day.
Attention and consciousness
Many scientists consider the ancient mind-body problem to be the paradigmatic example
of a problem What cannot be properly studied using empirical means, a recent paper by
Watanabe, Cheng, Murayama, Ueno, Asamizuya, Tanaka and Logothetis [1] demonstrates
otherwise. Most researchers closely link attention with awareness (equated here with the contents
of conscious experience), arguing that the two always occur together. That is, attending to an
object is the same as becoming conscious of it. Yet, a minority tradition in psychology, going
back to the 19th century, emphasizes that attention and consciousness are related yet different
[2], and that one can attend to an object or feature of an object without becoming aware of it.
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What we expect from the Conscious people to have, orientation to time, simple working
memory, Attention and calculation, intermediate recall, language. Automatic Attention: When
we hear a sudden loud noise, our attention is “captured,” even without executive guidance. As
you might expect, visual attention can be captured by human faces, emotional expressions, and
bodies, when compared with neutral stimuli. Intense or sudden stimuli, or unexpected events
generate larger brain responses than control stimuli.
Disorders and consciousness
While scientists still strangle to develop a clear definition of just what human
consciousness is, we can describe human unconsciousness, from a clinical perspective, un
consciousness is characterized by closed eyes and lack of awareness and responsiveness, slowed
breathing and heart rate, and some limited spontaneous movement. Un conscious state can be
classified into two parts; reversible and none reversible. Disorders of consciousness are
potentially non-reversible unconscious state due to brain trauma or damage Recently, the first
neuroscientific evidence for UT was published (Creswell, Bursley, & Satpute, 2013). The study
showed that unconscious thinkers made better decisions than conscious thinkers and then
immediate decision makers. To differentiate the neural activity involved in UT from the neural
activity involved in performing the dis-traction task, Creswell et al. (2013) had the participants
perform the distraction task separately, and they sub-tracked the neural activity from neural
activity during UT. The functional magnetic resonance imaging data showed that UT was
associated with activation in the right dorso-lateral prefrontal cortex and left intermediate visual
cor-tex. These areas were already involved in the encoding of the information in the first place,
and Creswell et al. proposed a neural reactivation account for UT, indeed demonstrating
unconscious processing to continue after encoding. Neural reactivation in the regions mentioned
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previously was predictive of decision quality of unconscious thinkers. The study of human
consciousness and unconsciousness continues to challenge scientists, philosophers, and all
individual who is not conscious and aware of their surroundings.
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Koch, C., & Tsuchiya, N. (2012). Attention and consciousness: Related yet different. Trends in
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