PSY100H1 Lecture 6: Psych(6) - The Cerbral Cortex

• School: UTSG
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY100H1
• Professor: Ashley Waggoner Denton

Document Summary

The cerebral cortex: outer layer of brain, each cerebral hemisphere has 4 lobes, corpus callosum, massive bridge of axons, connects hemispheres and allows information to flow between them. Prefrontal cortex: 30% of the brain, complexity of structure more important than size, severe damage (ie. phineas gage), personality shifts, Important for attention, working memory, decision making, social behaviour, personality. Plasticity: neuroplasticity: brain is plastic, able to be changed, reorganized, as a result of experience, drugs, etc. Ie. rats raised in enriched vs impoverished environments: enriched: more complex neurons with more dendrites to make more connections (forms more synapses) The peripheral nervous system (pns: transmits info to cna and responds to messages from cns to perform certain behaviours or make bodily adjustments, divided into somatic (sns) and autonomic (ans) Somatic: concerned with external environment, consists primarily of motor neurons responsible for sending signals from the brain to the muscles (efferent pathway -cns.