Physiology 3120 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Stretch Reflex, Brainstem, Reticular Formation

• School: Western University
• Department: Physiology
• Course: Physiology 3120
• Professor: Tom Stavraky

Document Summary

When a muscle contracted, there is afferent feedback. Into local level of spinal cord: up the dorsal column medial lemniscal system to the somatosensory cortex and then potentially to motor cortex, spino-cerebellum afferent feedback. Motor cortex is the final level of hierarchy at the level of the brain that the command signal comes from. Three main techniques used to demonstrate the function of a particular brain region. Stimulation: electrical, magnetic, epilepsy: all are of significance to clinical neurophysiology. Inject radioactive substance and positrons are emitted from the areas of the cortex in relationship to how active those areas are in terms of blood flow fmri (functional magnetic resonance imaging) most common. Four specialized areas of cortex: somatosensory, visual, auditory, motor: specialized for a particular function, somatosensory: post central gyrus, visual cortex: occipital, motor cortex was the first area to be discovered. Using fmri, it was discovered that 180 separate areas/hemispheres with different functions.