Brain Structures and Their Functions
The nervous system is your body's decision and communication center. The central nervous system (CNS) is made of the brain and the spinal cord and the peripheral nervous system (PNS) is made of nerves. Together they control every part of your daily life, from breathing and blinking to helping you memorize facts for a test. Nerves reach from your brain to your face, ears, eyes, nose, and spinal cord... and from the spinal cord to the rest of your body. Sensory nerves gather information from the environment, send that info to the spinal cord, which then speed the message to the brain. The brain then makes sense of that message and fires off a response. The brain is made of three main parts: the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. The Cerebrum: The cerebrum or cortex is the largest part of the human brain, associated with higher brain function such as thought and action. What do each of these lobes do? Note that the cerebral cortex is highly wrinkled.
Baby boomers show concerning decline in cognitive functioning
In a reversal of trends, American baby boomers scored lower on a test of cognitive functioning than did members of previous generations, according to a new nationwide study. Findings showed that average cognition scores of adults aged 50 and older increased from generation to generation, beginning with the greatest generation (born 1890-1923) and peaking among war babies (born 1942-1947). Scores began to decline in the early baby boomers (born 1948-1953) and decreased further in the mid baby boomers (born 1954-1959). While the prevalence of dementia has declined recently in the United States, these results suggest those trends may reverse in the coming decades, according to study author Hui Zheng, professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. “It is shocking to see this decline in cognitive functioning among baby boomers after generations of increases in test scores,” Zheng said. Hui Zheng The study was published online recently in the Journals of Gerontology: Social Sciences.
How Staying Mentally Fit Can Make a Difference | Optimum Performance Studio
Your brain isn’t a muscle, but you can treat it like one Many people focus on physical fitness, but few know that brain fitness is also something you can work on. In fact, you can exercise your brain as often as you would your arms or abs--and the results can be positive and empowering. It’s helpful to think of your brain as you would a muscle. This is based on your brain’s innate neuroplasticity, or its ability to grow and change in response to new challenges. The science behind brain training Scientists once believed that your mental abilities were fixed in adulthood. The most popular of these brain training products is made by the San Francisco-based Lumosity, which employs a team of in-house neuroscientists with degrees from Stanford and UC Berkeley. Realizing that brains need more sophisticated programs and guidance to grow and change, Lumosity’s scientists work with an experienced team of game designers. Promising studies on the effects of brain training
Brain Waves
The human brain is more complex than your scientists suspect. They are busily mapping where certain functions occur, and how parts of the brain activate in syncronicity. They know that parts of the brain, near the stem, are older than, for instance, the forebrain, and that a human can survive remarkably well with only half a brain, as long as that half is either the right or left, intact. But what your scientists do not know is that beyond the old brain and the new, the subconscious and the conscious, the right and the left halves - there are yet more subdivisions of the human brain. Where brain functions are localized close to the data stores, the chemical paths and links that constitute memory and the potential for thought, these functional mother lodes cannot be mined without the greased lightning that is the communication substrata. Brain waves are but a symptom of the process, whereby the brain, as an organ, hums to itself. All rights reserved: ZetaTalk@ZetaTalk.com
Multi-task connectivity reveals flexible hubs for adaptive task control | Nature Neuroscience
1Duncan, J. The multiple-demand (MD) system of the primate brain: mental programs for intelligent behaviour. Trends Cogn. Sci. 14, 172–179 (2010).PubMed Article PubMed Central Google Scholar 2Cole, M.W. & Schneider, W. The cognitive control network: integrated cortical regions with dissociable functions. Neuroimage 37, 343–360 (2007).PubMed Article PubMed Central Google Scholar 3Niendam, T.A. et al.
Neurotechnology
Neurotechnology is any technology that has a fundamental influence on how people understand the brain and various aspects of consciousness, thought, and higher order activities in the brain. It also includes technologies that are designed to improve and repair brain function and allow researchers and clinicians to visualize the brain. Background[edit] The field of neurotechnology has been around for nearly half a century but has only reached maturity in the last twenty years. As the field’s depth increases it will potentially allow society to control and harness more of what the brain does and how it influences lifestyles and personalities. Current technologies[edit] Imaging[edit] Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used for scanning the brain for topological and landmark structure in the brain, but can also be used for imaging activation in the brain.[5] While detail about how MRI works is reserved for the actual MRI article, the uses of MRI are far reaching in the study of neuroscience.
State-dependent variability of dynamic functional connectivity between frontoparietal and default networks relates to cognitive flexibility
Highlights Higher task-state FPN–DMN dynamics associate with greater cognitive flexibility. Higher resting-state FPN–DMN dynamics relate to poorer performance. Cognitive flexibility depends on state-dependent dynamic connectivity. Abstract The brain is a dynamic, flexible network that continuously reconfigures. Abbreviations frontoparietal network posterior cingulate cortex vdFC variability of dynamic functional connectivity Key words brain dynamics cognition resting-state fMRI
neurogenesis
