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Frank Amthor
Frank Amthor, PhD, is a professor of psychology at the University of Alabama and holds a secondary appointment in the UAB Medical School Department of Neurobiology. He has been an NIH-supported researcher for over 20 years and has published over 100 journal articles and conference abstracts.
Articles & Books From Frank Amthor
Cheat Sheet / Updated 02-12-2024
Neurobiology has all kinds of real-world (and not so real-world) applications. From curing paralysis to the possibility of cyborgs, neurobiology has answers to many fascinating questions this Cheat Sheet addresses.How can paralysis be cured?Paralysis has multiple causes. The part of the brain that controls movement can be damaged, such as from a stroke.
Article / Updated 06-06-2023
Although not located in the skin, receptors mediating proprioception (position sense) and kinesthesis (movement sense), are either free nerve endings or structures similar to mechanoreceptors like Ruffini corpuscles (refer to the first figure below) and have similar layouts as the cell bodies in the dorsal root ganglia (refer to the second figure).
Cheat Sheet / Updated 05-08-2023
Why is Neuroscience important? The most complex structure in the world is the 3-pound mass of cells within your skull called the brain.The brain consists of about 100 billion neurons, which is about the same number as all the stars in our Milky Way galaxy and the number of galaxies in the known universe. It also contains about a trillion glial cells, which contribute to the proper function of neurons.
Article / Updated 04-18-2023
Although pain is a necessary function for preventing damage to the body, in some cases, pain itself becomes disabling. Chronic pain can occur in disease conditions such as cancer, in which case the normal function of pain that forces you to rest, protect, or not use some injured part of the body until it heals is simply inappropriate in a disease state in which destruction is occurring from the cancer all over the body that cannot be healed from rest.
Article / Updated 10-07-2022
Knowing the four lobes of the brain is important for neuroscience. The neocortex is divided into four major lobes: the frontal lobe, the parietal lobe, the temporal lobe, and occipital lobe. These lobes are further divided into different regions. The frontal lobes are involved with control of movement, from stimulation of individual muscles to abstract planning about what to do.
Article / Updated 09-21-2022
The mapping of skin receptors to a specific area of neocortex illustrates one of the most fundamental principles of brain organization, cortical maps. The projection from the thalamus is orderly in the sense that receptors on nearby parts of the skin project to nearby cortical neurons. The figure shows a representation of the skin map on the somatosensory cortex.
Article / Updated 08-30-2021
Mental illness can clearly occur in a genetically normal brain which has suffered organic damage during development or later. It can also arise from trauma or stress that leads to indirect changes in the brain from factors like chronic stress or sleep deprivation.Well-known environmentally generated brain dysfunctions include the following:
Fetal alcohol syndrome: Fetal alcohol syndrome develops when the mother drinks excessive alcohol during pregnancy.
Article / Updated 09-11-2016
Inside the skin's dermis are four distinctive types of touch receptors, termed mechanoreceptors. The following figure shows the layers of the skin and some of its receptors. The layers of the skin and some of its receptors.
Merkel disks
Merkel disk receptors, as their name implies, are disk-shaped receptors located close to the border between the dermis and epidermis; sometimes they extend into the epidermis.
Article / Updated 09-11-2016
Learning is hard. Most people spend at least 7 hours a day for 12 years just to qualify for a high school diploma. If you have dyslexia, autism, or some other learning disability, your struggle to achieve this competence may be arduous.
Neuroscientists now understand much more about how the brain learns than even ten years ago, and what they know is that learning in some contexts at some rates is much easier than in others.
Article / Updated 09-11-2016
The loss of a major sense such as vision or hearing is one of the most disabling of all nervous system disorders. Most vision and hearing losses occur from damage to the peripheral receptors or receptor organs — the eye in the case of vision and the inner ear in the case of hearing.While many people are familiar with the use of mechanical prosthetics for limb loss, not many are aware of neuroprostheses, prosthetics designed to address nervous system disorders.
