Neuroscience: Expert Guides and Resources

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The sense of pain can be reduced in several ways, including the body's own production of endorphins. Feeling pain is, well, painful. Wouldn't you be better off if you could just eliminate pain? The answer to the question of whether you would be better off without a sense of pain is a resounding no.This situation actually occurs in some people.