What is the cerebral cortex?
The laminated gray-matter sheet covering the cerebral hemispheres and their folds.
What structures does the cerebrum include?
The cerebral cortex, underlying white matter, and deep gray structures.
What is the cerebral cortex specifically?
Only the folded laminated gray-matter sheet.
Which type of cortex makes up most human cortex?
Six-layered neocortex or isocortex.
What are allocortical regions?
Hippocampal archicortex and olfactory-related paleocortex.
What is the typical thickness of neocortex?
Roughly 2–4 millimetres.
Which hemisphere is dominant for core language operations in many people?
The left hemisphere.
How does handedness affect language dominance?
It changes the probability but does not fix the dominant hemisphere.
What does the central sulcus separate in the cortex?
It separates precentral frontal cortex from postcentral parietal cortex.
What does the lateral sulcus separate and expose when opened?
It separates temporal cortex from frontal and parietal opercula and exposes the insula.
Which cortex does the precentral gyrus contain?
Primary motor cortex.
Which cortex does the postcentral gyrus contain?
Primary somatosensory cortex.
Where is the primary visual cortex mainly located?
Along the banks of the calcarine sulcus.
What functions is the precuneus involved in?
Visuospatial, mnemonic, and internally directed networks.
Which brain regions participate in autonomic regulation and pain-related processing?
Anterior and midcingulate regions.
Which artery predominantly supplies medial frontal and parietal cortex?
The anterior cerebral artery.
What migration do excitatory neurons undergo during cortical development?
Radial migration along glial scaffolds.
From where do many inhibitory interneurons migrate tangentially during cortical development?
Ventral ganglionic eminences.
What sequence describes the layering of excitatory neurons in cortical development?
An inside-out sequence with later-born neurons in superficial layers.
Which factors interact across sensitive periods to shape development?
Morphogens, transcriptional gradients, cell lineage, spontaneous activity, sensory experience, nutrition, hormones, inflammation, stress, toxins, and social environments.
What happens to cortical thickness during childhood and adolescence?
It often decreases.
How are neocortical layers numbered?
From pia to white matter.
Which neocortical layer commonly receives thalamic input?
Layer IV.
What neurotransmitter do most cortical inhibitory interneurons release?
GABA.
What do association fibres connect in the brain?
Cortical territories within one hemisphere.
What do commissural fibres connect?
The two cerebral hemispheres.
What do projection fibres connect?
Cortex with thalamus, basal ganglia, brainstem, cerebellar relay systems, and spinal cord.
What is a streamline from diffusion-MRI tractography not?
An observed axon.
Can routine diffusion tractography determine information flow direction?
No, it cannot establish direction or synaptic termination sites.
Why is the thalamus not considered a passive relay?
Because it gates, synchronizes, transforms, and routes information under cortical and brainstem influence.
What does a Brodmann number identify?
An atlas-defined cytoarchitectonic territory.
How many areas per hemisphere did the Human Connectome Project parcellation identify?
180 areas per hemisphere in a group atlas.
Where is the primary motor cortex located?
In the precentral gyrus and anterior paracentral lobule.
Through which structures do corticospinal fibres descend?
Corona radiata, internal capsule, cerebral peduncle, and brainstem.
What does a unilateral lesion above the pyramidal decussation cause?
Contralateral weakness, loss of fractionated movement, and evolving upper-motor-neuron syndrome.
What is the main function of the ventral occipitotemporal visual stream?
Representing objects, shapes, colors, words, and faces.
What is the main function of the dorsal occipitoparietal visual stream?
Spatial attention, motion, reaching, grasping, and visually guided action.
What visual field does each primary visual cortex represent?
The contralateral visual hemifield from both eyes.
Where does upper visual-field information map in the primary visual cortex?
Mainly to the lower calcarine cortex.
Why can spinal withdrawal begin before conscious pain perception?
Nociceptive afferents activate spinal interneuronal circuits before signals reach cortical networks.
Where does auditory thalamic input reach the primary auditory cortex?
On Heschl’s gyri.
What do ventral language pathways support?
Mapping sound patterns onto lexical and semantic representations.
What functions do dorsal temporoparietal–frontal pathways support?
Auditory–motor mapping, phonological working memory, repetition, and aspects of syntax and articulation.
How is aphasia distinguished from other speech and cognitive disorders?
By assessing spontaneous speech, comprehension, naming, repetition, reading, and writing.
What three interoceptive aspects are distinguishable and need not correlate strongly?
Interoceptive accuracy, subjective interoceptive sensibility, and metacognitive awareness.
What is nociception?
Neural processing of potentially tissue-damaging events.
How is pain defined distinct from nociception?
Pain is an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience.
What do lateral prefrontal networks maintain and coordinate?
They maintain goals, rules, task context, manipulate working memory, bias selection, and coordinate with multiple brain systems.
Which brain regions represent subjective value and social context?
Orbitofrontal and ventromedial regions.
What do stop-signal reaction time and delay discounting measure?
They measure different constructs of impulsivity.
Can brain findings convert statistical associations into deterministic responsibility?
No, brain findings cannot convert statistical associations into deterministic accounts of responsibility.
Which brain circuits are critical for episodic memory?
Hippocampal and medial temporal circuits.
What other brain areas are involved in episodic memory encoding and retrieval?
Distributed sensory, association, prefrontal, parietal, and posterior cingulate areas.
How can memories be altered?
Memories can be altered by suggestion, retrieval, sleep, emotion, and new learning.
What factors contribute to decision-making beyond a rational prefrontal governor?
Decision-making emerges from evidence, goals, learned values, bodily state, time pressure, social context, attention, memory, and available actions.
Which brain regions are involved in decision-making?
The amygdala, striatum, hippocampus, thalamus, insula, cingulate, parietal cortex, cerebellum, brainstem, endocrine systems, and prefrontal cortex.
What effect do lesions to ventromedial prefrontal systems have on behavior?
They can alter emotion-guided choice or social conduct.
Do lesions to ventromedial prefrontal systems usually cause criminal behavior?
No, similar lesions do not usually cause criminal behavior.
Can unlawful acts occur without identifiable brain lesions?
Yes, unlawful acts can occur without identifiable lesions.
What role does the entorhinal cortex play in memory?
It acts as a major interface between neocortex and hippocampal formation.
Which cortex is involved in complex object and familiarity-related representations?
The perirhinal cortex.
What functions are associated with parahippocampal territories?
Scene, spatial, and contextual processing.
What must forensic memory assessment reconstruct?
Encoding, retention, retrieval conditions, and contamination.
What do dorsal frontoparietal systems support in attention?
Goal-directed selection and orienting.
What does the right-lateralized ventral attention system respond to?
Behaviorally relevant unexpected events and reorients ongoing processing.
What is hemispatial neglect?
Failure to attend or respond to stimuli on one side despite no blindness or numbness.
Which brain lesions commonly cause neglect after right-hemisphere stroke?
Lesions in inferior parietal, temporoparietal, superior temporal, frontal, insular, thalamic, basal-ganglia, or connecting white-matter regions.
Why does a normal single paper-and-pencil test not exclude important neglect?
Because different tests sample different neglect components.
What is functional connectivity in neuroscience?
Statistical dependence between signals without implying direct anatomical or causal links.
Which brain subsystems are included in the default mode network?
Medial prefrontal, posterior cingulate or precuneus, lateral parietal, and temporal subsystems.
What cognitive functions does the default mode network support?
Autobiographical memory, future simulation, semantic processing, social inference, and internal cognition.
How is hemispheric specialization usually characterized?
As relative, with both hemispheres contributing but one having stronger or faster roles for a task.
What does predictive processing propose about hierarchical systems?
They use generative models to predict sensory input and update beliefs from prediction errors.
How are prediction errors weighted in predictive processing?
By their expected precision.
What two aspects does consciousness involve?
Level or wakefulness and contents like sights, thoughts, pain, and self-related experience.
Which brain areas support consciousness?
Brainstem arousal systems, hypothalamus, basal forebrain, thalamus, and widespread cortical interactions.
What changes does plasticity include beyond synaptic strength?
Plasticity includes intrinsic excitability, inhibition, dendritic structure, axonal myelination, glial function, vascular support, and network recruitment.
What does neuroplasticity not guarantee regarding recovery?
Neuroplasticity does not guarantee unlimited recovery.
Does neuroplasticity validate every marketed intervention?
Neuroplasticity does not validate every intervention marketed under that term.
What is the first step in clinical localization?
Clinical localization begins with time course.
How does clinical localization use imaging?
Imaging tests hypotheses rather than replaces examination in clinical localization.
What strengthens causation in clinical localization?
Causation is strongest when anatomy, timing, objective deficit, mechanism, and recovery trajectory converge.
Test your knowledge with 55 questions on Cerebral Cortex Foundations and Systems.
1. Which structure is defined as the laminated gray-matter sheet covering the cerebral hemispheres and extending into their folds?
2. Which statement best distinguishes the cerebrum from the cerebral cortex?
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