higher cerebral

functions

by Jingying T. A
Department of
Physiology
 Be responsible for thoughts and
emotions
 Store and retrieve memories
 Generate sense
 Be able to communicate
1 language skills

 dominant hemisphere:
the left cerebral hemisphere, in 90%
right-handed people and 70% left-handed
persons.

 Specifically:
Broca’s area: speech production.
Wernicke’s area :
understand spoken languages.
Aphasia:
 expressive or motor aphasia:

can’t produce speech while retaining

comprehension of language.
 receptive or sensory aphasia:

inability to understand language.

2 learning and memory

 learning: any change in behaviour that

results from previous experience.

 based on memory:
short-term memory
long-term memory
 memory, derived from:
repeated rehearsal of information
eg. practising motor skills
revising previously studied
materials
 mechanisms of memory:
synaptic facility: transmitter release
may be enhanced, making future
activation of that pathway easier.
neural plasticity: eventually
anatomical changes happens, perhaps
involving an increase in the number or
size of synapses.
3 the electroencephalogram
(EEG)

 EEG:
The electrical activity within cerebral
neurons leads to surface potentials,
which may be detected using scalp
electrodes. And the resulting
recording is called ~.

some what analogous to the ECG.

 wave patterns:

as neuronal activity increases, EEG

becomes more irregular
(desynchronized), with a rise in the
frequency and a fall in the amplitude.
 sleep: loss of consciousness, and reversible.

slow wave sleep: (SWS) low frequency delta wave. at

the same time, leads to reductions in blood pressure,
respiration, metabolic rate and gastrointestinal
activity.
paradoxical / rapid eye movement sleep: (REM)
dreaming, high frequency beta wave, with variable
heart rate and respiration, irregular muscle
movements and general reduction in muscle tone.
 control of sleep:
reticular activating system

when excited by sensory or motor

activity, reduce drowsiness.
 sleep deprivation:

tend to produce extreme disturbances of

thinking and emotion.

but the “why” is not answered.

sleep waves of dolphine