Nervous System - Neuroanatomy
Parts of the Brain and its Function
How Identical Twins Develop Different Personalities
Why are you who you are? At a simple level, biology says you’re a product of your genes and your environment—or, nature and nurture. But the explanation is trickier when you consider identical twins raised in the same home: they have the same genes, and grew up in the same environment, but, if you’ve ever met a pair you’d probably agree, they’re different people.
A study on mice has tried to get to the bottom of this puzzle—and it finds that the ways identical mice interact with their environment differs, changing both their brain structure and their subsequent behavior. Mice that begin indistinguishable thus grow increasingly different, by virtue of how they interact with their surroundings.
Researcher Julia Freund and colleagues at various German universities began with 40 genetically-identical young female mice. These mice were housed in a custom-built mouse paradise: a cage with five levels, tubes to climb through, boxes to hide in and toys throughout.
To monitor how the mice interacted with their playground environment, scientists implanted RFID tags (like the ones that are plastered on CDs to prevent shoplifiting) under the mice’s skin and tracked their movements with small antennas throughout the cage. They gave the mice unlimited food and water and sat back and waited.
After three months, all the mice had grown more active and adventurous. But though the mice at the start all demonstrated a similar level of wanderlust, by the end of the experiment their travel patterns were decidedly different. While some mice hung around a home area and occasionally ventured outside their comfort zones, others spent equal parts of time in all the cage’s corners. What’s more, the mice’s wanderlust at the end of the experiment was correlated with how many new neurons they’d added in their hippocampus, one of two known areas where new neurons are born in adult mammals’ brains.
It’s been known that physical activity promotes adult neuron-growth (called neurogenesis), but in this case the researchers found it didn’t fully explain the differences. Mice that were very active but in a limited range showed less neuron-creation than mice that wandered over a greater area. The researchers thus concluded that the mice’s divergent experiences of their environment were driving their brain changes. In the end, about one-fifth of the differences in neurogenesis between the mice was attributable to how far the mice wandered, the researchers report in Science.
Thus identical twins, though they start with the same genes, likely develop different personalities in the same environment partially based on how they interact with their environment. This lived experience, in turn, probably changes their genes: Previous research has found that human identical twins accumulate epigenetic changes as they age, making them more dissimilar over time. In this way small initial personality differences could snowball—changing behavior, which changes brain—and result in our colorful, unique selves.
Image by Kati Neudert / Shutterstock
The Human Brain in cross section (near the midline)
The following structures can be located here:
Cerebellum, 4th ventricle, Superior colliculus, Inferior colliculus, Periaqueductal gray, Pons, Dorsal funiculus, MLF, Medial lemniscus, Red nucleus, Mammillary body, Pineal body, Posterior commissure, Anterior commissure, Thalamus, and Fornix.
VAGUS NERVE
I LOVE THIS! :)
How Brain Grows, Differentiates and Matures
The embryonic and fetal brains of all mammals develop in similar ways. The embryonic spinal cord develops along common sequences and patterns. The nervous system emerges from a simple elongated tube of cells, called the neural tube. The head (cranial) end of the embryonic tube expands and differentiates more robustly (than does the spinal end) into several clusters of cells which emerge as the forebrain (telencephalon and diencephalon), midbrain (mesencephalon) and hindbrain (metencephalon and myelencephalon) portions.
Criminal Minds Are Different From Yours, Brain Scans Reveal
These brain scans of psychopaths show a deformation in the amygdala compared to non-psychopaths, from a study by Adrian Raine and colleagues.
In the psychopaths, the researchers observed deformations in another part of the brain called the amygdala, with the psychopaths showing a thinning of the outer layer of that region called the cortex and, on average, an 18-percent volume reduction in this part of brain.
“The amygdala is the seat of emotion. Psychopaths lack emotion. They lack empathy, remorse, guilt,” said research team member Adrian Raine, chair of the Department of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., last month.
Section of the cerebellum
When pain results from an abnormally positioned artery pressing on a cranial nerve, the pain can be relieved by a surgical procedure called vascular decompression. This procedure may be done to treat trigeminal neuralgia, hemifacial spasms, or glossopharyngeal neuralgia.
If the trigeminal nerve is compressed, an area on the back of the head is shaved, and an incision is made. The surgeon cuts a small hole in the skull and lifts the edge of the brain to expose the nerve. Then the surgeon separates the artery from the nerve and places a small sponge between them. A general anesthetic is required, but the risk of side effects from the procedure is small. Side effects include facial numbness, facial weakness, double vision, infection, bleeding, alterations in hearing and balance, and paralysis.
Usually, this procedure relieves the pain, but in about 15% of people, pain recurs.
(Source: merckmanuals.com)
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Starting medical school 18.02.2013
