Human brainThe human brain is the central organ of the human nervous system, and with the spinal cord makes up the central nervous system. The brain consists of the cerebrum, the brainstem and the cerebellum. It controls most of the activities of the body, processing, integrating, and coordinating the information it receives from the sense organs, and making decisions as to the instructions sent to the rest of the body. The brain is contained in, and protected by, the skull bones of the head.
Brain implantBrain implants, often referred to as neural implants, are technological devices that connect directly to a biological subject's brain – usually placed on the surface of the brain, or attached to the brain's cortex. A common purpose of modern brain implants and the focus of much current research is establishing a biomedical prosthesis circumventing areas in the brain that have become dysfunctional after a stroke or other head injuries. This includes sensory substitution, e.g., in vision.
NeuroprostheticsNeuroprosthetics (also called neural prosthetics) is a discipline related to neuroscience and biomedical engineering concerned with developing neural prostheses. They are sometimes contrasted with a brain–computer interface, which connects the brain to a computer rather than a device meant to replace missing biological functionality. Neural prostheses are a series of devices that can substitute a motor, sensory or cognitive modality that might have been damaged as a result of an injury or a disease.
Upper motor neuronUpper motor neurons (UMNs) is a term introduced by William Gowers in 1886. They are found in the cerebral cortex and brainstem and carry information down to activate interneurons and lower motor neurons, which in turn directly signal muscles to contract or relax. UMNs in the cerebral cortex are the main source of voluntary movement. They are the larger pyramidal cells in the cerebral cortex. There is a type of giant pyramidal cell called Betz cells and are found just below the surface of the cerebral cortex within layer V of the primary motor cortex.
Mauthner cellThe Mauthner cells are a pair of big and easily identifiable neurons (one for each half of the body) located in the rhombomere 4 of the hindbrain in fish and amphibians that are responsible for a very fast escape reflex (in the majority of animals – a so-called C-start response). The cells are also notable for their unusual use of both chemical and electrical synapses. Mauthner cells first appear in lampreys (being absent in hagfish and lancelets), and are present in virtually all teleost fish, as well as in amphibians (including postmetamorphic frogs and toads).
Algorithmic information theoryAlgorithmic information theory (AIT) is a branch of theoretical computer science that concerns itself with the relationship between computation and information of computably generated objects (as opposed to stochastically generated), such as strings or any other data structure. In other words, it is shown within algorithmic information theory that computational incompressibility "mimics" (except for a constant that only depends on the chosen universal programming language) the relations or inequalities found in information theory.
Neural codingNeural coding (or neural representation) is a neuroscience field concerned with characterising the hypothetical relationship between the stimulus and the individual or ensemble neuronal responses and the relationship among the electrical activity of the neurons in the ensemble. Based on the theory that sensory and other information is represented in the brain by networks of neurons, it is thought that neurons can encode both digital and analog information.
Brodmann areaA Brodmann area is a region of the cerebral cortex, in the human or other primate brain, defined by its cytoarchitecture, or histological structure and organization of cells. The concept was first introduced by the German anatomist Korbinian Brodmann in the early 20th century. Brodmann mapped the human brain based on the varied cellular structure across the cortex and identified 52 distinct regions, which he numbered 1 to 52. These regions, or Brodmann areas, correspond with diverse functions including sensation, motor control, and cognition.
Thalamocortical radiationsIn neuroanatomy, thalamocortical radiations also known as thalamocortical fibres, are the efferent fibres that project from the thalamus to distinct areas of the cerebral cortex. They form fibre bundles that emerge from the lateral surface of the thalamus. Thalamocortical fibers (TC fibres) have been referred to as one of the two constituents of the isothalamus, the other being microneurons. Thalamocortical fibers have a bush or tree-like appearance as they extend into the internal capsule and project to the layers of the cortex.
Lateralization of brain functionThe lateralization of brain function (or hemispheric dominance/ latralisation ) is the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialized to one side of the brain or the other. The median longitudinal fissure separates the human brain into two distinct cerebral hemispheres, connected by the corpus callosum. Although the macrostructure of the two hemispheres appears to be almost identical, different composition of neuronal networks allows for specialized function that is different in each hemisphere.
