News tagged with cerebral cortex
Researchers rewrite textbook on location of brain's speech processing center
Scientists have long believed that human speech is processed towards the back of the brain's cerebral cortex, behind auditory cortex where all sounds are received -- a place famously known as Wernicke's area ...
Neuroscience
Jan 30, 2012 |
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Uncommon features of Einstein's brain might explain his remarkable cognitive abilities
Portions of Albert Einstein's brain have been found to be unlike those of most people and could be related to his extraordinary cognitive abilities, according to a new study led by Florida State University ...
Neuroscience
Nov 15, 2012 |
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Primitive consciousness emerges first as you awaken from anesthesia
Awakening from anesthesia is often associated with an initial phase of delirious struggle before the full restoration of awareness and orientation to one's surroundings. Scientists now know why this may occur: ...
Neuroscience
Apr 04, 2012 |
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Memory vs. Math: Same brain areas show inverse responses to recall and arithmetic
(Medical Xpress)—Scientists have historically relied on neuroimaging – but not electrophysiological – data when studying the human default mode network (DMN), a group of brain regions with lower activi ...
Neuroscience
Sep 17, 2012 |
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Researchers discover sleep mechanism critical to memory consolidation and find that Ambien enhances the process
(Medical Xpress)—A team of sleep researchers led by UC Riverside psychologist Sara C. Mednick has confirmed the mechanism that enables the brain to consolidate memory and found that a commonly prescribed ...
Neuroscience
Mar 12, 2013 |
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Math ability requires crosstalk in the brain
A new study by researchers at UT Dallas' Center for Vital Longevity, Duke University, and the University of Michigan has found that the strength of communication between the left and right hemispheres of ...
Neuroscience
Aug 29, 2012 |
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Evidence builds that meditation strengthens the brain, researchers say
Earlier evidence out of UCLA suggested that meditating for years thickens the brain (in a good way) and strengthens the connections between brain cells. Now a further report by UCLA researchers suggests yet another benefit.
Neuroscience
Mar 14, 2012 |
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Atlas shows how genes organize the surface of the brain
The first atlas of the surface of the human brain based upon genetic information has been produced by a national team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of ...
Neuroscience
Mar 29, 2012 |
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How the brain strings words into sentences
(Medical Xpress) -- Distinct neural pathways are important for different aspects of language processing, researchers have discovered, studying patients with language impairments caused by neurodegenerative ...
Neuroscience
Nov 24, 2011 |
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Scientists probe the source of a pulsing signal in the sleeping brain
New findings clarify where and how the brain's "slow waves" originate. These rhythmic signal pulses, which sweep through the brain during deep sleep at the rate of about one cycle per second, are assumed ...
Neuroscience
Apr 18, 2013 |
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Brain cells created from patients' skin cells
(Medical Xpress) -- Cambridge scientists have, for the first time, created cerebral cortex cells – those that make up the brain’s grey matter – from a small sample of human skin. The researchers’ ...
Neuroscience
Feb 07, 2012 |
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Learning requires rhythmical activity of neurons
The hippocampus represents an important brain structure for learning. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich discovered how it filters electrical neuronal signals through an input ...
Neuroscience
Sep 26, 2012 |
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Neuroscientists find brain stem cells that may be responsible for higher functions, bigger brains
Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have identified a new stem cell population that may be responsible for giving birth to the neurons responsible for higher thinking. The finding also paves the way for scientists ...
Neuroscience
Aug 09, 2012 |
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Scientists have new help finding their way around brain's nooks and crannies
Like explorers mapping a new planet, scientists probing the brain need every type of landmark they can get. Each mountain, river or forest helps scientists find their way through the intricacies of the human ...
Medical research
Aug 09, 2011 |
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Scientists probe connection between sight and touch in the brain
Shakespeare famously referred to "the mind's eye," but scientists at USC now have also identified a "mind's touch."
Neuroscience
Sep 08, 2011 |
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Cerebral cortex
The cerebral cortex is a structure within the brain that plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness. It constitutes the outermost layer of the cerebrum. In preserved brains, it has a grey color, hence the name "grey matter". Grey matter is formed by neurons and their unmyelinated fibers, whereas the white matter below the grey matter of the cortex is formed predominantly by myelinated axons interconnecting different regions of the central nervous system. The human cerebral cortex is 2–4 mm (0.08–0.16 inches) thick.
The surface of the cerebral cortex is folded in large mammals, such that more than two-thirds of the cortical surface is buried in the grooves, called "sulci." The phylogenetically most recent part of the cerebral cortex, the neocortex, also called isocortex, is differentiated into six horizontal layers; the more ancient part of the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus (also called archicortex), has at most three cellular layers, and is divided into subfields. Relative variations in thickness or cell type (among other parameters) allow us to distinguish between different neocortical architectonic fields. The geometry of at least some of these fields seems to be related to the anatomy of the cortical folds, and, for example, layers in the upper part of the cortical ridges (called gyri) seem to be more clearly differentiated than in its deeper parts.
For more information about Cerebral cortex, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
