Function of the Cortex

Objective 16

Carlita Owens

Fred Pennington

Brittany Wallace

Motor Function German physicians Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig discovered they could make different body parts move by mild electrical Stimulation. The arch shaped region that controls movement is the motor cortex

Mapping the Motor Cortex

Otfrid Foerster and wilder Penfield mapped

the motor cortex by stimulating different

cortical areas according to parts they controlled.

It was discovered that one side of the brain

controlled the other (left side of brain controls

right side of body)

Neural ProstheticsBrown University conducted a study to monitor when monkeys would move or think to move the monitor and later predict brain signals using recording electrons

With the findings researchers programmed a cursor to move to the monkeys thinking

In 2004 a trial for neural prosthetics on paralyzed humans allowed a tester to control a t.v. draw shapes on a computer and play video games.

Sensory Function The sensory cortex (discovered by Penfield) is a cortical area that specializes in getting information from the skin senses and from movement of the body.The more sensitive a body region the larger the sensory cortexScientist have identified other areas where the cortex receives input other than touch

Such as; optical lobes which receives visual information

Association Areas

They association various sensory inputs with stored memories- a very important

part of thinking.

Figure 2.31 Phineas Gage reconsideredMyers: Psychology, Eighth EditionCopyright © 2007 by Worth Publishers

Using measurement of his skull and modern neuroimaging technique, researcher Hanna Damasio and her colleagues have reconstructed the probable path of the rod through Gage’s brain.