fandomhigh | Psychology 101 (Monday, 01/23/2006, 3rd Period)

Jenny waits for everyone to gather, then begins her lecture.

Biological psych started a while back, when Franz Gall invented phrenology. Basically? He thought the bumps on your skull revealed your personality. Aside from being the butt of many years' worth of jokes, though, phrenology had one good result: It gave people the idea that different regions of the brain had different purposes.

So, various parts of the brain?

The Limbic System - Has two components, the amygdala and the hippocampus. They regulate fear, anger, and our basic motives, like food and sex. The amygdala? Aggression and fear. The hippocampus controls a large portion of our memories.

The hypothalamus? Pleasure centers. The hypothalamus generally triggers the release of a neurotransmitter called 'dopamine.' Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers that travel through the body and control movement, mood, and a number of other factors. Hormones are also chemical messengers, and they are secreted by the endocrine system--which affects the hypothalamus quite a bit.

The cerebral cortex controls processing of information. There are different lobes there--the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes. The cortex also contains the motor cortex--which contols the movements of specific body parts. The sensory cortex? I'm guessing you guys can figure out what that one is, given that you now know what the motor cortex is.

Also in the cortex? Broca's area and Wernicke's area. Both control speech, though if you're reading aloud? The angular gyrus comes into play too.

The brain? Has plasticity, by which I don't mean it's made from plastic. If one area is damaged, often another area will take over and shift to take on functions it never performed before. Nice, right?

Check out this handout, complete with a nice and squishy picture of the human brain, and then we'll start talking about it. And yes, zombies do eat brains.

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...

Stark signs in.

Jaye signs in.

Krycek signed in.

Stark wonders idly if his brain works basically the same way as a human one does. Probably not. He'd rather not having anyone poking at his head again to check, anyway.

"How does that work, when other parts take over the functions of damaged parts?"

"There's neural fiber throughout the entire brain," says Jenny. "So when one area is damaged, the surrounding neurons reroute the signals around it. The process isn't instantaneous ~~nor does it work exactly like that, but my books are all at home~~, but it does work quite often."

"This is probably a dumb question, but why didn't the zombies eat the brains of the people here?" asks Jaye, who'd been safely in her room for all of that.

"I think they were trying to," said Jenny. "I wasn't around for Zombie Weekend--and thank God for that--but I heard something about a bunch of people getting together and kicking some zombie butt." She grinned. "More power to 'em, as long as I'm not around, right?"

Krycek looked at the handout and shook his head slightly. "The human brain is an amazing thing. What about the proposition that we only use 10% of it, normally? Oversimplification or fairly true?"

"Oversimplication," said Jenny. "The brain is far, far too complex--and we don't understand nearly as much of it as we'd like--to state categorically that we only use X, Y, or Z amount of gray matter. And good question, Alex."

((Alanna!mun did not just fall off of her chair crying because this was on her final this morning, oh noes. Nor is she sobbing something about insane teachers dancing on desks with jellied brains.))

*pats you and offers you consoling chocolate*

Oh, God, you poor woman! :)

Psychology 101 (Monday, 01/23/2006, 3rd Period)

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Discussion - The Human Brain

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After Class

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