Neuroanatomy Basics:

• Cerebral Cortex — consists of the frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe. Responsible for thought, reasoning, coordinated movement, language, visual processing
  • "Cortex" is latin for "bark"
• Cerebellum — responsible for balance
  • "Cerebellum" is latin for "little brain"
• Thalamus — responsible for relaying sensory information to or from the cerebral cortex
• Hypothalamus — responsible for regulating body temperature, emotions, hunger, thirst and circadian rhythms

Limbic System:

Limbic system — responsible for emotions and memory, primarily

• Amygdala — responsible for lower-level emotional responses such as fear or aggression
• Hippocampus — reponsible for 'transferring' short-term memory to long-term memory
• Mammillary bodies — responsible for recall memory
• Cingulate cortex — responsible for linking motivational outcomes to behaviour, for example
• Basal Ganglia — responsible for habit formation

Neurons:

Neurons are cells comprising the nervous system which can propagate signals through an electrochemical process.

• The brain consists of ~100 billion neurons which an average of 10000 synapses for each neuron
• Dendrites — receives input signals from other neurons
• Axons — outputs a signal to the dendrites of other neurons

Synapse

• Synapse — an electrochemical junction

• Synaptic vesicle — a 'capsule' of neurotransmitters that are released across the synaptic cleft when the vesicle fuses with the axon terminal's membrane