Computational Neuroscience

Computational Neuroscience.md

Computational Neuroscience

Week 1: Introduction & Basic Neurobiology

1. Course Introduction and Logistics
2. Computational Neuroscience: Descriptive Models
3. Computational Neuroscience: Mechanistic and Interpretive Models
4. The Electrical Personality of Neurons
5. Making Connections: Synapses
6. Time to Network: Brain Areas and their Function

1.6 - Time to Network: Brain Areas and their Function

Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

• Somatic: nerves (bundles of axons) connecting to voluntary (skeletal) muscles + sensory receptors
  • Afferent Nerve Fibers (incoming) Axons that transmit from the periphery to CNS
  • Efferent Nerve Fibers (outgoing) Axons that communicate from the CNS to the periphery
• Autonomic:
  • connects the various smooth muscles + internal organs, also controls the fight or flight response

Central Nervous System (CNS)

• Spinal Cord
  • reflex arc: local feedback loops, controlled by the spinal cord - recoiling from a hot stove
  • descending motor control signals: activating spinal motor neurons
  • ascending sensory axons: convey sensory info from muscles + skin back to the brain
• Brain
  • Hind-brain
    • Medulla Oblangata: breathing, muscle tone, and blood pressure
    • Pons: controls sleep & arousal, connected to the Cerebellum
    • Cerebellum: voluntary movements
    • equilibrium, - language, attention
  • Midbrain & Reticular formation
    • eye movements
    • visual + auditory reflexes (hear a loud bang, turn toward it instinctivley)
    • Reticular formation
      • muscle reflexes, breathing, pain perception, regulartes sleep & arousal
  • Thalamus, aka "Relay station"
    • nuclei (cluster of neurons?)
    • relay station of all sensory info, relayed to the cortex (except smell - goes direct to the cortex)
  • Hypothalamus
    • The Four F's: Fighting, Fleeing, Feeding, and Fucking^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMating
  • The Cerebrum
    • cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala
    • involved in perception and motor control, cognitive functions, emotion, memory, and learning
    • cerebral cortex:
    • 1/8" thick layered sheet of neurons
    • like a 14" pizza stuffed into your skull
    • ~30 billion neurons
    • each neuro makes about 10,000 synapes, approximately 300 trillion connections in total
    • six layers of neurons, relatively uniform in structure

10^11 (100 billion) neurons, densely connected 10^10 sparsely connected transistors`