Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange
Psychology and Neuroscience Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [brain]

Tag for questions regarding the brain. The brain is the portion of the central nervous system that is located within the skull. It functions as a primary receiver, organizer, and distributor of information for the body. It has a right half and a left half, each of which is called a hemisphere.

The brain can be regarded as the control center of the body. Questions using this tag can be related to brain anatomy, brain function, neurophysiology of the brain, brain injury and so forth.

Source: Medicine Net

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Is there a formal name for the effect of searching an item while holding it?

I've heard some experiences of some friends in which they explained that they started searching an object to then realize that they were holding it. For example, today, a friend of mine told me that he didn't find his phone, so he started searching…
rdrg109
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When are connections between neurons strengthened - when LTP occurs or on every 'message' sent?

I'm doing some research into how the brain works for a research project. Often, websites describe that the connection between two neurons strengthens when one of the neurons sends a 'message' to the other, they don't have to both send 'messages' at…
IntegralPilot
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Can a brain outgrow its skull, or have other notable phsyiological effects from increased size or mass?

You may be aware of a famous story which found that Taxi Drivers as well as Super Mario 64 (3D adventure game) players showed a an increase in grey matter located in their hippocampus. https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2013120 This (and I'm sure…
user7778287
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Does the brain contain chaotic systems, akin to the weather or planetary orbits?

I was wondering whether the brain contains processes that are chaotic in nature i.e. subject to great variance in the long run given minutely different initial conditions down to quantum fluctuations, such as is found in planetary orbits or the…
Raheemsterling
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Why is intensive mental activity so tiring if it just spends a bit more energy than in relax?

As far as I know intense mental activity supposes spending about 1% more energy than what you would spend by basically making no real effort in any mental activity. If that's the case, why is so tiring? In comparison a 1% extra activity from being…
user2638180
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If it takes multiple action-potentials to cause one action-potential in another neuron, why don't brain signals dissipate almost immediately

I just got into neuroscience like a couple of months ago, but I can't, for the life of me, figure this out. Wouldn't it take a humongous amount of action-potentials in, for example, the thalamus for a small number of neurons to fire at the opposite…
flyon
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Brain capillary density

Is there any data available on the density of capillaries in the brain? Also, I have seen images like this (from Chapter 2 of The Cerebral Circulation, by Cipolla MJ.): This illustrates to some extent (some?) of the arteries in the brain. But is…
caffeinemachine
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Why is amygdala located on paleo mamalian part of the brain?

We got 3 brains right. Reptilian. Mamalian. And the neo cortex thingy that makes us primate. And humans supposedly have tons of neo cortex and that what makes us human allowing us to code and code. That means, things that reptilian have should be in…
user4951
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How does cocaine act as a stimulant?

I have scoured the first couple pages of Google attempting to discover how, neurochemically speaking, cocaine acts as a stimulant on the body. In regards to the Google query, "how does cocaine affect the brain and body?" -- many of the immediate…
David C. Huang
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Can a novel stimulus be processed concurrent with a P3a ERP

P3b is associated with the detection of novel stimuli unrelated to a task. It was initially confounded with P3a, which is associated with task related stimuli. They were originally thought to be the same ERP, P300, but are now treated as…
Cort Ammon
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How are neurons able to effectively communicate when there are way more dendrites than axons?

Neurons can have up to 100,000 dendrites and typically only have a single axon. This means a neuron typically has a very large number of inputs while only having a single output. Surely you can see the math doesn't add up here. There are not enough…
scarf
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What would happen when the vitrome-dial hypothalamus get destroyed while there is no food to seek for?

Rats with VMH damage overeat because the ventromedial hypothalamus controls the body's ability to digest and store food. (Keesey & Powley, 1975). It controls digestive reflexes. When the ventromedial hypothalamus is damaged, digestive…
SSA
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How many memory systems do we have?

I read that humans have 2 memory systems. One is fight or flight memory located in amygdala. Another is episodic memory located in hippocamus. Then I've heard that there is another memory system. Semantic memory located on the temporal lobe. So, how…
user4951
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AI vs Human brains

Note: I'm new to neuroscience and AI. I've read few articles about AI and studied them further. So I have a question: Human neurons release NT. The amount of NT released changes the frequency the next neuron is stimulated. AI uses sigmoid neurons.…
HJS
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What brain chemical(s) is attributed to the deep satisfaction of achieving an important, meaningful, or long-term goal?

What brain chemical(s) is attributed to the deep satisfaction of achieving an important, meaningful or long-term goal? My understanding is that the shallow satisfaction of achieving an unimportant or short-term goal, such as Getting a handful of…
user130615
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