Fundamentals of Neurobiology

To understand psychiatric disorders, it is important to have a working understanding of the normal structure and function of the nervous system.

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- To understand psychiatric disorders, it is important to have a working understanding of the normal structure and function of the nervous system. The central nervous system (CNS; brain, spinal cord) and peripheral …

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- The neurone constitutes the functional unit of the nervous system; there are over 100 billion neurones in the brain.^[1,2,5] Each neurone has the ability to interact with and influence many other cells, which creat…

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- The brain is divided into four anatomical regions: the diencephalon, brainstem, cerebrum, and cerebellum, as described on the slide.^[1,2]

References:
[1] Kandel ER, Schwartz JH, Jessell TM (eds). Principles of Ne…

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- The cerebral cortex is the main functional unit of the cerebrum.^[2] The three main functional areas of the cerebral cortex are:^[1,2]

• motor areas that control voluntary movement (primary, secondary, and associatio…

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- The brain can be thought of as comprising five ‘lobes’ – the four lobes of the cerebral cortex and a fifth lobe, the insula, deep within the brain, as shown on the slide.^[1,2,3] The lobes of the cerebral cortex ar…

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- Information moves through the nervous system via two integrated forms of communication – electrical neurotransmission and chemical neurotransmission, as shown on the slide.^[1]

An action potential is generated at t…

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- Neurones do not physically touch one another; two neurones are separated by a gap, known as a synaptic cleft.^[1] Because neurones do not touch, and an action potential cannot ‘jump’ across a synaptic cleft, the si…

!--?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?-- The idea that neurotransmission occurs at synapses and is mediated by chemicals was, at first, a contentious issue.^[1] It was in the first half of the 1900s that experiments proved chemical neurotransmission occur…