Neural oscillationNeural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual neurons or by interactions between neurons. In individual neurons, oscillations can appear either as oscillations in membrane potential or as rhythmic patterns of action potentials, which then produce oscillatory activation of post-synaptic neurons.
StrokeA stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop functioning properly. Signs and symptoms of a stroke may include an inability to move or feel on one side of the body, problems understanding or speaking, dizziness, or loss of vision to one side. Signs and symptoms often appear soon after the stroke has occurred.
Functional neuroimagingFunctional neuroimaging is the use of neuroimaging technology to measure an aspect of brain function, often with a view to understanding the relationship between activity in certain brain areas and specific mental functions. It is primarily used as a research tool in cognitive neuroscience, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and social neuroscience.
Motor controlMotor control is the regulation of movement in organisms that possess a nervous system. Motor control includes reflexes as well as directed movement. To control movement, the nervous system must integrate multimodal sensory information (both from the external world as well as proprioception) and elicit the necessary signals to recruit muscles to carry out a goal. This pathway spans many disciplines, including multisensory integration, signal processing, coordination, biomechanics, and cognition, and the computational challenges are often discussed under the term sensorimotor control.
Motor cortexThe motor cortex is the region of the cerebral cortex involved in the planning, control, and execution of voluntary movements. The motor cortex is an area of the frontal lobe located in the posterior precentral gyrus immediately anterior to the central sulcus. The motor cortex can be divided into three areas: 1. The primary motor cortex is the main contributor to generating neural impulses that pass down to the spinal cord and control the execution of movement. However, some of the other motor areas in the brain also play a role in this function.
Corticobulbar tractIn neuroanatomy, the corticobulbar (or corticonuclear) tract is a two-neuron white matter motor pathway connecting the motor cortex in the cerebral cortex to the medullary pyramids, which are part of the brainstem's medulla oblongata (also called "bulbar") region, and are primarily involved in carrying the motor function of the non-oculomotor cranial nerves. The corticobulbar tract is one of the pyramidal tracts, the other being the corticospinal tract.
Activities of daily livingActivities of daily living (ADLs or ADL) is a term used in healthcare to refer to people's daily self-care activities. Health professionals often use a person's ability or inability to perform ADLs as a measurement of their functional status. The concept of ADLs was originally proposed in the 1950s by Sidney Katz and his team at the Benjamin Rose Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. The concept of ADLs has been added to and refined by a variety of researchers since that time. For example, many indexes that assess ADLs now include some measure of mobility.
Fine motor skillFine motor skill (or dexterity) is the coordination of small muscles in movement with the eyes, hands and fingers. The complex levels of manual dexterity that humans exhibit can be related to the nervous system. Fine motor skills aid in the growth of intelligence and develop continuously throughout the stages of human development. Motor skills are movements and actions of the bone structures. Typically, they are categorised into two groups: gross motor skills and fine motor skills.
Spinal cordThe spinal cord is a long, thin, tubular structure made up of nervous tissue, which extends from the medulla oblongata in the brainstem to the lumbar region of the vertebral column (backbone). The backbone encloses the central canal of the spinal cord, which contains cerebrospinal fluid. The brain and spinal cord together make up the central nervous system (CNS). In humans, the spinal cord begins at the occipital bone, passing through the foramen magnum and then enters the spinal canal at the beginning of the cervical vertebrae.
Neural engineeringNeural engineering (also known as neuroengineering) is a discipline within biomedical engineering that uses engineering techniques to understand, repair, replace, or enhance neural systems. Neural engineers are uniquely qualified to solve design problems at the interface of living neural tissue and non-living constructs (Hetling, 2008). The field of neural engineering draws on the fields of computational neuroscience, experimental neuroscience, neurology, electrical engineering and signal processing of living neural tissue, and encompasses elements from robotics, cybernetics, computer engineering, neural tissue engineering, materials science, and nanotechnology.
Lacunar strokeLacunar stroke or lacunar cerebral infarct (LACI) is the most common type of ischemic stroke, resulting from the occlusion of small penetrating arteries that provide blood to the brain's deep structures. Patients who present with symptoms of a lacunar stroke, but who have not yet had diagnostic imaging performed, may be described as having lacunar stroke syndrome (LACS). Much of the current knowledge of lacunar strokes comes from C. Miller Fisher's cadaver dissections of post-mortem stroke patients.
Brain connectivity estimatorsBrain connectivity estimators represent patterns of links in the brain. Connectivity can be considered at different levels of the brain's organisation: from neurons, to neural assemblies and brain structures. Brain connectivity involves different concepts such as: neuroanatomical or structural connectivity (pattern of anatomical links), functional connectivity (usually understood as statistical dependencies) and effective connectivity (referring to causal interactions).
Neural decodingNeural decoding is a neuroscience field concerned with the hypothetical reconstruction of sensory and other stimuli from information that has already been encoded and represented in the brain by networks of neurons. Reconstruction refers to the ability of the researcher to predict what sensory stimuli the subject is receiving based purely on neuron action potentials. Therefore, the main goal of neural decoding is to characterize how the electrical activity of neurons elicit activity and responses in the brain.
Motor skillA motor skill is a function that involves specific movements of the body's muscles to perform a certain task. These tasks could include walking, running, or riding a bike. In order to perform this skill, the body's nervous system, muscles, and brain have to all work together. The goal of motor skill is to optimize the ability to perform the skill at the rate of success, precision, and to reduce the energy consumption required for performance. Performance is an act of executing a motor skill or task.
Neural codingNeural coding (or neural representation) is a neuroscience field concerned with characterising the hypothetical relationship between the stimulus and the individual or ensemble neuronal responses and the relationship among the electrical activity of the neurons in the ensemble. Based on the theory that sensory and other information is represented in the brain by networks of neurons, it is thought that neurons can encode both digital and analog information.
Assisted livingAn assisted living residence or assisted living facility (ALF) is a housing facility for people with disabilities or for adults who cannot or who choose not to live independently. The term is popular in the United States, but the setting is similar to a retirement home, in the sense that facilities provide a group living environment and typically cater to an older adult population. There is also Caribbean assisted living, which offers a similar service in a resort-like environment (somewhat like assisted vacationing).
Medullary pyramids (brainstem)In neuroanatomy, the medullary pyramids are paired white matter structures of the brainstem's medulla oblongata that contain motor fibers of the corticospinal and corticobulbar tracts – known together as the pyramidal tracts. The lower limit of the pyramids is marked when the fibers cross (decussate). The ventral portion of the medulla oblongata contains the medullary pyramids. These two ridge-like structures travel along the length of the medulla oblongata and are bordered medially by the anterior median fissure.
ElectroencephalographyElectroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocortex and allocortex. It is typically non-invasive, with the EEG electrodes placed along the scalp (commonly called "scalp EEG") using the International 10–20 system, or variations of it. Electrocorticography, involving surgical placement of electrodes, is sometimes called "intracranial EEG".
NeuroimagingNeuroimaging is the use of quantitative (computational) techniques to study the structure and function of the central nervous system, developed as an objective way of scientifically studying the healthy human brain in a non-invasive manner. Increasingly it is also being used for quantitative research studies of brain disease and psychiatric illness. Neuroimaging is highly multidisciplinary involving neuroscience, computer science, psychology and statistics, and is not a medical specialty.
Neural circuitA neural circuit (also known as a biological neural network BNNs) is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Multiple neural circuits interconnect with one another to form large scale brain networks. Neural circuits have inspired the design of artificial neural networks, though there are significant differences. Early treatments of neural networks can be found in Herbert Spencer's Principles of Psychology, 3rd edition (1872), Theodor Meynert's Psychiatry (1884), William James' Principles of Psychology (1890), and Sigmund Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology (composed 1895).
