Neuroscience and the Classroom: Making Connections
Unit 1: We All Have Different Brains
- A general term referring to a collection of possible difficulties, acquired or congenital, related to music-related processing in relation to features such as rhythm, pitch, or tone.
- An acquired disorder, most commonly the result of a stroke, which impairs a person's ability to use and or understand language in service of communication. Difficulties can extend into reading and writing skills in addition to oral language.
- brain plasticity
- The potential for, or ability of, neurons or brain systems to modify functionality based on experiences. The degree to which brain function can be modified is a question of high interest, particularly for addressing topics including recovery from brain damage, responsiveness to intervention, learning, and skill acquisition.
- Broca's area
- The region of the brain functionally associated with spoken language production discovered by Paul Broca in the late 19th century. Disorders arising from damage to the left inferior frontal cortex, as classically defined, most typically involve difficulty in using language (i.e., expressive) with the preserved ability to understand (i.e., receptive) language.
- Ekman's test of facial recognition
- An assessment tool developed by Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen in the 1970s to measure recognition of emotions based on facial expressions.
- frontal cortex
- An anatomical location in the brain referring to one of four lobes (frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal) that is located behind the forehead.
- functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
- A neuroimaging technique using radio and magnetic waves to indirectly index brain activity relative to specific task comparisons.
- inferior frontal gyrus
- An anatomical location in the brain referring to one of three main gyri in the frontal lobe (inferior, middle, superior).
- magnetoencephalography (MEG)
- A neuroimaging technique that detects the magnetic properties of electrical impulses resulting from neuronal communication to produce maps of brain activity relative to a task. MEG is used most typically for research purposes to investigate cognitive and psychological processes. The main strength of MEG is the high temporal resolution; the main limitation is the relatively limited spatial resolution. Based on these characteristics, MEG is most effective for investigating questions of timing in brain activity rather than where in the brain activity originates.
- neuroimaging techniques
- Neuroimaging techniques are neuroscience tools used to investigate brain structure or activity directly or indirectly. Common tools include magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), magnetoencephalography (MEG), and electroencephalography (EEG).
- prefrontal cortex
- An anatomical location in the brain referring to the anterior (front) area of the frontal lobe. Cognitive and psychological constructs typically associated with the prefrontal cortex include executive capacities and personality characteristics.
- premotor cortex
- An anatomical location in the brain referring to a strip of cortex in the posterior (back) region of the frontal lobe that is critical for motor function.
- Procrustes' Inn
- In Greek mythology, Procrustes was a the son of Poseidon, who physically attacked people by tying them to an iron bed and stretching them or hacking off their legs to make them fit. When something is "Procrustean," different lengths or sizes or properties are fitted to an arbitrary standard.
- Prosody refers to features of language including—including tone, stress, and pitch—which is used to communicate emotion, express sarcasm, denote types of utterances (question versus statement).
- supramarginal gyrus
- An anatomical location in the brain's parietal lobe that, with the angular gyrus, makes up the inferior parietal lobule. This region has been shown to be critical for skills including reading.
- Wernicke's area
- A region of the brain functionally associated with spoken language comprehension discovered by Carl Wernicke in the late 19th century. Disorders arising from damage to left posterior temporal gyrus, as classically defined, most typically involve difficulty in language comprehension (i.e., receptive) and meaningful use of language with preserved ability in other language features such as form and rate (i.e., expressive).