#2 and #3 dissection

For #1-#3, see this figure

1. If you were looking at the floor of the 4th ventricle with the cerebellum removed, what is the name of this structure that emphasizes the appearance of 4 bulges?
 
 lamina (corpora) quadrigenina
 
2. If you were looking at the floor of the 4th ventricle with the cerebellum removed, what subdivision of the cerebellar peduncle would these fibers form?
 
 brachium pontis (middle cerebellar peduncle)
 
3. Between this view of the thalamus and the optic chiasm and the mammillary bodies, what ventricle are you seeing?
 
3rd

For #4-#6, see this figure

4. Sometimes, when this structure is called a cranial nerve, what number is it given?
 
1 
 
5. What is this structure called?
 
optic tract 
 
6. In addition to controlling the pupil and the ciliary muscle, say something this nerve does.

eye movements, eyelids

For #7, see this figure

7. These fibers are a portion of what tract?

corticospinal (pyramidal)

For #8-#9, see this figure

8. What is the name of this major white structure?
 
internal capsule
 
9. What do we call these white fibers on the surface of the hippocampus?

fimbria

For #10, see this figure

10. ANSWER EITHER (1) When this dissection is completed over the whole cerebrum, what is the name given to this appearance? OR (2) What are the fibers that connect one gyrus to the adjacent gyrus called?

corona radiata, fimbria fibers

For #11, see this figure

11. What is the name given to this entire structure, shown dissected into three components on the other side?

cerebellar peduncle

For #12. see this figure

12. What is this specific portion of the thalamus called?

lateral geniculat nucleus

For #13, see this figure

13. What name of this area refers to the fact that the gray matter is flecked with white?

striatum

For #14-#15, see this figure

14. What is this colosal white body called?
 
 corpus callosum
 
15. What is this mid-sagittal structure that blocks your view into the lateral ventricle and the head of the caudate nucleus?

septum pelucidum

For #16, see this figure

16. What is the name of this whole structure, a major subdivision of the brain?

cerebellum

#1 - receptors and start neuroanatomy

17. ANSWER BOTH: Kainate, NMDA, and AMPA (1) Ionotropic or metabotropic? AND (2) What transmitter?

ionotropic glutamate

18. There are not any channel receptors for (name ONE transmitter).

dopamine, norepinephrine

19. "Alpha subunits are how the sympathetic nervous system constricts arterioles." How does this relate to how a nasal decongestant spray works?

congestion is dilation, and an alpha agonist like neosynephrine constricts (and thus decongests)
since this was a bad question (it should have read alpha receptors), I gave credit except when the answer was clearly wrong

20. Where, in the molecular structure of the G protein-coupled receptor, is the site that interacts with the G protein?

on the intracellular side (second and third loops and C terminal)PKC or calcium release

21. Protein kinase A (PKA): ANSWER EITHER (1) In the pathway that uses Gq instead of Gs, what is in the cascade in place of PKA? OR (2) In the pathway that uses Gi instead of Gs, what happens to cAMP levels when the pathway is activated?

PKC or calcium release, decrease

22. What does cAMP do to activate PKA?

binds inhibitory subunit to activate catalytic subunit

23. One product of phospholipase C (PLC) is inositol tris-phosphate. What is IP3's downstream action?

ligand to channel to release calcium from cistern

23. With a stereotaxic apparatus and a rat brain atlas, what landmarks are there for you to find a particular nucleus in your experimental rat's brain in the rostral-caudal & medial-lateral dimensions?

sutures (lambda and bregma

25. Suppose you do not have spongiform encephalitis. Then you are exposed to infected tissue. ANSWER EITHER (1) What form of what are you exposed to change things? OR (2) What happens to what in your brain to make you infectious?

scrapie form of prion, your control form of scrapie protein is converted to the scrapie form

26. What is missing from this list: Telencephalon, Mesencephalon, Metencephalon, Myelencephalon?

diencephalon

27. Before they get to the trapezoid body, where are the axons of the corticospinal tract visible in the ventral view of the brain?

cerebral peduncle

28. Which one of the three cranial nerves that control eye movements via extraocular muscles also has other motor controls relevant to the eye?

3 oculomotor

29. Which part of the brain houses the nuclei for the trigeminal, abducens and facial nerves?

pons
 
30. Why would a woman have taken atropine before going out for the evening?

a dilated pupil makes her more attractive
 
31. What place in the human midbrain is the equivalent of the frog's optic tectum?

superior colliculum
 
32. "The cranial nerves have sensory function, somatic motor function and (what?)"

autonomic motor function
 
33. If you took a cross section of the bottom of most of the lumbar and all of the sacral part the "spinal cord," you would not see the usual H-shaped gray matter surrounded by a circle of white matter. Instead, you would see (what?).

cauda equina
 
34. What are the slowest afferent fibers of the somatosensory nervous system?

c (unmyelinated)

35. A muscle spindle has intrafusal muscle fibers (nuclear bag and nuclear chain) innervated by gamma motor neurons. In addition there are (what?) that send information to the CNS by (what?).

stretch receptors, Group I and II afferent axons

36. How would you demonstrate that a Pacinian corpuscle has a large receptive field?

poke or vibrate various places in the skin over the receptor while recording from it

37. Capsaicin gates the VR-1 receptor. ANSWER EITHER (1) What Drosophila visual mutation led to the founding of this family of channels? OR (2) Under normal physiological conditions, how is this receptor stimulated?

transient receptor potential, heat

38. For the nociceptor, ANSWER EITHER (1) Where is its first synapse? (2) What is the presynaptic transmitter at the pain cell's terminal OR (3) Where does the postsynaptic neuron project?

in the dorsal gray matter of the spinal cord, enkephalin, thalamus

39. One stripe of a dermatome is based on what anatomy of neural input?

what comes in past one dorsal root ganglion

40. "In the Brown-Sequard syndrome, you have an ipsilateral loss of touch as mediated by the lemniscal system." ANSWER EITHER (1) What is the nature of the lesion? OR (2) What and where is the alternative sensory loss?

lesion halfway across the spinal cord, contralateral loss of anterolateral system

41. "Midline myelotomy is useful for palliative treatment?" ANSWER EITHER (1) What do we mean by palliative care? OR (2) What and where is a midline myelotomy?

make prevention of pain primary (like in terminal cancer), lesion the white matter between the dorsal columns

42. In contrast with the input via the dorsal root of the spinal cord, where does somatosensory information from the face come in?

trigeminal

43. A human rod is very sensitive. Why is it theoretically impossible for it to be more sensitive?

it is stimulated by a single photon, the smallest quantum of light

44. Which two opsins in humans are most similar in amino acid sequence?

middle- and long-wavelength

45. Who went through a bottleneck in which the selection pressures for high acuity color vision were relaxed?

lower vertebrates

46. What does Mary Lyon's X inactivation explanation of dosage compensation on the X chromosome say about color vision?

female "carriers" of red or green color blindness actually have mosaic retinas

47. Why might vision be affected by erectile dysfunction medications?

a cGMP phosphodiesterase is inhibited by Viagra and is part of the photoransduction cascade

48. "The air-cornea interface is 42 diopters." Explain how vision under water with vs without goggles relates to this point.

a water-cornea interface virtually abolishes this

49. Say what a contracted ciliary muscle does to EITHER (1) suspensory ligaments (zonule fibers), (2) lens shape, OR (3) vision.

relaxes for a rounder lens for near vision

50. Why would the ophthalmologist blast holes in the retina with a laser?

prevent further angiogenesis in diabetic retinopathy

51. What disorder leads to tunnel vision and why?

retinitis pigmentosa b/c of mid periphery rod loss

52. Humans see "unique yellow." ANSWER EITHER What COLOR is just a few nm (1) shorter OR (2) longer wavelength than the wavelength that looks yellow.

shorter green, longer orange

53. In Hubel and Wiesel's work, there is moderate firing when a thin line of light is turned on right on the excitatory receptive field. What happens if a wide line of white is turned on, centered in the same place but extending to either side of where the thin line of light had been shown?

no firing b/c excitatory line is inhibited by surround

54. Regarding feature detection, what and where is a "bug detector?"

in the frog retina, ganglion cells respond to small dark noving dots

55. One optic nerve is destroyed. How is it that that pupil constricts when the other eye is stimulated?

after the information goes bilateral, it comes back to the eye via the oculomotor nerve

56. You have a slice of visual cortex from a cat that had had a radioactive amino acid injected into one eye. Say something about the method that would allow you to visualize ocular dominance columns.

autoradiography of histological slices of cortex works b/c protein made crosses synapses at the LGN

57. Given the data on how stimulation by sound causes vibrations in the basilar membrane, why is it astounding that you can tell the difference of stimuli that differ by just a few Hz?

because localization is crude, there is tremendous overlap in part of basilar membrane stimulated

58. What is it that opens the transduction channels in auditory receptor cell?

deformation of channels on tips of stereocilia assisted by tip links

59. "An open potassium channel leads to depolarization of the cell." How can this be?

because of high extracellular potassium in the endolymph

60. Auditory projection ANSWER EITHER (1) Where is the first place where the projection from one ear is bilateral? OR (2) Name the place for auditory synapses up from the nucleus of the lateral lemniscus on the way to the medial geniculate complex of the thalamus.

superior olive, inferior colliculus

61. The vestibular nucleus feeds to the abducens nucleus which, in turn, feeds to the lateral rectus plus (what nucleus?).

oculomotor nucleus

62. Say something about the genetics of PTC taste sensitivity.

the T allele is dominant, so only tt is non-taster

63. T1R3 is a G protein-linked receptor used to mediate sweet and umami tastes. What is unique about its interactions with other membrane proteins relative to any other G protein-coupled receptor we have covered in this course?

dimerizes with T1R2 (sweet) and T1R1 (amino acids)

64. In your "butterfly" collection, it is easy to tell a male moth from a female moth on the basis of the antennae. Say something about this.

male antenna is big and feathery with lots of receptors for female sex attractant pheromone

65. In an olfactory receptor cell, what does cAMP bind to?

ligand for channel (Ca2+/Na+)


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Last updated 4/9/2013