Introduction to Neurophysiology

Iaizzo, Paul A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-43395-6_1

Paul A. Iaizzo²

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Abstract

Neurophysiology is a critical and exciting topic to study and understand in great detail for those working in any field associated with neuroengineering—basic or applied research, device design and development, and/or neurology or neurosurgical clinical subspecialties. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a general introduction to the field of neurophysiology, that is, a high-level overview of the anatomy and workings of the human central nervous system (CNS). One can explore other sources to find more in-depth discussions related to many of the topics introduced in this chapter as well as learn the specifics of state-of-the-art neuroengineering concepts related to each topic.

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Authors and Affiliations

Visible Heart® Laboratories, Department of Surgery and the Institute for Engineering in Medicine, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Paul A. Iaizzo

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Paul A. Iaizzo
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Correspondence to Paul A. Iaizzo .

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Editors and Affiliations

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Bin He

Homework

1.
Which of the following is not true concerning our sensory system?
1. (1)
  A threshold stimulus is defined as the smallest stimulus that produces a detectable response by the brain.
2. (2)
  There are two basic types of receptor accommodation—slowly adapting and rapidly adapting (phasic) responses.
3. (3)
  Modalities are similar sensory impressions that an individual can be consciously or unconsciously aware of.
4. (4)
  Sensations are used for the interpretation of a perception, and this is based upon an individual genetic makeup.
5. (5)
  Pitch, sweetness, and lightness are all examples of qualities.
2.
Which of the following in not true of glial cells?
1. (1)
  They play essential roles in the regulation and repair of neurons and neural pathways after injury.
2. (2)
  They play little or no role in the plasticity of neural processing (e.g., synaptogenesis).
3. (3)
  Glial cells may function to form the myelin sheath of neuronal axons.
4. (4)
  Some types of glial cells help to create the blood-brain barrier.
5. (5)
  They typically outnumber neurons in the human brain.
3.
In an attempt to increase your core temperature, involuntarily, the body would not initiate which of the following effector mechanisms?
1. (1)
  Initiate rhythmic muscle tensing.
2. (2)
  Increase its production of thyroxine.
3. (3)
  Vasodilation of its peripheral blood vessels.
4. (4)
  An increase of activities within the pre-optic nuclei in the hypothalamus.
5. (5)
  The induction of non-shivering thermogenesis.
4.
Which is not true regarding reflexes?
1. (1)
  Reflexes bring information into the CNS via afferent pathways and out via efferent pathways.
2. (2)
  An example of a polysynaptic reflex is the cough reflex, in which receptors in the mucosa of the trachea and bronchi are stimulated and then chest muscles, your diaphragm, and others contract automatically.
3. (3)
  A neurologist can determine where damaged nerves may occur in spinal dermatomes by testing your reflex responses in various body parts.
4. (4)
  Reflex time is defined as the time it takes a beta motor neuron to stimulate a muscle fiber.
5. (5)
  Vestibular reflexes maintain posture and equilibrium without primary participation of consciousness, yet if asked, you can identify where your body is in space.
5.
Which is not true concerning the general functional features of the human motor control system?
1. (1)
  An individual can continue to develop new motor programs throughout their life.
2. (2)
  The motor cortex, thalamus, and basal ganglia are important for providing both innate and continually learned motor programs.
3. (3)
  Reflexes, both monosynaptic (flexion reflex) and polysynaptic ones that exist within the spinal cord, typically play minor roles in the execution of movements.
4. (4)
  One of the brain stem’s important functions is the reflex control of posture.
5. (5)
  The association motor cortex and subcortical motivation areas are important in movement design or the development of the “plan” of a series of movement.
6.
Following a complete human spinal cord transection, which would likely not occur?
1. (1)
  There would be the development of flexor reflex activity below the lesion, before there would be reflex behaviors returned within the extensor muscles.
2. (2)
  There would be little or no return of autonomic system reflexes below the site of the lesion, such as the control of skin blood flow.
3. (3)
  There would be an initial period of minimal reflex activity, spinal shock, in body areas below the lesion.
4. (4)
  There would be a transient decrease in synaptic excitability to the interneurons lying distal to the lesion (e.g., loss of excitatory inputs from higher motor centers).
5. (5)
  Mass flexion reflexes could be triggered, by even some subtle degree of tactile stimulation, below the level of the lesion (e.g., to cause a person to be thrown out of a wheelchair).
7.
Which of the following statements regarding vision is not true?
1. (1)
  Cataract results from an increase in opacity (clouding) of the lens: this is like looking through a fogged-up car’s windshield.
2. (2)
  Glaucoma, which means that the aqueous humor is formed slower than it is removed, results in decrease pressure within the eye; this has minimal effect on our visual systems’ overall focusing abilities.
3. (3)
  Contraction of ciliary muscles allows the tension zonal fibers to reduce and the curvature of the lens to increase.
4. (4)
  Presbyopia, increasing stiffness of the lens, is a condition in which the lens cannot accommodate adequately for near vision.
5. (5)
  Membrane hyperpolarization occurs in the rod and cone receptor cell when there is photon activation that then, in turn, alters action potential frequencies within the innervating bipolar cells.
8.
Which is not true of the hypothalamo-hypophyseal (hypothalamus-pituitary) system?
1. (1)
  This system uses minimal feedback control, for example, via detection of blood concentrations of released hormones within specialized sensory cell which lie within the lateral hypothalamus.
2. (2)
  The activities of most endocrine glands are regulated by hormones formed in the adenohypophysis (anterior pituitary gland).
3. (3)
  Efferent connections to the pituitary can be both neuronal and hormonal (e.g., using the portal circulation pathways).
4. (4)
  The medial hypothalamus can release both stimulation and inhibitory releasing hormones.
5. (5)
  A tumor within the pituitary gland may lead to gigantism, that is, the over-release of growth hormones.
9.
Which of the following is not true relative to the general functioning of our limbic system?
1. (1)
  This system is associated with the process of both learning and memory: depression could affect one’s ability to learn.
2. (2)
  A lack of sleep may ultimately influence the proper functioning of this system.
3. (3)
  Multiple brain centers/nuclei contribute to this system, and thus, multiple neurotransmitters are utilized within it: more specifically, the monoaminergic system includes dopaminergic, noradrenergic (i.e., norepinephrine), and serotonergic neurons.
4. (4)
  It is associated with an individual’s ability to change moods and innate incentives to action (a person’s motivational interactions and emotions).
5. (5)
  The parasympathetic nervous system is minimally altered by intense changes in your mood.
10.
Which of the following statements is not true concerning the human retina?
1. (1)
  There are approximately 120 million rod cells in the human eye, and these receptors are needed for dim light or night conditions.
2. (2)
  Cone receptor cells are utilized for daytime lighting conditions (our photopic vision).
3. (3)
  There are no receptor cells located at the site where the optic nerve leaves the eyeball, our blind spot.
4. (4)
  In colored blindness, an individual is likely missing certain populations of rod cells in the retina.
5. (5)
  There are approximately 20 times more rod than cone receptor cells in the eye, but there is more divergence of neural information from the cone receptors.
11.
You are taking off in an airplane, as there is also change in cabin pressure, you yawn to equalize the pressure within your middle ear. Which of the following would likely not occur?
1. (1)
  The auditory (Eustachian) tubes open as you yawn.
2. (2)
  The activities within the macular organs within the temporal bone would become altered with the gravitational changes.
3. (3)
  The semicircular canals become activated because there are detected slight rotational accelerations.
4. (4)
  The ossicle bones in the middle ear become fixed by muscle contractions.
5. (5)
  The vestibular ganglia elicit changes in synaptic activities.
12.
Processing of information by our human brain can be divided into four globally defined or generalized systems, which of the following is not one of these?
1. (1)
  The motor system: which governs both voluntary and involuntary movements.
2. (2)
  The associative system: which controls cognitive functioning and conscious recognition.
3. (3)
  The sympathetic system: which controls “fight or flight responses.”
4. (4)
  The vegetative system: which has involuntary control of bodily functions, homeostasis.
5. (5)
  The limbic system: which governs an individual’s emotions and feelings.
13.
Which of the following in not true when one compares the senses of taste and smell:
1. (1)
  Both can affect one’s perceptions of a high-quality tasting food.
2. (2)
  Only the sense of taste is considered to have a very small number of distinguishable qualities.
3. (3)
  Like the sense of pain, the sense of smell is not highly adaptable (i.e., both modalities elicit relatively slow accommodations to a given stimulus).
4. (4)
  Only one of these senses employs secondary sense cells for signal transduction.
5. (5)
  The sense of taste requires larger amounts of molecules of a given substance, so to elicit a threshold response.
14.
Which is not true concerning the sense of hearing?
1. (1)
  We are able to better determine the direction of a sound origin because we have two ears.
2. (2)
  The auditory threshold is dependent on the frequency of sound.
3. (3)
  The same tone can be heard if a tuning fork is held to either the ear or placed on the temporal skull bone.
4. (4)
  The shape of the outer ear is important for determining the direction and amplitude of a sound.
5. (5)
  The round window, which lies between the middle ear and inner ear, does not move.
15.
One-half of the 100,000 human genes contribute to building the brain; the adult brain contains >10,000,000,000 neurons; the brain utilizes over 100 different neurotransmitters; based on such facts about the brain, which of the following is not likely to be true?
1. (1)
  The brain can elicit a high degree of plasticity, and thus, one can subsequently elicit abilities to compensate for an occurred damage or lesion (e.g., a stroke, head trauma).
2. (2)
  Certain pharmacological therapies (therapeutic drugs) have their primary beneficial effects by mimicking the actions of certain neurotransmitters, yet they may also induce unwanted side effects on other neural processes.
3. (3)
  An imbalance in neurotransmitter release in various brain regions may cause clinical symptoms.
4. (4)
  There are only eight different receptor molecules in the human brain’s postsynaptic terminals, and these are rarely activated by specific agonists.
5. (5)
  In the human brain, there is a high degree of divergence of afferent sensory information.
16.
An acute global damage within the left temporal lobe of an individual’s brain (in an otherwise healthy person) and this may cause all of the following symptoms, except?
1. (1)
  A difficulty in finding the proper word for a well-known object (e.g., like a marker pen).
2. (2)
  An impaired comprehension of language or of a previously known foreign language.
3. (3)
  An impaired ability to speak desired sentences; yet their motor abilities to do so have remained intact (your motor cortex was not affected).
4. (4)
  They elicit a decreased ability to read sentences and/or perform simple math equations.
5. (5)
  They show a dramatic change in their innate abilities to quickly orient themselves in space, that is, also identify which their body’s location in 3D space (e.g., where you are in your chair relative to what direction you home is).
17.
Which of the following would not be considered a function of “feed-forward” programmed motor movements, that is, those that are normally aided by a proper functioning cerebellum?
1. (1)
  Adjustments for such movements are made in advance of motor program execution based on current sensory inputs and past learned responses.
2. (2)
  It allows for rapid (ballistic) movements, such as a very rapid hitting of a tennis ball with a racket.
3. (3)
  If the cerebellum is damaged, such movements might be initially impaired, but subsequently well compensated for.
4. (4)
  Co-activation of muscle spindles (beta motor neuron become stimulated) may occur, such that one could detect mismatches between actual and expected movements.
5. (5)
  This allows for ongoing error detections and corrections of an ongoing motor programs during an elicitation of the actual movement.
18.
Which of the following is not an effector response following the activation of the sympathetic nervous system?
1. (1)
  A rapid increase in heart rate.
2. (2)
  A decrease in intestine motility.
3. (3)
  Relaxation of the bronchi (dilation).
4. (4)
  Relaxation of the sphincter muscle known as the iris (one’s pupil becomes smaller).
5. (5)
  Increased blood flow to skeletal muscles.

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Iaizzo, P.A. (2020). Introduction to Neurophysiology. In: He, B. (eds) Neural Engineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43395-6_1

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43395-6_1
Published: 22 September 2020
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-43394-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-43395-6
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