A Brief Intro to Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology

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Do curso por National Research University Higher School of Economics

Introdução à Neuroeconomia: como o cérebro toma decisões

971 classificações

National Research University Higher School of Economics

Introdução à Neuroeconomia: como o cérebro toma decisões

971 classificações

Economics, psychology, and neuroscience are converging today into a unified discipline of Neuroeconomics with the ultimate aim of creating a single, general theory of human decision-making. Neuroeconomics provides biologists, economists, psychologists and social scientists with a deeper understanding of how they make their own decisions and how others decide. Neuroscience, when allied with psychology and economics, creates powerful new models to explain why we make decisions. Neurobiological mechanisms of decision-making, decisions under risk, trust and cooperation will be central issues in this course. You will be provided with the most recent evidence from brain-imaging techniques (fMRI, TMS, etc.) and introduced to the explanatory models behind them. The course does not require any prior study of economics and neuroscience; however, it might require you to study novel interdisciplinary materials. The course provides an introduction to the methodology, assumptions, and main findings of Neuroeconomics. Our students have different backgrounds; therefore, I have adapted and simplified the course to allow all students to understand the interdisciplinary content. This course will help you to start your progress in the field of Neuroeconomics and to further develop your skills during other more advanced courses and trainings in the future. For some topics, the course will also provide supplementary videos to reveal the opinions of leading experts in the field. Each module provides optional reading material. The course structure is as follows: During each video, you will have to answer some relevant questions. Your answers will not affect your final grade. At the end of each module, you must complete a quiz consisting of 15 questions. To pass the course, you must reach a satisfactory standard in all the course modules by completing all graded quizzes and the final exam. In addition to watching video lectures and taking quizzes, you will receive an invitation to join our forum. We plan to join the discussions in the forum on a weekly basis. Welcome to Neuroeconomics World!

Na lição

Neuroanatomy, Neurophysiology, and Neuroimaging: Tools of Neuroeconomics

We will start with a short introduction to cognitive neuroscience, brain anatomy, and brain functions and continue with a discussion of various methods of measuring brain activity, including brain imaging methods (EEG, MEG, fMRI), transcranial brain stimulation (TMS), cell recording, and data visualization, and interpretation of the results. The main goal of this lecture is to help you read and understand results of Neuroeconomics papers. I will introduce terminology and experimental methods that we will use throughout the whole course.

A Brief Intro to Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology10:15

Methods of Cognitive Neuroscience. Lesions, Brain Stimulation15:49

Conheça os instrutores

Vasily Klucharev
Professor and Head of the Department of Psychology
Faculty of Social Sciences

[MUSIC]

So, today I will give you the second

introductory lecture that will explain to you some basic

facts about the brain anatomy and also cognitive

neuro-imaging methods that will be used in our course.

So, this lecture will help you to

understand the results of the neuroeconomic studies.

So during the whole course, we will

focus on the neurobiological mechanism of decision making.

And to be honest this is a very complex task, and

first of all because the brain is a very complex device.

The brain consists of billions of neurons, and each neuron has thousands of

connections, so all together it makes the most complex device in the universe.

Some neuroscientists are really skeptical whether we can really

fully understand the system, but other neuroscientists are more optimistic.

So brain consist of various cells and first of all consist of neurons.

The neuron is our basic unit of the brain.

As you remember, neuron consists of their cell body, of dendrites, and of the axon.

So dendrites accumulate in formation from other neurons, from sensory organs.

Soma or the cell body Integrate

this information and produces an action potential.

An action potential propagates an axon and induces some neuro mediators to the

synaptic cleft, and activate the next neuron or, for example, a muscle.

So, if we will simply slice the brain, we will

see immediately a large difference between gray and white matter.

So, gray matter consists of cell bodies, and most of the neuroeconomic

studies focus on the gray matter; on the human cortex.

White matter consists of axons.

So, basically white matter consists

of connections between different brain regions.

Anyway, if we will make a closer look inside those white

matter, we will find some small clusters of neurons, so called nuclei.

So, for example, the nucleus accumbens is a very important area for decision-making.

The nucleus accumbens or sometimes we call

this region" ventral striatum," the lower portion of

striatum is critical for the evaluation of the

expected values for the option during decision making.

So sometimes we'll also focus on some brain regions inside of the brain.

How to navigate within this very complex system, so if you'd really

like to know more about the new anatomy, about the masses used in

neuroecnomics, I strongly recommend you to read more specialized books.

So some maze books are available, for

example is this book on Cognitive Neuroscience

is a nice review of basic facts

of human neuro-anatomy and also common neuroscience matters.

Today, I will only give you some very basic facts that you need for this course.

So we can divide the brain in four major regions.

For example into the frontal lobe,

parietal lobe, occipital lobe and temporal lobe.

During this course we will focus on the frontal lobe.

So a lot of really important brain areas are localized in the

frontal lobe, and these brain areas are involved in the decision making.

So you have to remember that each region in the brain has own label.

For example, each sulcus, each gyrus has its own name.

For example, central sulcus, pre-central gyrus, postcentral gyrus.

But we will not use this labels during this course.

So, instead we will use a more abstract way to label different brain regions.

For example, we will use dorsal ventral name mention to localize brain region.

This dimension refers, this excess refers to animals anatomy.

So, dorsal means closer to the back.

Ventral, closer to the belly.

Since our anatomy is slightly different from

the standard animal anatomy, in our brain, dorsal

means the upper portion of the brain and

ventral means the lower portion of the brain.

So when I will talk to you about the ventral striatum,

it means this is a lower part of the structure called strait.

So, I will use this labels quite a lot during the course.

Another important axis is medial, lateral axis.

Medial means closer to the central plane of the brain.

And lateral means closer to the outer surface of the hemispheres.

So, for example, the medial cortex

represents the inner surface of the hemispheres.

Another important label that will be often used in this course is orbital cortex.

Orbital cortex means the cortex localized above our eyes.

So when I'm talking to you about the orbital cortex it

means I refer to the cortex localized just above our eyes.

So when you will make a look to some regions

in the prefrontal cortex, you can notice dorsolateral prefrontal cortex.

We will discuss this region quite a lot.

This region is involved into the

self control, into the rational decision making.

So, dorsolateral means the specific location in the brain.

We will also discuss orbitofrontal cortex.

And orbitofrontal cortex is a cortex above our eyes.

So, this scheme summarizes a key areas in our frontal cortex that are involved

into the decision making: orbitofrontal cortex is the cortex above our eyes.

Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, cortex on the outer surface of the hemispheres that

is ligated in the upper portion of the brain and, ventromedial prefrontal cortex.

This is a major portion of the prefrontal

cortex, localized in the inner surface of the hemispheres.

So, let's quickly discuss how the brain processes sensory information.

So, different brain areas are specialized in different sensory information.

For example, the occipital cortex is involved

into the process in causing visual information.

This is so called visual cortex.

So in the temporal cortex we can find the auditory cortex.

So if you would stimulate this brain

region you can evoke illusions of different sounds.

So some brain areas are really specialized.

Some brain areas are involved in different functions.

So, if you would be interested in the details of the sensory

information processing by our brain, please read more specialized handbooks.

So, now I will give you the major metaphor of Cognitive Neuroscience

that explains how our brain processes sensory information.

So, visual, for example, information first comes to our visual cortex.

So, first our primary visual cortex, sometimes labeled as the area

V1, processes very basic aspects of the visual information.

So, for example, if these neurons, they react to their local

contrast, so this neurons are kind of spatial temporal filters that

are sensitive to the very basic aspects of the visual information.

The next information is transferred to the higher

visual cortex, for example the area V4, and neurons

in this area are sensitive to more complex

patterns to more complex features of the visual information.

And next, more higher order visual cortex is involved and neurons in

this area are sensitive to very complex patterns, for example two faces.

So, visual information is processed step by step

from very simple features to very complex features.

So, at the end, brain creates a image,

a kind of internal model of the visual object.

And, Neuroeconomics assumes that, after this

stage, the decision making process takes place.

So, first, sensory evidences for different options are accumulated

by the brain and next our brain makes decisions.

It compares options and select certain behavioral patterns.

So overall, according to Neuroeconomics theory, when

we make a decision, when we make a

selection between two options, first our brain

processes objects and next we make a decision.

So, at the next stage, decision making neurons are

processing the information and create and produce a decision.

So, let's now discuss the major methods

used in neuroeconomics methods that

help us to understand neuro biological

mechanisms of decision making.

[SOUND]

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