General Neurobiology

• Models of the nervous system come in many forms and types; from abstract to highly realistic (e.g. Hopfield model vs. biophysical detailed networks). Use specific examples to discuss the tradeoffs.
• Discuss the major features of at least two very different nervous systems (i.e. jellyfish, locust, lamprey, octopus, owl, rat, monkey). In what ways might the features of each system affect neural processing?
• Do you know how animals are classified? What are the major phyla? What different types of vertebrates exist?
• Draw an outline of a vertebrate brain and name its major areas.
• What is the limbic system?
• Every sensory system relies on receptor cells that transduce a stimulus into an electrical signal. This clearly requires some significant amplification. Describe two different sensory receptor cells, with attention to the location(s) and the mechanism(s) of this amplification.
• Describe the main pathways between sensory receptors and cortex (including intra-cortical circuits) for mammalian vision, hearing and olfaction.
• What do you know about high-frequency oscillations (20-50 Hz) in invertebrates or vertebrates? What causes them?
• In mammals, somatosensory, visual, auditory, and olfactory sensory systems all project to the cerebral cortex. To what extent does this imply some common form of neural processing? Justify your answer by referring to and comparing specific details of cortical anatomy and physiology.
• Describe several main findings resulting from the study of the crustacean stomatogastric nervous system and their implications for the study and understanding of local circuit function in larger, more complex systems.
• What is the VOR in primates? How does plasticity in the VOR express itself?
• What is a central pattern generator (CPG)?
• What is a transgenic animal? A transgenic knockout mouse? What are the advantages and disadvantages of such animals for neuroscientific studies? Please give one or two specific examples.
• Anatomically, what are the frontal and pre-frontal cortical areas? What do you know about patients with lesions in the orbital-frontal cortex?
• Why do some animals have larger brains than others? Why do animals with larger bodies have larger brains? How does brain size relate to metabolism or to longevity?
• What is a local field potential? What are its underlying causes? What can we learn from such data?
• What is the physical and biological basis of structural and functional MRI for brain imaging?

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