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SITE MAP

Level: BEGINNER

Click on a subject to go to its page.

 

From the simple to the complex

Anatomy by Level of Organization
     
Synapses
Neuro-
transmitters
Neurons
Glial Cells
The Brain
The Nervous System
Individual Behaviour
Social Groups
     
Function by Level of Organization
     
Nerve
Conduction
Synaptic Transmission
Neural Communication
Axons
Myelination
The Wired Brain
The Hormonal Brain

Choosing Behaviours

Group Dynamics


Memory and the brain

How Memory Works
     
Long-Term Potentiation
Plasticity in
Neural Networks
Short-Term Memory
Long-Term Memory
Memory and Learning
Sensory, Short-Term and Long-Term Memory
Different Types of Long-Term Memory
Collective Memory
     
Forgetting and Amnesia
     
Long-Term Depression
When the Hippocampal Circuits are Disturbed
Lesions that Cause Amnesia
How Exercising your Memory Strenghtens it
Types of Amnesia
Anterograde and Retrograde Amnesia
Forgetting History


Pleasure and pain

Pleasure-Seeking Behaviour
     
The Role of Dopamine
The Reward Circuit
The Pleasure Centres
Seeking
Pleasure and Avoiding Pain
The Philosophies of Pleasure
     
Pleasure and Drugs
 
How Drugs Affect Neuro-Transmitters
When the
Reward Circuit Gets Over-Heated
The Pleasure Centres Affected by Drugs
Drug Consumption
Drug Dependancy
Social Control of Drugs
     
Avoiding Pain
     
Molecules that produce pain
Molecules that reduce pain
Ascending pain pathways
Descending pain-control pathways
The neuromatrix of pain
Various types of pain
The placebo effect
Sharing other people's pain


Emotions and the brain

Fear, Anxiety and Anguish
     
Anxiety Neuro-Transmitters
GABA Receptors
The Circuit of the Body's Alarm System
The Amygdala and its Allies
The Two Pathways of Fear
When Fear
Takes the Controls
The Cultures of Fear
     


Evolution and the brain

Our Evolutionary Inheritance
     
How Life on Earth Began
The Building Blocks of Life
The Origin of Mitochondria
The Evolutionary Layers of the Human Brain
Evolutionary Psychology
The Critique of Evolutionary Psychology
Creationist Attacks on Evolution
     


Body movement and the brain

Making a Voluntary Movement
     
The Role of the Neuromuscular Junction in Muscle Contraction
Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptors
The Axons
Entering and
Leaving the
Motor Cortex
The Distinctive Architecture of the Cerebellum
The Motor
Cortex
The Basal Ganglia
The Cerebellum
The Activation Sequence for the Motor Areas
Mental Imaging
of Body Movements
The Organization of Manual Work
     


The Senses

Vision
     
Photo-Receptors
How Light Gets Converted Into Nerve Impulses
The Retina
Receptive Fields, from the Retina
to the Cortex
The Cellular Structure of the Visual Cortex
The Eye
The Targets of the Optic Nerve
The Various Visual Cortexes
What Optical Illusions Show
Us About Visual Perception
Motion Pictures: the Grand Optical Illusion
     


Mental disorders

Depression and Manic Depression
     
Serotonin and Other Molecules Involved in Depression
Antidepressants
Antidepressants and the Growth
of New Neurons
Parts of the Brain that Slow Down or Speed Up in Depression
Symptoms, Treatments, and Causes of Depression
Symptoms, Treatments, and Causes of Manic Depression
Suicide
     
Anxiety Disorders
     
Tranquilizers
The Traces of Anxiety in the Circuits of the Amygdala
Brain Abnormalities Associated with Anxiety Disorders
Phobias
Panic Disorders
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTST)
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)
Religions: Helpful Tranquilizers, or Opiate of the People


How the mind develops

From Embryo to Ethics
     
The Growth
Cone
The Molecules that Guide the Growth Cone
Trophic Factors and Neuronal Death
Formation and Selective Stabilization of Synapses
How Stem Cells Form Neurons
How Neurons Connect to One Another
From Fertilization to Embryo
How the Nervous System Begins
How the Major Subdivisions of the Brain are Formed
Piaget's Model
of Cognitive Development
Beyond Piaget's Model
Critical Periods in Cognitive Development
Moral Development
     


From thought to language

Communicating in Words
     
Genes that are Essential for Speech
Are Mirror Neurons the Basis for Communication?
Broca's Area, Wernicke's Area, and other Language Processing Areas in the Brain
Models of Spoken and Written Language Functions in the Brain
Handedness, Language, and Brain Lateralization
The Right Hemisphere's Contribution to Language
The Connections Between
Thought and Language
Learning to Speak
Language Disorders
The Origins of Language
     


Sleep and dreams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Sleep/Dream/Wake Cycle
     

Molecules that build up and make you sleep

The neuronal switches for waking and sleeping
How neurons generate brain waves
The brain structures that wake you up and put you to sleep
The brain during REM sleep
The different types of sleep
The sleep cycles in a night
Dreams
Sleep disorders
Working at night
     
Our Biological Clock
     
Our molecular clockwork
Light-sensitive ganglion cells
The suprachiasmatic nuclei and the pineal gland
Chronobiology
Jet lag

 


 

The Sense of Self
     

Can quantum effects explain counsciousness?

Neuronal assemblies and synchronization of brain activity
Can states of consciousness be mapped in the brain?
What is consciousness?
Philosophical position on consciousness
Theories of consciousness in the cognitive sciences
Flaws in the classical model of consciousness
Some promising concepts and models from the neurosciences
The function and evolutionary origins of consciousness
The question of free will

 


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