Running head: ORGANIZATION OF THE BRAIN 1

Organization of the Brain

Kedene wellington

Psychiatric

Ms makepeace

Carleen Health Institute of South Florida

Date July 13, 2016

Organization of the Brain

Abstract

Understanding how the human brain is organized is a vital concept not only for those in

medical fields but even for the rest of the domains as humans are actively involved in every

aspect of earthly life. For instance, Computer Scientists rely on neural networks to design

artificial neural networks and propagandists would wish to comprehend the physiological and

psychological working of the human brain so as to enhance the potency of his techniques.

Specifically, the brain is an interconnected system of three layers that include the central core,

the limbic system, and cerebral cortex. The regions perform highly specialized functions. In this

regard, this study will present the organization of the brain at various levels by utilizing research

articles among other reputable sources.

Introduction

Notably the brain a critical component of the central nervous system and performs three

core functions. The functions are: to produce behavior, to create sensory reality and to create

knowledge that incorporates information from different sensory domains and time including

using that knowledge to guide behavior. Each of these functions needs specific machinery. As

such, the brain must have systems to create the sensory world, systems to spur behavior and

systems to integrate the two (Cao et al., 2014). So as to best understand the organization of the

brain, it is critical that an evaluation of the basic structures and functions of these systems is

done. Equally important is that the brain is functionally and structurally heterogeneous in its

organization and presents a high inter-individual variability (Cao et al., 2014). A multi-modal

approach, a three-dimensional model of the human brain that shows the structural and functional
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organization principles on different scales is necessary to comprehend this complexity. The

model helps show the neurobiological basics of mental capacities including enabling

characterization of the individual facets and underpinning mechanisms.

Surface Features of the Brain

The brain is encased in a tough material known as the meninges which are a three-

layered structure. Within the meninges, the dura mater is the outer layer and is a tough double

layer of fibrous tissue encasing the brain akin to a loose sack. The arachnoid layer is the middle

layer and is an ultrathin sheet of delicate connective tissue that follows the contours of the brain.

Pia mater, the inner layer, is a moderately tough membrane of connective tissue fibers that hold

on to the surface of the brain (Cao et al., 2014). The cerebrospinal fluid, a colorless solution of

salts between the pia mater and arachnoid provides a cushion so that the brain can expand

slightly or move without pressing on the skull. Infections of the meninges are referred to as

meningitis and its symptoms are described as meningitis and encephalitis.

Examining the brain reveals the cerebrum that consists of two cerebral hemispheres with

the cerebellum being the smaller part. The wrinkled nature of cerebellum and cerebrum in large-

brained animals is due to the outer surface being made of a comparatively thin sheet of tissue

pushed together to have it fit into the skull (Park & Friston, 2011). There is also the brainstem

and cranial nerves that run to and from the head. As expected, the brain is covered in blood

vessels and is sensitive to blockage, breaks in a cerebral artery and loss of blood and is likely to

result in the death of the affected region otherwise known as a stroke (Chersi, Ferro, Pezzulo &

Pirrelli, 2014). Since the three cerebral arteries service different spheres of the brain, strokes

disrupt different functions of the brain subject to the artery affected.

Connectivity of the Brain

Connectivity of the brain refers to a pattern of anatomical links rather anatomical

connectivity of statistical dependencies, functional connectivity or causal interactions, effective

connectivity, between specific units within a nervous system. These units correspond to

individual neurons, anatomically segregated brain regions or neuronal populations. The pattern

of connectivity is established by structural links such as fiber pathways or synapses. Brain

connectivity is vital to elucidating the manner in which neural networks and neurons process

information. Specifically, the anatomical, effective and functional connectivity interrelate in the

cortex which heightens the complexity of understanding brain connectivity (Chersi, Ferro,

Pezzulo & Pirrelli, 2014). Integration and segregation are two potential principles that connect

these different modes of brain connectivity. In this context, segregation refers to the existence of

specialized brain areas and neurons organized into distinct neuronal populations and clustered to

form segregated cortical areas.

On the other hand, the complimentary principle leads to the coordinated activation of

distributed neuronal populations thus facilitating the emergence of coherent cognitive and

behavioral states. As such, the interplay of integration and segregation in brain networks

generates information that is concurrently highly diversified and highly incorporated thus giving

rise to patterns of high complexity. A recent view suggests that structural connection patterns are

major constraints for the dynamics of systems and cortical circuits that are captured by functional

and effective connectivity (Deco, Jirsa & McIntosh, 2011). Comparison of brain connectivity

patterns sourced from functional and structural studies is enabled by the application of network

analysis techniques.
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The complex brain networks can capture via patterns of statistical dependencies and

causal interactions that define three main modalities of intricate brain networks. That addresses

functional connectivity and effective connectivity. For instance, human cognition is linked to

rapidly changing and widely distributed neural activation patterns that involve numerous cortical

and sub-cortical regions excited in different combinations and contexts (Deco, Jirsa & McIntosh,

2011). The two main organizational principles of the cerebral cortex are functional integration

and functional segregation that enable the rapid extraction of information and the generation

coherent brain states (Cao et al., 2014). Several studies of single neuron networks depict the

brain as encompassing complex morphology and wiring. There are also large-scale and

intermediate-scale networks of the cerebral cortex making it possible to examine links between

neural organization and cognition.

Self-organization of the Brain

In particular, self-organization refers to a process by which systems that are in overall

made up of several parts spontaneously acquire their function or structure without specific

intervention from an agent that is not integral to the system. For instance, the growth of animals

constitutes self-organization. The brain is a complex system made up of 100 billion neurons and

glia cells that are strongly interconnected. For instance, an individual neuron can make over

10,000 connections to other neurons (Chersi, Ferro, Pezzulo & Pirrelli, 2014). It is thought the

brain acts as a self-organizing system as per the laws of synergetics so as to produce coherent

output from concerned neurons and muscles. Again it is suggested that the phenomenon of self-

organization manifests in experiments in which a subject has to learn as during the learning

period the number of degrees of freedom gets more reduced. Eventually, the system is governed

by one complex order parameter despite fluctuations being seen.

Through an examination of visual perception, the self-organization aspect of the brain

can be highlighted. Starting with bistability of vision in which the same picture leads to quite

different percepts and hysteresis where the percept captured depends on earlier experience. A

bigger class of phenomena consists of the perception of ambiguous patterns where percepts

oscillate back and forth between at least two different interpretations. In terms of synergetics, all

these phenomena can be modeled as self-organization process. Other instances of self-

organization can be captured when local electric fields of the brain are evaluated; especially

experiments performed mainly on cats and monkeys (Chersi, Ferro, Pezzulo & Pirrelli, 2014).

For instance, when an anesthetized cat is placed in front of as screen on which two bars are

moving in the same direction and at similar speed then activation of two groups of neurons at

different locations in the visual cortex becomes correlated. Yet the correlation effect breaks

down when the bars are moved in opposite direction. As seen, the brain also acts by means of

self-organization and the self-organization can be observed in the growth of brains.

Cortical Networks Structural Organization

Notably, the brain is structurally connected to a network. Structural connection data for

the human brain is inadequate as most structural analyses of brain networks have been conducted

on datasets describing the large-scale connection patterns of rat’s, cat’s and monkey’s cerebral

cortex. Through these analyses, several organization principles expressed within structural brain

networks have been revealed. From the studies, it emerged that cerebral cortical areas in brains

of mammals are neither randomly linked nor completely connected with each other. However, it

emerged their interconnections illustrate a specific and complex organization. The frontal and

parietal lobe arm areas are part of cortical networks for visual reaching.
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By studying macaque monkeys, the structural and functional properties of the

dorsolateral posterior parietal proximal arm and frontal lobe representations, the working of

cortical networks was understood. Notably, the study employed means of retrograde tracing

techniques in examining anatomically the parietofrontal corticocortical connection activities of

the subject areas (Park & Friston, 2011). The monkeys trained in a guided-delay reaching task

were subjected to dorsal premotor, physiological mapping of primary motor and posterior

parietal cortices. Specifically, set-, signal-, position and movement-related directional neuronal

tasks were distributed non-uniformly within the activity-related areas in both parietal and frontal

cortices (Deco, Jirsa & McIntosh, 2011). It emerged that within the frontal lobe, the activity that

signals for the visuospatial events resulting to target localization decreased whereas the activity

more explicitly connected to movement generation increased. That is moving caudally from

dorsal premotor and primary motor.

Additionally, a physiological recording in the dorsal parietal lobule shows a gradient-like

distribution of functional attributes akin to that seen in the frontal lobe. Set- and signal-related

activities were experienced more often in the ventral and intermediate part of the medial bank of

the intraparietal sulcus. Position- and movement-related tasks were distributed more uniformly

within the dorsal parietal lobule in both medial intraparietal and dorsal area five. Moreover,

parietal and frontal regions sharing similar functional properties were preferentially linked via

their association pathways (Laumann et al., 2015). Thus the medial-dorsal parietal and medial

intraparietal are appeared to be the parietal nodes via which visual information may be

transmitted to the frontal lobe arm region. Consequently, these frontal and parietal areas

including their association connections represent a possible cortical network for visual reaching.
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Metamodal Organization of the Brains

Various early studies indicate that the visual cortex appears to be a metamodal structure

that captures visual, tactile and auditory stimuli. During visual differentiation, these inputs can be

revealed and functionally demonstrated. The visual cortex appears to offer limited service to

spatial discrimination activities in spite of the sensory input processed throughout these changes.

The present studies acknowledge that the brain is made up of metamodal operators and they are

local neural networks defined by a particular computation that is applied regardless of the

sensory input received (Ricciardi & Pietrini, 2011). That does not imply the absence of preferred

sensory modalities for particular computations. Notably, the cortex gives the impression of being

built around sensory modalities as opposed to operators.

Subsequently, the mixtures of experts architecture emerge to explain the metamodal

organization of the brain. The architecture relies on two notions with the first positing that there

exist structure function correspondences within the brain. That is because the structural

properties of different regions of the brain vary and various brain regions are best at doing

particular types of functions (Cao et al., 2014). The other notion is that brain regions compete for

the opportunity to perform a set of tasks. It is thought that this competition results in functional

specialization of regions of the brain including the progressive segregation of the best-suited

inputs. The competition is not a fair fight as is biased by the structure-function correspondences

(Ricciardi & Pietrini, 2011). Thus, each region tends to win the race for those functions for

which its structure is best suited for. In other words, the mixtures of experts model integrate the

two ideas of structure-function and competition correspondences giving a gating and expert

networks.
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Furthermore, early research speculated that different subsystems in the brain are charged

with making coordinate and categorical visual judgments. That is to say there different neural

agencies utilizing different kinds of information are responsible for categorizing a stimulus

against identifying a stimulus as a specific exemplar. It is thought that systems that make

categorical judgments tend to be more efficient if they monitored visual neurons with small non-

overlapping fields of reception (Ricciardi & Pietrini, 2011). On the other hand, systems that

make coordinate visual judgments should be efficient if they monitor neurons with large,

overlapping fields of reception. Within the brain, the gating networks correspond to the

inhibitory connections. Operationalizing the mixtures of experts architecture on the mammalian

brain would mean the occipital cortex will obtain the domain of visual processing because it is

best designed for computations that may benefit from information best provided by vision. That

implies that data transformations that occipital cortex may initially do properly may not

necessarily be vision per se.

In other words, the occipital cortex wins because it is the region of the brain with

functional and structural qualities that position it to excel in tasks that require high-acuity

processing of spatial information. Yet if that were the case, the occipital cortical regions would

encompass the expert network that would emerge victorious in competition for vision which is a

sensory modality that gives tremendous amounts of distance and spatial information (Park &

Friston, 2011). The occipital cortex can carry out spatial decoding more accurately as it

continues to win the competition between expert networks for the input of vision and thus

continually adapt better for this function. In other words, its visual input processing gets

reinforced by each win.

Summary and Conclusion

The brain consists of three main parts the cerebellum, the brain stem and the cerebrum

and is divided into regions that control specific functions. Within the cerebrum, the frontal lobe

handles the functions of behavior, problem-solving, intellect, reflection, creative thought,

judgment, muscle movement, skilled movements, sexual reaction and sense of smell among

others. On the other hand, the occipital lobe deals with vision and reading. The parietal lobe

performs tactile sensation, stereognosis, proprioception, some visual functions and sensory

combination among others. For the temporal lobe, it handles auditory memories, limited hearing,

visual memories, music, and sense of identity among others. The other areas include the

representational hemisphere, the categorical hemisphere, and the corpus callosum that enables

communication between the left and right side of the brain. For balance, posture, cardiac and

respiratory functions, the cerebellum is responsible. The brain stem offers functions and

processing for motor and sensory pathway to face and body and has vital centers for vasomotor,

cardiac and respiratory.

It also emerged that the brain is organized into cortical networks with the cerebral cortical

areas in brains of mammals appearing neither randomly linked nor totally connected with each

other. The complex cortical network enables the brain to deliver structurally and functionally.

Furthermore, the brain also shows aspects of self-organization with visual perception being a

notable example. For instance, the bistability of vision helps show that the same object can result

in quite different percepts and hysteresis in which percept captured depends on prior experience.

Lastly, it also emerged that the brain shows metamodal organization. Through the mixtures

experts architecture framework, the brain was taken as relying on the existence of structure-

function correspondence and the notion that the brain regions compete for the opportunity to
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perform a set of activities. The variations are informed by the fact that the structural properties of

different regions of the brain differ and various brain regions are suited for varied functions.
ORGANIZATION OF THE BRAIN 12

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