Exploring Consciousness and Cognition: Insights from Neuropsychology

1. Consciousness and Cognition Chris Lamonde Mr. Chessman Nov. 30, 2005 Hnrs. Bio II

2. Introduction • Try to think of nothing – it’s hard • Your mind will start to wonder with feelings, ideas, or anything important to you • Is a difference between your personal experiences and experiences • These operations happen at the prefrontal lobes of the brain (Lights Up)

3. Conditions of Consciousness • 1st is being awake/alert • The AFR ( ascending reticular formation) is a network of neurological circuits located in the core of the brainstem and extending upward from the medulla to the cortex • Those neurons transfer and manufacture neurotransmitters • Main purpose of this area is to keep you awake and alert • 2nd is being able to adapt to our surroundings • This is responding in countless situations that are unfamiliar • Need to make choices/decisions

4. What parts of the brain do for our consciousness • AFR enables you to wake up • Hippocampus enables you to remember • Frontal lobes give you perspective and separation between internal and external events • Anterior Cingulate enables you to focus and concentrate

5. Injury that effects consciousness • Brain injury can effect consciousness in 2 ways • Mild – decease in alertness and wakefulness • Severe – deep and irreversible coma • People may become unaware and deny their injury • People may develop amnesia • Therefore the brain, mind, and consciousness are closely connected

6. Relating Infants and Animals • Tests done to babies that put a rouge on their faces and then were put in front of a mirror • Children less than a year did move • Children 15-18 months would move their hand toward the spot • Children 2-3 years old would touch • Monkeys would acknowledge themselves in the mirrors • Chimps moved toward the rogue like the 15-18 month olds

7. Animals with each other • Baboons recognize cries of other baboons • They also understand their family relationships and place in the community • One chimp knew where food was and another that did not know followed him around • The chimp that knew where food was misled the other to places where the food wasn’t • Another called it’s mother to chase away another female so he could steal the food

8. More about the brain • Attention, memory, and sensorimotor coordination are not located in just one single part of the brain • Left hemisphere is more involved than the right • Language is located in the left • Language is a very important part in our understanding of consciousness

9. Dynamics of the brain • One brain wave ever 12.5 milliseconds • 40 cycles-per-second • Occurs between thalamus and cortex • Neurons work together and in rhythm

10. Conclusion • Cognition enables you not think about new things rather than things learned and in memory • Consciousness deals with new experiences, ideas and information • The brain and mind form a unity but, knowledge about them rely upon our own intangible ideas of consciousness