"The cerebral cortex, also known as the cerebral mantle, is the outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum of the brain in humans and other mammals."
The outer layer of the brain that is responsible for conscious thought, perception, and voluntary movement.
Anatomy of the Cerebral Cortex: A study of the structure and organization of the human brain's outermost layer — the cerebral cortex.
Lobes of the Cerebral Cortex: Understanding the divisions of the Cerebral Cortex: Frontal, Parietal, Occipital, and Temporal.
Brodmann areas: Differences across the Cerebral Cortex identified by Brodmann numbers.
Neuron: Basic structure, function and types of neurons (e.g., spiny, unipolar, bipolar, etc.).
Synaptic Transmission: Neurological message exchange between neurons, including neuron-to-neuron communication.
neural circuits: Patterns of neural activity and the effects of changing parts of that system.
Glial Cells: Their structure, types, and functions, including astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and microglia.
electrical and chemical signaling: How neurons generate, propagate, and terminate signals.
Sensory Processing: How the Cerebral Cortex processes different sensory input (e.g., visual, auditory, tactile, etc.).
Motor Control: How the Cerebral Cortex governs voluntary movement.
Language: How the Cerebral Cortex processes and produces language through Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas.
Attention and Awareness: How the Cerebral Cortex processes cognitive processes like attention, awareness and perception.
Emotion and Memory: The role of the Cerebral Cortex in mediating and encoding emotional experiences and memory.
Plasticity: Understanding the ability of the Cerebral Cortex to change and adapt to new experiences (e.g., learning, recovery of function following injury).
Diseases of the Cerebral Cortex: Studying the pathological changes in the cerebral cortex and their effects on behavior, perception and cognition (e.g., stroke, Alzheimer’s Disease, Epilepsy, etc.).
Imaging Techniques: A variety of imaging techniques like a structural MRI, fMRI, CT scan used to study the structure and function of the cerebral cortex.
Sensory Cortex: This type of cortex is responsible for processing sensory information from the body. It has subcategories such as the somatosensory cortex (touch), auditory cortex (hearing) and visual cortex (sight).
Motor Cortex: This cortex sends out motor commands to initiate voluntary movements. Examples include the primary motor cortex (controls movement of the body) and the premotor cortex (involved in planning and executing complex movements).
Association Cortex: This type of cortex is involved in more complex mental functions such as perception, memory, language, social cognition and creativity. It is subdivided into prefrontal cortex (involved in executive functions such as decision-making and problem-solving), parietal cortex (involved in spatial perception and attention), occipital cortex (involved in visual processing) and temporal cortex (involved in auditory processing, language comprehension and memory).
Limbic Cortex: This type of cortex is involved in emotional processing and motivation. It includes the cingulate cortex (involved in emotional and pain processing) and the insular cortex (involved in processing emotions and autonomic responses).
Frontal Cortex: This is a specific region of cerebral cortex that is involved in many higher-order brain functions, including reasoning, planning, decision-making, and more. It helps to regulate communication between different parts of the brain and has been linked to cognitive processes such as attention, working memory, and abstract thought.
"The cerebral cortex is separated into two cortices, by the longitudinal fissure that divides the cerebrum into the left and right cerebral hemispheres."
"The two hemispheres are joined beneath the cortex by the corpus callosum."
"The cerebral cortex plays a key role in attention, perception, awareness, thought, memory, language, and consciousness."
"Apart from minimising brain and cranial volume, cortical folding is crucial for the brain circuitry and its functional organisation."
"A fold or ridge in the cortex is termed a gyrus (plural gyri)."
"A groove is termed a sulcus (plural sulci)."
"The major sulci and gyri mark the divisions of the cerebrum into the lobes of the brain."
"The four major lobes are the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes."
"Other lobes are the limbic lobe, and the insular cortex often referred to as the insular lobe."
"There are between 14 and 16 billion neurons in the human cerebral cortex."
"These neurons are organized into horizontal cortical layers, and radially into cortical columns and minicolumns."
"Cortical areas have specific functions such as movement in the motor cortex, and sight in the visual cortex."
"Visual cortex is located in the occipital lobe."
"The cerebral cortex mostly consists of the six-layered neocortex, with just 10% consisting of allocortex."
"These surface convolutions appear during fetal development and continue to mature after birth through the process of gyrification."
"The majority of the cerebral cortex is not visible from the outside, but buried in the sulci."
"The cerebral cortex is the largest site of neural integration in the central nervous system."
"The cerebral cortex plays a key role in attention, perception, awareness, thought, memory, language, and consciousness."
"In mammals with small brains, there is no folding and the cortex is smooth."