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Related Concept Videos

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex01:14

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

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The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex....
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Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex01:24

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

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The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes is crucial for interpreting sensory data such as touch, temperature, and proprioception. The somatosensory cortex, situated in the parietal lobes, plays a vital role in interpreting sensory information like touch, temperature, and proprioception—awareness of body position. This specialized brain region features an organized structure wherein neurons at the top primarily process sensations originating from the lower body. In contrast, those at...
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Decision Making01:20

Decision Making

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Decision-making is a fundamental cognitive process that involves evaluating alternatives and selecting among them. This process can range from simple choices, such as deciding what to wear, to complex decisions, like choosing a major in college or a career path. The complexity of the decision often dictates the approach we use, which can be broadly categorized into two types: automatic and controlled decision-making.
Automatic decision-making is fast, intuitive, and relies on gut feelings...
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Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System01:11

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

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The somatosensory system is the central and peripheral nervous system component that senses and processes touch, pressure, pain, temperature, and body position or proprioception. The process of sensation takes place at three levels:
The receptor level:
The receptor level is the first stage of sensation. It involves the detection of a stimulus by specialized sensory receptors. The stimulus must arrive within the receptor's receptive field. Next, the receptor converts the energy of the...
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Major Somatic Sensory Pathways01:28

Major Somatic Sensory Pathways

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Sensory impulses related to touch, pressure, vibration, and proprioception from various body parts, such as the limbs, trunk, neck, and posterior head, travel to the cerebral cortex through the posterior column-medial lemniscus pathway. The pathway’s name derives from the two white-matter tracts that convey the impulses: the spinal cord's posterior column and the brainstem's medial lemniscus. First-order sensory neurons extend their axons into the spinal cord, forming the...
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Somatosensation01:33

Somatosensation

42.5K
The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.
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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 4, 2025

Multi-layer Cortical Ca2+ Imaging in Freely Moving Mice with Prism Probes and Miniaturized Fluorescence Microscopy
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Multi-layer Cortical Ca2+ Imaging in Freely Moving Mice with Prism Probes and Miniaturized Fluorescence Microscopy

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Cortical State Fluctuations during Sensory Decision Making.

Elina A K Jacobs1, Nicholas A Steinmetz1, Andrew J Peters2

  • 1UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG, UK.

Current Biology : CB
|October 23, 2020
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Cortical desynchronization, a brain state suppressing low-frequency activity, is global and linked to task engagement, not just sensory accuracy. This brain activity pattern is crucial for understanding behavioral task performance.

Keywords:
cortical statesdecision makingsensory processingwidefield imaging

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Systems Neuroscience

Background:

  • Cortical desynchronization, characterized by suppressed low-frequency fluctuations in neural activity, occurs during various behavioral tasks.
  • The exact behavioral relevance and global organization of this state remain incompletely understood.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the behavioral correlates and global organization of cortical desynchronization.
  • To differentiate between the roles of sensory accuracy and task engagement in driving desynchronization.

Main Methods:

  • Widefield calcium imaging in mice performing behavioral tasks designed to dissociate task engagement from sensory accuracy.
  • Analysis of low-frequency fluctuations in population activity across cortical regions.

Main Results:

  • Performance-related desynchronization was found to be a global phenomenon across the cortex.
  • Desynchronization correlated more strongly with task engagement than with sensory accuracy.
  • Rewards induced a sustained desynchronizing effect, further supporting the link to engagement.
  • Global desynchronization was observed irrespective of the sensory modality (visual or auditory) of the task.

Conclusions:

  • Cortical low-frequency fluctuations are primarily organized globally.
  • Variations in these fluctuations are predominantly associated with task engagement rather than sensory processing accuracy.