Continued from Getting
the most out of Neurobiology
Systems. This is where Neuroanatomy and Neurophysiology
come together to make the brain work. There are a lot of different
subsystems in the brain: a variety of sensory systems (vision, auditory,
vestibular, nociceptive, proprioceptive, olfactory...), a motor
system, a limbic system, an association system, and so on. Each
system has substations, and understanding the flow of information
through these substations is what makes neuroscience really interesting.
While most of us have an idea of the brain as "that thing that makes
us think", there's a lot more going on than plain old thinking.
The thalamus is, in my opinion, key to understanding how systems
work. The thalamus is like an airline hub - flights (sensory information)
feed in from all over (peripheral sensory systems) and get sent
out to their cortical destination (primary sensory cortex). After
the incoming information has had its business meetings in the cerebral
cortex, it gets on another flight back through the airline hub (the
thalamus and other nearby nuclei) to its final destination (whatever
end organ its going to). If you get an idea of how sensory information
gets to the thalamus, where it goes from the thalamus, how it gets
back to the thalamus, then how it finally gets home, you've pretty
much nailed most of medical neurobiology from an MS-I's stand point.
Lesions. Localizing neurological lesions makes a medical
school neuro course different from undergrad or graduate school
neuroscience courses. If you are into detective work, this can be
fun. A patient presents with a chief complaint, gives a history,
has specific findings on physical exam, and you get to figure out
where in the central nervous system something went wrong. It's hard
to expect medical students to diagnose lesions in the whole brain
based on a single neuroanatomy course, but there are a few places
where you will be expected to localize lesions: the spinal cord,
cranial nerves, and the early visual system. There are several internet
sites that help you diagnose neuronal lesions based on history and
physical findings (find them through the MSRG
neuroscience study guide).
The first year neuro course can be fun (easy for me to say having so
many years to forget what it was like). If you get your basic neuroanatomy
down, remember the nernst potential through your finals, and have fun
uncovering lesions you'll survive it pretty much unscathed.
