cortical
(adjective)
Pertaining to the outer layer of an internal organ or body structure, such as the kidney or the brain.
Examples of cortical in the following topics:
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Embryonic Development of the Brain
- An example of tangential migration is the movement of Cajal-Retzius cells from the cortical hem to the superfitial part of cortical neuroepithelium.
- Radial fibers (also known as radial glia) can translocate to the cortical plate and differentiate either into astrocytes or neurons.
- An example of tangential migration is the movement of Cajal-Retzius cells from the cortical hem to the superfitial part of cortical neuroepithelium.
- This is seen in multipolar cells, which are abundantly present in the cortical intermediate zone.
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Mapping the Primary Somatosensory Area
- The cortical sensory homunculus is located in the postcentral gyrus and provides a representation of the body to the brain.
- A cortical homunculus is a pictorial representation of the anatomical divisions of the primary motor cortex and the primary somatosensory cortex; it is the portion of the human brain directly responsible for the movement and exchange of sensory and motor information of the body.
- This technique also allowed him to create maps of the sensory and motor cortices of the brain, showing their connections to the various limbs and organs of the body.
- The idea of the cortical homunculus was created by Wilder Penfield and serves as a rough map of the receptive fields for regions of primary somatosensory cortex.
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Phantom Limb Sensation
- Ramachandran argued that the perception of being touched on different parts of the phantom limb was the perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization in the brain.
- However, research published in 1995 by Flor et al. demonstrated that pain (rather than referred sensations) was the perceptual correlate of cortical reorganization.
- In 1996, Knecht et al. published an analysis of Ramanchandran's theory that concluded that there was no topographic relationship between referred sensations and cortical reorganization in the primary cortical areas.
- Recent research by Flor et al. suggests that non-painful referred sensations are correlated with a wide neural network outside the primary cortical areas.
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Gross Anatomy
- There are two types of bone tissue: cortical and cancellous bone.
- Cortical bone is compact bone, while cancellous bone is trabecular and spongy bone.
- Cortical bone forms the extremely hard exterior while cancellous bone fills the interior.
- They consist of a thin layer of cortical bone with cancellous interiorly.
- These typically have a thin cortical layer with more cancellous bone in their tissue.
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Sensory Areas
- A cortical homunculus is a physical representation of the human body located within the brain.
- Areas with lots of sensory innervation, such as the fingertips and the lips, require more cortical area to process finer sensation.
- Cortical Homunculus: A depiction of the human brain areas directly associated with the activity of a particular body part.
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Nephron: The Functional Unit of the Kidney
- Eighty-five percent of nephrons are cortical nephrons, deep in the renal cortex; the remaining 15 percent are juxtamedullary nephrons, which lie in the renal cortex close to the renal medulla.
- A nephron consists of three parts: a renal corpuscle, a renal tubule, and the associated capillary network, which originates from the cortical radiate arteries.
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Integration of Signals from Mechanoreceptors
- Both primary somatosensory cortex and secondary cortical areas are responsible for processing the complex picture of stimuli transmitted from the interplay of mechanoreceptors.
- Tactile-sense-related cortical neurons have receptive fields on the skin that can be modified by experience or by injury to sensory nerves, resulting in changes in the field's size and position.
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Association Areas
- Associated cortical regions involved in vision, touch sensation, and non-speech movement are also shown.
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General Organization of the Somatosensory System
- A cortical homunculus is the brain's physical representation of the human body; it is a neurological map of the anatomical divisions of the body.
- Image representing the cortical sensory homunculus.
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Cholinergic Neurons and Receptors
- As a result, these layer-specific effects of ACh might function to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of cortical processing.
- At the same time, acetylcholine acts through nicotinic receptors to excite certain groups of inhibitory interneurons in the cortex that further dampen cortical activity.
- Phasic increases of ACh during visual, auditory, and somatosensory stimulus presentations have been found to increase the firing rate of neurons in the corresponding primary sensory cortices.