Autonomic Nervous System - Higher Autonomic Centers. Glossary of Terms - Psychophysiology

Lecture

Autonomic nervous system - the part of the nervous system that controls the state of the heart, internal organs, musculature, glands and skin; it comprises two divisions: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems.
Memory vector - a unit of the structural code of memory, created by a set of postsynaptic contacts on the body of a detector neuron, having different electrical conductivity
Vegetative functions - the homeostatic functions of the autonomic nervous system.
Vegetative - 1) relating to the growth and nutrition of the organism; 2) relating to the autonomic nervous system; 3) characterized by asexual reproduction; 4) relating to plants.
Excitation vector - a specific direction of the combination of excitation of a neuronal ensemble.
Vector coding - an operation whereby an external stimulus is matched, in neural networks, to a combination of excitations of a neuronal ensemble, with each stimulus represented by a specific excitation vector. Specific signals are coded by a different orientation of this vector.
Vector psychophysiology - a field in psychophysiology developed by E. N. Sokolov, which integrates neurophysiological and psychophysiological data within a geometric model of cognitive processes.
Ventral roots of the spinal cord - formed by the axons of motor neurons of the anterior horns of the spinal cord's gray matter, as well as by the axons of (sympathetic) neurons of the lateral horns of the gray matter.
Ventral - abdominal; located on the ventral surface of an animal's body, or facing it (see Dorsal).
Verbal - oral, in words, relating to verbal material.
Wernicke's area - a region of the cerebral cortex located in the posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus of the left hemisphere (in right-handed people), responsible for the phonemic analysis of spoken speech.
Vertex - a point on the surface of the head corresponding to the middle of the highest part of the skull.
Vestibular system - a sensory system that provides for the perception and coding of stimuli coming from the gravitational receptors.
Interaction of analyzers - one of the manifestations of the unity of the sensory sphere, for example synesthesia.
Visualization - the process of recoding verbal or symbolic material into spatial-visual representations.
Visual - produced by the naked eye or with the aid of optical instruments.
Virilism - masculinization; the presence in women of secondary male sexual characteristics (for example, a mustache, a beard).
Visceral - relating to the system of internal organs; vegetative.
Visceral brain - a part of the nervous system that innervates the internal organs, blood vessels, smooth muscle, glands of internal and external secretion, and skin.
Vital - pertaining to life, occurring during life, relating to vital phenomena (the opposite is lethal).
Vitauct - a mechanism that determines the stability and duration of the existence of a living system.
Excitability - the ability of living cells to perceive changes in the external environment and to respond to these changes with an excitation reaction.
Excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP) - a specific change in the electrical properties of a nerve cell, leading to the development of a local depolarization process, resulting from the action, on the chemoreceptors of the postsynaptic membrane, of an excitatory mediator released by the presynaptic nerve endings. Release of the mediator by the postsynaptic terminals may occur not only under the influence of a nerve impulse, but also spontaneously; therefore EPSPs can be either evoked or spontaneous.
Excitation - a process leading to the generation of action potentials and the propagation of impulse activity in the nervous system.
Wave - a term used to characterize the bioelectric activity of the brain. It is used in two senses: 1) as an element of the EEG, representing a change in the potential difference and having a characteristic and reproducible configuration; 2) a part of an evoked potential enclosed between two consecutive global unidirectional extrema, or between two nearby isoline crossing points.
"All or none" law - an empirical law establishing the relationship between the strength of an acting stimulus and the magnitude of the response of an excitable structure. Excitable tissue gives a maximal response, constant in its parameters, "all", regardless of the strength of the stimulation. An example is the action potential of a neuron.
Interneuron - a neuron that provides the connection between sensory and motor neurons.
Second signal system - a system of ways of regulating the mental activity of living beings, associated with speech.
Evoked electrical activity of the brain - a change in the electrical activity of the brain occurring in the post-stimulus interval in response to afferent stimulation or direct stimulation of brain structures. A distinction is made between evoked activity of single neurons, evoked complex reactions, evoked potentials, and so on.
Evoked potentials - bioelectric fluctuations arising in nerve structures in response to receptor stimulation and having a strictly defined time relationship with the moment the stimulus is presented.
Higher nervous activity - the neurophysiological processes taking place in the cerebral cortex and the adjoining subcortex during the formation and functioning of conditioned reflexes in humans and animals.
Higher autonomic centers - centers located in various parts of the brain that control the autonomic reflex mechanisms of the spinal cord. All levels of the autonomic nervous system are subordinate to the higher autonomic centers, which are located in the hypothalamus and the striatum.