Biology

Nervous System Physiology

1,858 Questions

Enhance your knowledge of human neurobiology through questions on nervous system physiology. The topics cover brain anatomy, sensory modalities, and the neural mechanisms controlling speech and language. This resource is ideal for students preparing for medical and general science exams.

Brain anatomy and regionsNeural mechanismsLanguage processingSensory functions

Nervous System Physiology Questions

Multiple choice

Which of the four are collectively known as brain stem?

  1. Pons varolii, mid brain, medulla oblongata and diencephalon

  2. Pons varolli, mid brain, cerebellum and thalamus

  3. Medulla oblongata, cerebellum, pons varolii and cerebrum

  4. Hypothalamus, thalamus, mid brain and cerebellum
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

This option is correct because they all perform the major function of brain considered as brain stem.

Multiple choice

The convolutions present in cerebral hemisphere help in

  1. control and co-ordination

  2. sensation of light

  3. increase the surface area of the cortex

  4. perception of sensation
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

This option is correct because the convolutions/folds increase the surface area of cortex for accomodating more nerve cells in it.

Multiple choice

The important areas present in temporal lobe are

  1. broca's area and motor area

  2. visual areas

  3. premotor area and somesthetic

  4. olfactory, auditory and wernicke's area
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

This option is correct because temporal lobe has three important areas which have important functions in the sense of smell, hearing  and understanding. Speech and rest are the parts of other lobes.

Multiple choice

Hypothalamus is an important link between the

  1. nervous system and endocrine system

  2. endocrine system and exocrine system

  3. exocrine system and nervous system

  4. nervous system and circulation system
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

This option is correct because it contains centres for homeostasis by regulating body temperature. It is present in the brain which is a part of the nervous tissue and the hormones released by posterior pituitary gland (endocrine gland) are synthesized in hypothalamus.

Multiple choice

What is the other name of hindbrain?

  1. Prosencephalon

  2. Rhombencephalon

  3. Mesencephalon

  4. Telencephalon
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
B Correct answer
Explanation

This option is correct because hindbrain is also known as rhombencephalon.

Multiple choice

The experiment described above is ultimately an attempt to

Directions: The passage below is followed by a question. Answer the question on the basis of what is stated or implied in the passage.

In a major step toward helping paralytic victims walk again, Duke University researchers have announced that they had proved monkeys can use their brainpower to control the walking patterns of robots. The investigators implanted Idoya, a rhesus monkey, with electrodes which gathered signals from her brain's motor and sensory cortex cells as she ambled along on a specially built child-size treadmill. The electrodes recorded the cells' responses as the monkey walked on the treadmill at different speeds; simultaneously, sensors on Idoya's legs tracked their patterns of movement. The information was transmitted real time from their lab in Durham, to control the commands of a humanoid robot in Kyoto, Japan.

Through the electrodes in her brain, the researchers discovered that some neurons fire at different phases and frequencies, depending on their role in the process. During the experiment, the robot continued to move for several minutes after Idoya stopped strolling on her treadmill indicating something else also.

The team’s goal is to finally enable real-time direct interfaces between a brain and electronic and mechanical devices that could be used to restore sensory and motor functions lost through injury or disease. The team hopes that one day soon, they will also master sufficient syntax to talk back to the brain, which would enable them, for instance, to build a human prosthetic arm laden with sensors to send tactile feedback into the somatosensory cortex of its user.

The experiment in monkey-to-robotic motion is the latest in a long series of studying the primate brain's ability to stimulate robotic arms through neural signals. In 2000 Nicolelis and his colleagues described how they had reliably translated the raw electrical brain activity of an owl monkey named Belle into signals that successfully directed the actions of robotic arms based both at Duke and at an MIT lab 965 kilometers away in Cambridge. Belle's tiny hand moved a joystick left or right to correspond with a horizontal series of lights on a display panel in a Duke lab; both robot arms followed suit.

A few years later, the team listened in on brain signals generated by a rhesus monkey named Aurora using a joystick to play a video game and translated them into commands for a mechanical arm to duplicate the motions. Aurora was ultimately able to move a robotic arm sans the joystick, using only her thoughts, an experiment that the team believes addresses fundamental questions about how brain circuits operate.

  1. prove that monkeys can help robots walk

  2. prove that signals carrying information from the brain, when passed on to a robot can help it walk

  3. act as an intermediate step towards prosthtically enabling the physically incapacitated.

  4. prove basically a very scholarly point that information from the brain controls all limb movements

  5. master enough language to interact with the brain
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Option (1) represents only the surface of the experiment. If you go deeper, you will realise that it is only a stepping stone.  Option (4) is the ground on which the entire theory rests. It can never become the final goal as it is already a well-known fact and in fact is the premise on which the entire experiment rests. Option (5) is again a milestone in the process of achieving the final goal. Hence, ruled out. Pay attention to the word ultimately in the question stem and go back to the very first line of the opening paragraph and also the 4th paragraph in particular, which leads us to the right option (3).

Multiple choice

Direction: Complete the following sentence by selecting the correct option from the following.

For right handed people what is easier to learn?

PASSAGE 1

The human brain is spherical. It is divided into two halves, called the two hemispheres. Though two hemispheres are joined together, they seem to work independently. In the majority of the cases, the left hemisphere dominates over the right resulting in right handed people who are better at mathematics and languages than at music and sports. In 65 percentage of brains studied , it was found that left hemisphere was larger and more highly developed than the right, in 14 percentage of cases , the two hemispheres were more or less equal , while in 11 percentage , the right hemisphere was more developed than the left.

  1. languages and mathematics

  2. mathematics than music

  3. music than sports

  4. music and sports than maths
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
A Correct answer
Explanation

Option 1 is the correct answer as it is clearly mentioned in the passage that ' right handed persons are better at mathematics and languages'.

Multiple choice

Direction: Complete the following sentence by selecting the correct option from the following.

Left handed people are those ______________.

PASSAGE 1

The human brain is spherical. It is divided into two halves, called the two hemispheres. Though two hemispheres are joined together, they seem to work independently. In the majority of the cases, the left hemisphere dominates over the right resulting in right handed people who are better at mathematics and languages than at music and sports. In 65 percentage of brains studied , it was found that left hemisphere was larger and more highly developed than the right, in 14 percentage of cases , the two hemispheres were more or less equal , while in 11 percentage , the right hemisphere was more developed than the left.

  1. whose brain is not fully developed

  2. who form the habit of using the left hand in their early childhood

  3. whose right hemispheres of the brain is more developed than that of right handed people

  4. whose left hemisphere of the brain is larger than that of right handed people
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
C Correct answer
Explanation

Refer to the last line of the passage which says the (the right hemisphere was more developed than the left).