Study topics

Brain topics

The big ideas about the brain, each explained in a few minutes, with pictures from the 3D brain and a quick quiz that feeds your daily review.

Cells and signals

How neurons fire and talk to each other, and how the nervous system and hormones are organized.

Neurons and nerve signalsHow a nerve cell is built, and how it fires a signal.In 6 study guides

NeurotransmittersThe brain's chemical messengers: dopamine, serotonin, GABA and more.In 6 study guides

The nervous systemCentral and peripheral, somatic and autonomic: how it is organized.In 7 study guides

The autonomic nervous system: sympathetic and parasympatheticFight or flight, rest and digest: how the body runs its automatic jobs.In 6 study guides

Hormones and the brain: the hypothalamus and pituitaryHow the hypothalamus and pituitary gland steer the body with hormones.In 6 study guides

The brain and its regions

What each region does, how the two halves differ, what feeds and protects the brain, and how it is studied.

Lobes of the brainThe four lobes of each hemisphere, and what each one does.In 8 study guides

Left brain and right brainWhat split-brain studies really show, and the left-brain myth.In 5 study guides

Language and the brainBroca's and Wernicke's areas, reading and signing, and the types of aphasia.In 5 study guides

Blood supply of the brainThe arteries that feed each area, and what a stroke in each one does.In 3 study guides

Cerebrospinal fluid, the ventricles and the meningesHow the brain's fluid is made and flows, and the layers that wrap it.In 3 study guides

How scientists study the brainMRI, fMRI, EEG and ERPs, PET, lesions, case studies and post-mortems, compared.In 5 study guides

Senses and movement

How signals from the eyes and the skin reach the brain, and how the brain moves the body.

The visual pathway: from the eye to the brainFrom the eye to the visual cortex, and what damage on the way does.In 6 study guides

Touch, pain and temperature: the sensory pathwaysHow touch, pain and temperature travel up the spinal cord to the sensory strip.In 6 study guides

How the brain controls movement: upper and lower motor neuronsFrom motor cortex to muscle, and how to tell upper from lower motor neuron damage.In 4 study guides

Mind and behavior

The brain behind memory, sleep, emotion and stress, drugs, and learning.

How memory worksKinds of memory, how memories are made, and where they live.In 5 study guides

Sleep and the brainThe body clock, the stages of sleep, dreaming and why we sleep.In 3 study guides

Emotion and stress: the amygdala and fight or flightHow the brain makes fear and other feelings, and handles stress.In 4 study guides

How drugs affect the brainHow drugs act on synapses, the reward pathway, and addiction.In 3 study guides

Neuroplasticity: how the brain rewires itselfHow learning, growing up and injury rewire the brain.In 4 study guides