Yvonne's neuropsychology pictures


Studying neuropsychology wouldn't be as much fun as it is without colourful pictures to illustrate the text.
Only the three figures with textboxes were made by me from scratch, the other ones were found elsewhere, but I changed them all. Most of the times I brightened up the colours, sometimes I added or deleted labels. I'm especially fond of my "learning pictures", with and without labels.
All pictures are thumbnails, and will open up to bigger pictures when you click on them, some of them still rather small though. I intend to regularly update this page with more new pictures.
If you find that I've used a picture that originally was made by you, and you don't want it to be on this site, please contact me, and I'll remove it immediately.

Please feel free to send me a mail!

Below are four pictures that can be used for learning the names of the different parts of the cortex of the brain. They show a lateral view of the gyri of the cortex, a lateral view of the sulci (fissures), a medial view of the gyri and a medial view of the sulci, respectively.
A lateral view of the gyri of the cortex, with and without labels
A lateral view of the sulci of the cortex, with and without labels
A medial view of the gyri of the cortex, with and without labels
A medial view of the sulci of the cortex, with and without labels

Four more learning pictures
Different parts of the eye
Different neurons and their parts
A sagittal section of the brain
Some structures that are supposed to be part of the limbic system
The different parts of the eye
Sensory, motor and interneuron
Sagittal section of the brain, with and without names
Limbic system

Other neuropsych pictures
all parts of the medial occipital lobes This is an absolutely unique picture with all the different parts of the medial occipital gyrus, including most parts of the medial temporal gyrus. parietal cortex: postcentral gyrus, superior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus This is a picture with the four most important parts of the parietal gyrus (and the superior temporal sulcus as a little bonus). 
I couldn't find any good pictures of the red nucleus and the substantia nigra in the midbrain, so I "painted" these structures myself. The different parts of the cingulate cortex.
The five areas of the cortex that are involved in the body motor system. When I first saw this picture, it was too complicated. But I found out there are two main basal ganglia circuits, one that I painted blue and one I painted green. Blue arrows are excitatory and red arrows are inhibitory.
Neurons and the capillary blood flow The red dots are oxyhemoglobin, the black ones are deoxyhemoglobin (hemoglobin with and without oxygen). The picture illustrates that the amount of oxyhemoglobin increases when neurons are active. A neuron and its different parts The different parts of a neuron.
Refractory periods of a neuron during an action potential

The absloute and relative refractory period of a neuron during an action potential.

To the left: membrane potential (mV).
To the right: relative membrane permeability (times more permeable than resting N+ permeability)
Below: time (m/s)

The parts of the thalamus and its connections with the brainThe different brain areas to which the thalamus is connected These two pictures belong together. The picture above shows the thalamus, its different nuclei and the parts of the brain to which they are connected. The picture below shows the cortex of the brain, and the abbreviations for the parts of the thalamus they are connected to. I tried to give the brain areas the same colour as their connected thalamus areas have.

This is an extremely simplified image of the differences between the left and the right brain. Yes, there seem to be clear differences between the left and the right brain, but we also use our right brain for language functions, and musicians also use their left brain when they're performing, so don't take the picture too seriously.
But I like this picture so much that I couldn't resist putting it here.		 cross section of the spinal cord A cross section of the spinal cord, with the dorsal and ventral roots. White matter is white; grey matter is grey - which it wasn't in the original picture.
Wernicke-Geschwind model of language This is the traditional Wernicke-Geschwind model of language. It is obsolete though. The brain uses many more parts for hearing, speaking and reading, and Broca's area doesn't store motor programs for speaking words. The flow from the sensory cortex to the hippocampus and back "Input from all sensory cortexes flows to the perirhinal and parahippocampal cortexes, from where it continues to the entorhinal cortex, and proceeds to the hippocampus. After feedback from the hippocampus it then returns the same way back to the sensory cortexes."
Strangely enough, I find this sentence much easier to understand when I also see this picture of it.
The seven stages of neurotransmission The seven stages of neurotransmission! The reticular activation system The reticular activation system
tectum and tegmentum of the midbrain
 The tectum and the tegmentum of the midbrain. Don't bother with all the other arrows pointing to unnamed parts.
Back home!