Neuroanatomy

Well, school's in session again, and, true to form, I'm stressed out. Right now we're studying the brain, spinal chord, and nerves. Sounds neat- fascinating even, right? Learning neuro anatomy is roughly like trying to memorize the paths of spaghetti in a pot, using only cross-sections. You can have a saggital (midline dividing left from right) set of planes, or coronal (front/back), or transverse (top/bottom). Using these, you're supposed to be able to piece together how information travels from the cerebral cortex which is the upper half of teh brain concerned mainly with higher functions, to a peripheral nerve innervating a skeletal muscle of the arm, say. But, in the spaghetti in pot number 1 also spills out onto the stove, and into different pots too! We also have to learn how Pots 2 and 3 (the cerebellum and basal ganglia) influence the information flowing in the spaghetti in pot 1. To complicate things even futher, the brain is bilaterally symmetric, and some tracts cross from left to right, and some don't. Some inputs cross, and others don't. Using 4 different texts, I am slowly piecing things together.

This year is already more clinically oriented. We're learning how to do a screening neurological exam in ACS2, which is at least interesting. Perhaps when I can write diplomatically enough, I will describe what happened in my group during the practice exams.
-spiff.