The Brain & Nervous System Quiz — 7 Free Questions

Question 1

What is the name for the class of antidepressant, including fluoxetine, that works by blocking the pump which draws serotonin back into the neuron that released it, so that more of it stays active in the synapse; it is the usual first drug tried for depression and for several anxiety disorders?

Question 2

What is the name for one of the two microscopic signatures of Alzheimer's disease seen down the microscope after death: a twisted bundle of a structural protein, called tau, that has come loose and clumped up inside a neuron, choking it?

Question 3

What is the name for the non-signalling cells of the nervous system, roughly as numerous as the signalling ones, that wrap axons in insulation, feed the neurons, mop up spilled neurotransmitter, fight infection and prune unwanted connections?

Question 4

What is the name for the strong feeling, reported by most people after an amputation, that the missing arm or leg is still there and can be moved, and that often includes cramping or burning pain in it?

Question 5

What is the name for the almond-shaped cluster deep in each temporal lobe that stamps events with emotional weight, above all fear and threat, and sets off the body's alarm response, so that people with rare damage to it on both sides can become strikingly fearless?

Question 6

What is the name for the division of the nervous system that runs the body's automatic housekeeping without conscious effort: heart rate, digestion, breathing rate, the width of the pupils, sweating and sexual arousal?

Question 7

Which neurotransmitter makes skeletal muscle contract where a nerve meets it, and in the brain supports attention and the laying down of memories, so that its severe loss is an early feature of Alzheimer's disease; the arrow poison curare and military nerve agents both act on its system?

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About The Brain & Nervous System

This quiz is about the brain and the rest of the nervous system, on the side of behaviour and the mind rather than gross body anatomy: how nerve cells signal, what the brain's regions do, how the two halves divide the work, what famous cases of brain damage revealed, how the living brain is measured and altered, and the chemistry, sleep states and disorders behind it all. One hundred questions in five packs, each describing a cell, a structure, a term, a case, a method or a disorder and asking you to name it from four choices of the same kind, then explaining it. It is a knowledge quiz.

The first pack is the neuron and how signals travel: the parts of a nerve cell, the myelin sheath, the action and resting potentials, the all-or-none rule, the synapse and the neurotransmitter, reuptake, and the roles of dopamine, serotonin, GABA, glutamate, acetylcholine and the endorphins, plus synaptic strengthening, the glial cells, the blood-brain barrier and the reflex arc.

The second pack is the geography of the brain: the cortex and its four lobes, the movement and sensation strips and the distorted body map, the cerebellum and brainstem and medulla, the thalamus and hypothalamus, the limbic system with the amygdala and hippocampus, the basal ganglia, the corpus callosum, the arousal system and the fluid that cushions the brain.

The third pack is lateralisation, language, plasticity and famous cases: the lopsided hemispheres and crossed control, Broca's and Wernicke's areas and aphasia, the split-brain studies, Phineas Gage and patient H.M., the brain's ability to rewire and to grow new neurons, the phantom limb, neglect, face blindness, the impostor delusion, blindsight, synaptic pruning, Hebb's rule, the resting-state network, the reward pathway and mirror neurons.

The fourth pack is measuring and changing the brain and the wider nervous system: EEG, PET and magnetic stimulation, deep brain stimulation, optogenetics, single-neuron recording, electroconvulsive therapy and the lobotomy, the central and peripheral divisions, the automatic nervous system and its fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest branches, the vagus and enteric nerves, the spinal cord, grey and white matter, the nerve-muscle junction and the ion gradient.

The fifth pack is chemistry, states, disorders and big ideas: the ion pump, drugs that switch receptors on or off, the SSRIs and L-DOPA, the substantia nigra and the dopamine theory of schizophrenia, Alzheimer's and stroke and multiple sclerosis and epilepsy, dream sleep and the body clock and its master nucleus and melatonin, the tangle of Alzheimer's, the cranial nerves, the localisation of function, discredited phrenology, and the wiring diagram called the connectome.

The wrong answers are always other cells, structures, terms, cases, methods or disorders of the same kind. About forty of the hundred questions carry a photograph of a neutral object, a model brain, an electrode cap, a scanner or a microscope, chosen because every option is the same sort of thing and the picture cannot point to any of them. Facts have been checked against standard reference works.