Brain perceptual and motor activity can increase and decrease. Consciousness requires high activity level {arousal}|. When awake, people can affect their arousal level.
levels
Arousal levels are comatose, stupor, consciousness, and special awareness. Coma, anesthesia, and deep sleep have low arousal. Persistent vegetative state, vegetative state, minimally conscious state, stupor or drowsiness, and awakeness have high arousal.
behavior
Low arousal causes omissions during behavior. High arousal causes overcorrection and other commission errors.
cognition
Increased arousal improves long-term memory but not short-term memory. Perhaps, arousal level relates to decision-making rate.
biology
Arousal level depends on brainstem activity. Norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin are slow-acting neuromodulators, come from brainstem, and affect arousal and sleep. Mesencephalic reticular formation, thalamic intralaminar nuclei, and thalamic reticular nuclei {arousal system} stimulate thalamus and cortex to cause waking and sleep states. Cortico-striatopallidal-thalamocortical loops underlie arousal. To block arousal requires damage to both reticular formation and intralaminar nuclei. As little as one gram of tissue damage can block consciousness. People can recover from small lesions.
Arousal level depends on corpus-callosum activity. People with no cortex can sleep and awake. Frontal lobe activity relates to arousal. Locus coeruleus regulates arousal.
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Date Modified: 2022.0224