Pineal Gland Anatomy - Consciousness The Human Brain

Lesson - Pineal Gland Consciousness The Human Brain |

In this post is we're going to talk about the pineal gland,
Alright so pineal gland is a really cool little gland it's located with what's called the diencephalon
so what's the diencephalon so a little bit nothing crazy a little bit into a neuroanatomy here the diencephalon is actually consisting of a couple different structures it consists of the thalamus the hypothalamus and what's called the EPI thalamus which consists of the pineal gland and it's also called the habenula and a Bandler commissure but it's kind of deep to what's called this this is your cerebrum right here all of this is your cerebrum it's deep to the cerebral cortex so it's a bunch of gray matter inside deep to the cerebral cortex okay now here I'm zooming in on the pineal gland okay so this right here is our pineal gland so again this right here is the pineal gland just to kind of give us anatomical position here this is the thalamus and this right here is a nuclei present within the hypothalamus an extremely important nucleus extremely important it's called the Supra key asthmatic nucleus.

Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain
Pineal Gland Anatomy Consciousness The Human Brain

Okay this is your midbrain pons medulla and then the part of the spinal cord down here cerebellum this is an important ganglion we're not gonna talk too much about it I'm just gonna mention it we'll get to it in a second though and this is the optic nerve and then this is going to be the eyeball right with on the back part of it the important part which consists of all the photoreceptors like the rods and the cones this is going to be the retina right there right so here's the eyeball this green structure is going to be the retina and then we have a lot of these ganglion cells that are actually bringing this information to the suprachiasmatic nucleus all right pineal gland what is this function its function is to be able to regulate our sleep and wake cycles our diurnal cycles all right and it also plays other roles that we might discuss in a tiny bit of detail alright so here we go how what is the owner they also called the pineal gland a third eye why so you know that the retina or the eye has a direct connection to the pineal gland.

 All right kind of indirectly we can actually say so let's say here we actually have in red let's show this as specifically light okay so this is denoted to say light okay and then we'll have over here and black will describe this as darkness right so darkness okay whenever there's light what it does is it stimulates the action potentials down this axon right and then triggers different types of reactions in the suprachiasmatic nucleus which sends signals down to this structure and then up to the pineal gland okay let's take a look at what's happening then so let's say that we actually have light light is gonna stimulate these action potentials so let's draw that in red here it's gonna stimulate a straw stimulate these action potentials down this actual axon here and then it's gonna release specific type of chemicals onto the super caz Matic nucleus that of glutamate usually and what it's gonna do is it's gonna trigger different types of mechanisms inside of the super caz matic nucleus.

Now the suprachiasmatic nucleus is also referred to as our biological clock so he can regulate a bunch of different activities within our body to regulate our biological clock our sleeping or waking you know different things like that right so what happens he's gonna get this stimulus right and what he's gonna do is he's going to secrete different chemicals which can affect multiple different nuclei we're gonna briefly talk about these they're not important but the paraventricular nucleus will get stamps simit stimulus here he'll come out here down to your ladder a grey column come out here to what's called your superior cervical ganglion and then what happens is your superior cervical ganglion this is where it's important the superior cervical ganglion has direct connections to the pineal gland so now I'm going to show this in blue here watch what happens this guy's gonna release specific type of chemicals so what do we say here what was the most important thing light stimulates these action potentials stimulates this super kasim attitude nucleus to do different types of changes within our biological rhythm which stimulates the paraventricular nucleus the paraventricular nucleus does what he sends these signals down right he'll send these signals all the way down through the lateral gray hall a column of our spinal cord and from the lateral grade column of our spinal cord the axons will go out to the superior cervical ganglion and then from the superior cervical ganglion on these post ganglionic motor neurons will come directly to the pineal gland now what happens here this superior cervical ganglion is gonna see creates some really important chemicals and this important chemical is called neuro epinephrine.

Okay that's interesting right on the actual pineal gland the ID are these pine Neela sites right because the pineal gland is made up of pineal sites it has receptors for the norepinephrine what the norepinephrine does is it binds on to this adrenergic receptor right here so it binds on to this adrenergic receptor what does it do it triggers a bunch of mechanisms inside of this pineal gland what is the overall purpose what it does is you know there's what's called tryptophan so you have tryptophan here and then tryptophan actually can eventually get converted into what's called another molecule which we call five hydroxy tryptamine and then 5-hydroxytryptamine can get converted into what's called serotonin and then serotonin can eventually get converted into what's called melatonin what is norepinephrine doing it's stimulating these intracellular pathways to
 stimulate this conversion here to stimulate this conversion here to stimulate this conversion here and what's the overall process then we're stimulating the synthesis of melatonin right now here's what we need to get something extremely straight here when this is occurring in light this mechanism isn't completely known - like to the detailed pointer when it's in light this pathway that we just talked about here right so coming from the superior cervical ganglion here let's follow this up these impulses coming from the superior of a ganglion and releasing norepinephrine the pineal gland they're lower so this release here is lower during light.

Okay then in darkness what happens darkness everybody darkness right it inhibits this actual impulses right guys from going to the suprachiasmatic nucleus so then it changes different types of rhythms and different types of biological processes that are occurring in the super cosmetic nucleus right that then sends signals to the paraventricular nucleus to the superior cervical ganglion and from the superior cervical ganglion it goes to the pineal gland what's the difference here when it releases the norepinephrine so it's lower during the night guess what you make higher norepinephrine during darkness now here's what's important you have to regulate a balance because obviously if you don't make enough of what if you don't make enough of this norepinephrine you're not gonna make enough melatonin and if you make too much of this this can cause problems too right because you have to find a happy balance a happy medium with this norepinephrine right and that's the whole purpose here that's what this super cosmetic nucleus is doing now what is this melatonin go and do because whenever this is stimulating this pathway is actually going to be this light pathway going super cosmetic nucleus paraventricular nucleus Lotterer grey column superior cervical ganglion to the pineal gland it's when it's occurring in light watch this.

I'm going to show this in red there's very little melatonin so very very little melatonin being secreted during the daytime right during the light but when it's in this darkness all right and it goes to a super caz matic nucleus the suprachiasmatic nucleus receives these signals sends it down to the paraventricular nucleus to the superior cervical ganglion to the pineal gland and it releases more norepinephrine and then therefore releases more melatonin so in darkness look what happens to the melatonin levels you have higher melatonin levels when there's higher melatonin levels what does it do to the suprachiasmatic nucleus it acts through different types of receptors and stimulates the super cosmetic nucleus to reset the biological clock so what is it going to do it's gonna reset the biological clock so in summation what can we say is the function of the pineal gland we can say the function of the pineal gland is to do what to see-cret melatonin and what does that melatonin do it regulates our sleep and wake cycle via V so it regulates what's called our diurnal cycle our sleep and wake cycle via who the Supra keye asthmatic nucleus which is located in the hypothalamus that's the whole purpose here and what's stimulating this process of the pineal gland to make melatonin this is stimulated by darkness okay so darkness is one of the primary stimuli of the pineal gland right via all this interests a are all these actual other signals right but again biggest overall concept overall concept to get out of this is that darkness works through different mechanisms to stimulate the pineal gland to release melatonin and that melatonin regulates your sleep and wake cycles by acting on the suprachiasmatic nucleus and what does the suprachiasmatic nucleus do he resets our biological clock through various complex mechanisms to help induce the actual drowsiness and trying to get your you're getting sleepy right to be able to induce the sleeping process right so that's the purpose of the pineal gland whereas in light it inhibits the pineal gland it releases so again in light what does it do and inhibits the pineal gland releases less melatonin less melatonin as actually not going it's going to affect the regulation of the diurnal cycle via the super cosmetic nucleus by how it's going to make you awake so with this you would actually be awake versus what the darkness you would actually have sleep your sleepiness right so sleepiness so this is how it does that is that the pineal gland has in direct input from the actual visual pathway and from that input it can help to regulate our actual sleep and wake cycles via activating or inhibiting the suprachiasmatic nucleus who will then control that by
 controlling our wakefulness or our sleep fulness alright Orion engineers I hope this made sense all right take it easy no Jenner's.