1.2 Biopsychology (The Brain)

Question 1

What is localisation of function?

Answer 1

The theory that different areas of the brain are responsible for specific behaviours, processes or activities

Question 2

What does localisation suggest in regard to injury?

Answer 2

If a certain area of the brain becomes damaged through illness or injury, the function associated with that area will also be affected

Question 3

What is the brain divided into?

Answer 3

• Right hemisphere
• Left hemisphere

Question 4

What are the 6 areas in the brain?

Answer 4

• Motor area
• Somatosensory area
• Visual area
• Auditory area
• Broca’s area
• Wernicke’s area

Question 5

What 4 centers are the hemispheres subdivided into?

Answer 5

• Frontal lobe
• Parietal lobe
• Occipital lobe
• Temporal lobe

Question 6

What is the motor area and where is it located and what does damage to the area lead to?

Answer 6

• In the back of the frontal lobe
• Controls voluntary movement in the opposite side of the body
• Damage to this area may result in a loss of control over fine movements

Question 7

What is the somatosensory area and where is it located and what does damage to the area lead to?

Answer 7

• At the front of both parietal lobes
• Where sensory information e.g heat from the skin is represented
• Damage to this area may result in a loss of tactile perception

Question 8

What is the visual area and where is it located and what does damage to the area lead to?

Answer 8

• Located in the occipital lobe
• Receives and processes visual information (sends information from right visual field to left visual cortex)
• Damage to this area can produce blindness in the visual field

Question 9

What is the auditory area and where is it located and what does damage to the area lead to?

Answer 9

• Located in the temporal lobes
• Analyses speech-based information
• Damage to this area may produce partial hearing loss

Question 10

What is Wernicke’s area and where is it located and what does damage to the area lead to?

Answer 10

• Located in the left temporal lobe
• Responsible for language comprehension
• Damage to area causes Wernicke’s aphasia (speech production of nonsense words)

Question 11

What is Broca’s area and where is it located and what does damage to the area lead to?

Answer 11

• Located in the left frontal lobe
• Responsible for speech production
• Damage to area causes Broca’s aphasia (characterised by slow, laborious speech)

Question 12

What does lateralisation suggest?

Answer 12

The two halves of the brain are functionally different, certain mental processes and behaviours mainly controlled by one hemisphere rather than the other

Question 13

AO3 for localisation of the brain

Answer 13

1. Evidence from neurosurgery: different areas of brain linked to mental disorders, neurosurgery targets areas of the brain e.g cingulotonomy (isolating a region called cingulate gyrus which is involved in OCD), Dougherty et al reported 44 people with OCD who underwent a cingulotonomy, after 32 weeks 30% had a successful response and 14% had a a partial response, behaviours associated with specific mental disorders can be localised

2. Evidence from brain scans: support localisation, Peterson et al (1988) used brain to demonstrate how Wernickes area active for listening task and how Broca’s active for reading task, LTM studies by Buckner and Peterson (1996) revealed semantic and episodic memories reside in different areas of prefrontal cortex, confirm localised areas for everyday behaviours, objective methods provided scientific evidence

3. Language localisation questioned: language may not just be localised to Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, advances in brain imaging techniques e.g fMRIs, neural processes studied with more clarity, language function distributed holistically, have been identified across the cortex including right hemisphere, not confined to key areas which contradicts localisation theory

Question 14

What in contralateral wiring?

Answer 14

How each side of the brain controls the opposing side of the body

Question 15

What is split-brain research?

Answer 15

Involves severing the connection between the right and left hemisphere, to analyse how the hemispheres function when they cant communicate with each other

Question 16

Describe Perry’s split-brain research

Answer 16

• 11 people who had split-brain operation studied with an image projected to RVF and a same/different image projected to LVF
• The information could not be conveyed from one hemisphere to another in a split-brain patient
• When object shown to RVF, the participant could describe what was seen but saw nothing when shown to LVF
• Participants could not give verbal labels to objects projected to LVF, but could select a matching object using their left hand
• Supports the view that LH is verbal and RH is silent but emotional

Question 17

AO3 for hemispheric lateralisation

Answer 17

1. Lateralisation in the connected brain: even though connected the brains process differently, Fink et al (1996) used PET scans to identify what areas active during visual task, participants with connected brain attended to global elements of an image and RH was more active, when asked to focus on finer detail then LH was dominated, hemispheric lateralisation is feature of the connected brain as well as the split-brain

2. One brain: LH as analyser and RH as synthesiser may be wrong, there may have different functions but there is no dominant side, Nielsen et al (2013) analysed brain scans of 1000 people and found people use different hemispheres for different tasks, but no evidence of a dominant side

Question 18

AO3 for split-brain research

Answer 18

1. Research support: Luck et al (1989) showed that split-brain participants performed better than connected controls on certain tasks e.g faster at identifying odd one out in array of similar objects, KIngstone et al (1995) in normal brain LH’s cognitive strategies are diminished by the inferior RH, supports Sperry’s findings that left and right brain are distinct

2. Generalisation issues: casual relationships hard to establish, in Sperry’s study split-brain participants compared to neurotypical control group, one issue was none of the participants in the control had epilepsy, confounding variable, any differences observed may have been due to epilepsy rather than split-brain, some of the unique features of the split-brain may have been due to epilepsy

3. Ethics: split-brain operation not performed in purpose of research, no harm to participants, all procedures explained so full informed consent HOWEVER trauma of operation may mean participants did not fully understand implications of their agreement, became subject to repeated testing over time, may have caused stress

Question 19

What is plasticity?

Answer 19

The brains tendency to change and adapt as a result of experience and new learning

Question 20

What is functional recovery?

Answer 20

The brains ability to redistribute or transfer functions usually performed by damaged areas to other undamaged areas

Question 21

What is synaptic prunning and what does it enable?

Answer 21

• When rarely-used connections are deleted and frequently used connections are strengthened
• Enables life-long plasticity where new neural connections are formed in response to new demands in the brain

Question 22

Describe Maguire el al (2000) research and findings into plasticity

Answer 22

• Studied the brain of London taxi drivers and found more volume of grey matter in hippocampus than matched control group
• Drivers must take a test which assesses recall of streets and routes
• Found that this learning experience alters the structure of taxi drivers brains
• Found the longer the taxi drivers had the job, the more pronounced the structural difference

Question 23

What is the role of grey matter?

Answer 23

Associated with the development of spatial and navigational skills

Question 24

Describe what happens to the brain during functional recovery

Answer 24

• The brain is able to rewire and reorganise by forming new synaptic connections close to area of damage
• Secondary neural pathways that not typically used for certain functions are activated

Question 25

What are the 3 structural changes in the brain during functional recovery?

Answer 25

- Axonal sprouting: the growth of new nerve endings which connect with undamaged nerve cells
- Denervation supersensitivity: axons that do a similar job are aroused to compensate with the lost ones
- Recruitment of homologous (similar) areas: on the opposite side of the brain specific tasks can still be performed

Question 26

AO3 for plasticity

Answer 26

1. Negative plasticity: may have negative behavioural consequences, Medina et al (2007) evidence shows brains adaption to prolonged drug use leads to poorer cognitive functioning and dementia, 60-80% amputees experience phantom limb syndrome, unpleasant and painful sensations due to cortical reorganisation in somatosensory cortex, brains ability to adapt to damage not always beneficial

2. Age and plasticity: may be life-long ability, Bezzola et al (2012) demonstarted how 40 hours of golf training produced changes in neural representation in movement in participants aged 40-60, using fMRI observed increased motor activity in golfers compared to control, suggests more efficient neural representations after training, plasticity can continue throughout life span

Question 27

AO3 for functional recovery

Answer 27

1. Real-world application: understanding processes involved in plasticity led to neurorehabilitation, understanding possibility of axonal growth encourages new therapies e.g constraint induced movement therapy used with stroke patients where they repeatedly practice with affected part of their body while unaffected part is restrained, research into recovery is useful as helps medical professionals know when intervention needed

2. Cognitive reserve: level of education may influence recovery rates, Schneider et al (2014) revealed that more time that people with brain injuries spent in education, the greater their chances of a disability free recovery, 40% of those with DFR had more than 16 years education compared to 10% with less than 12 years education, implies people with injury who have insufficient DFR less likely to achieve full recovery

Question 28

What are the 4 ways of studying the brain?

Answer 28

• fMRI
• EEG
• ERP
• Post-mortem examinations

Question 29

What are EEGs?

Answer 29

A method that measures electrical activity within the brain via electrodes that are fixed to the scalp using a skull cap

Question 30

What are fMRIs?

Answer 30

A method that detects the changes in both blood oxygenation and flow as a result of neural activity in specific parts of the brain

Question 31

What are ERPs?

Answer 31

A method that isolates the electrophysiological response of the brain to specifc sensory, cognitive or motor events from EGG data

Question 32

What are post-mortem examinations?

Answer 32

A technique involving the analysis of a persons brain following their death

Question 33

What is haemodynamic response?

Answer 33

When a brain area is more active it consumes more oxygen, and to meet this demand blood flow is directed to the active area

Question 34

What are activation maps?

Answer 34

Three-dimensional images showing which parts of the brain are involved in particular mental processes

Question 35

Why are EEGs useful?

Answer 35

May indicate neurological abnormalities such as epilepsy, tumors or sleep disorders

Question 36

What is strength and limitation of fMRIs?

Answer 36

- Does not rely on radiation: if administered correctly it is risk-free, non-invasive and straightforward to use
- Expensive: compared to other techniques

Question 37

What is a strength and limitation of EEGs?

Answer 37

- Real world application: useful in studying stages of sleep and diagnosing epilepsy, can be easily detected on the screen
- Generalised nature: EEG signal not useful at pinpointing exact source of neural activity, does not allow researchers to distinguish between activities operating in different locations

Question 38

What is a strength and limitation of ERPs?

Answer 38

- Real-world value: more specificity in measurements than EEGs, frequently used to measure cognitive functions and deficits
- Methodology: lack of standardisation in methodology between different studies, difficult to confirm findings, background noise and extraneous material must be completely eliminated

Question 39

What is a strength and limitation of post-mortem examinations?

Answer 39

- Real-world value: vital in providing foundation for early understanding of key brain processes, Wernicke and Broca both relied on these studies, establishing links between brain activity decades before possibility of neuroimaging
- Causation: observed damage may not be linked to deficits under review but rather unrelated trauma or decay

Question 40

Describe the spatial and temporal resolution for fMRIs

Answer 40

- High spatial resolution: depicts detail by the millimetre, clear picture of how brain activity is localised
- Poor temporal resolution: 5-second time lag behind the image, may not truly represent moment-to-moment brain activity

Question 41

Describe the temporal resolution for EEGs

Answer 41

- High temporal resolution: accurately detect brain activity at a single millisecond

Question 42

Describe the temporal resolution of ERPs

Answer 42

- High temporal resolution: so frequently used to measure cognitive functions and deficits

Question 43

What is the difference between spatial and temporal resolution?

Answer 43

- Temporal: the accuracy of a scanner in relation to time
- Spatial: the smallest feature that the scanner can detect