5: Neurobehavioural Variables

Question 1

Give 2 disease variables.

Answer 1

Diffuse effects of focal brain injuries, and anatomical and functional plasticity.

Question 2

What can cause generalised deficits following brain injury?

Answer 2

Swelling and brain compression.

Question 3

Give 4 cognitive impairments experienced in focal brain disease.

Answer 3

Memory, vigilance, EF, and intelligence/reasoning.

Question 4

Give 2 emotional impairments experienced in focal brain disease.

Answer 4

Flattening and lability.

Question 5

Define diachisis.

Answer 5

Function loss in a brain area that is anatomically intact due to loss of input from a damaged brain area.

Question 6

In Parkinson’s disease, what areas are effected by the disease in the substantia nigra?

Answer 6

Basal ganglia, thalamus, and neocortex.

Question 7

Define disconnection.

Answer 7

Function loss in a brain network due to a disorder of the pathways (white matter) between brain areas.

Question 8

How do split brain patients show disconnection?

Answer 8

When an object word is presented in each visual field, and patients are asked to pick up an object on one side, they tend to read aloud the word on the opposite side to the one they pick up.

Question 9

Define plasticity.

Answer 9

Reorganisation of the brain functional modules, so that healthy tissue takes over some function of a lesioned area.

Question 10

What evidence from patients with epilepsy supports functional plasticity?

Answer 10

No loss of language after a left hemispherectomy.

Question 11

What impact does cognitive reserve have on Alzheimers diagnoses?

Answer 11

They happen a lot later.

Question 12

What is cognitive reserve?

Answer 12

Brain reserve, efficiency, and flexibility.

Question 13

What 2 things improve cognitive reserve?

Answer 13

Completing an education and engaging in hobbies and social activities.

Question 14

What is associated with good cognitive reserve?

Answer 14

More successful aging, decreased risk of dementia, and reduced clinical changes in traumatic brain injuries, Parkinson’s, MS, and HIV-related dementia.

Question 15

What do studies show about training cognitive reserve in the elderly?

Answer 15

Trained domains improve, but transference of this to other domains is rare.

Question 16

Describe the “Information” subtest of verbal comprehension.

Answer 16

General knowledge questions.

Question 17

Describe the “Vocabulary” subtest of verbal comprehension.

Answer 17

Asked the meaning of words that get progressively more obscure.

Question 18

Describe the “Similarities” subtest of verbal comprehension.

Answer 18

Asked to explain the relationship between word pairs that get progressively more abstract.

Question 19

Describe the “Block Design” subtest of perceptual reasoning.

Answer 19

Shown a pattern and asked to recreate it using 1, 2, 4, or 9 blocks, depending on the difficulty level.

Question 20

Describe the “Matrix Reasoning” subtest of perceptual reasoning.

Answer 20

Asked to choose the image that fits best with a sample.

Question 21

Describe the “Visual Puzzles” subtest of perceptual reasoning.

Answer 21

Pick out which 3 of 6 pieces are required to make an image shown above.

Question 22

Describe the “Digit-span” subtest of working memory.

Answer 22

Asked to repeat a list of numbers forward span of backward span.

Question 23

Describe the “Arithmetic” subtest of working memory.

Answer 23

Mental maths questions varying in difficulty.

Question 24

Describe the “Symbol Search” subtest of processing speed.

Answer 24

Asked to find a target in a noisy image.

Question 25

Describe the “Coding” subtest of processing speed.

Answer 25

Use a symbol key to fill in a grid.

Question 26

What evidence did a study on biological and adopted siblings show about environmental influences on intelligence?

Answer 26

For every point of increased education in adopted parents, there was a 2 point IQ increase in children.

Question 27

What is the most likely reason depressed people perform worse on memory tasks?

Answer 27

Structural changes in their brain, such as reduction in hippocampus volume.

Question 28

Vaguely, where are the neural correlated of general intelligence?

Answer 28

The left-hemisphere.

Question 29

Give 2 key things that help differentiate between dementia and depression in the elderly.

Answer 29

Somatic manifestations in depression and the patients’ insight into the memory problems.