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Methods of Neuroscience > Basic Terms and Concepts > Flashcards

Basic Terms and Concepts Flashcards

1
Q

Electroencephalography

A

measures synchronized synaptic activity in populations of cortical neurons

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2
Q

Event-related potential

A

extraction of response evoked by an external event from EEG data in order to examine the way that tasks modulate brain activity

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3
Q

Magnetencephalography

A

measures magnetic field changes produced by brain activity

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4
Q

Magnetic Resonance imaging

A

creates images of soft tissues in body through magnetic field reoreintation following radiofrequency pulse of protons

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5
Q

Computerised tomography

A

creates images of amount of x-ray absorbed by different tissue types

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6
Q

Positron Emission Topography

A

radiolabelled pharmacological agents are used to trace certain specific pathways of neural activity

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7
Q

Functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy

A

measures changes in electrochemical activity and blood levels through their effect on optical properties

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8
Q

Lesion studies

A

makes use of already-existing lesions to examine their effect on behaviour

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9
Q

Transcranial magnetic stimulation

A

non-invasive focal stimulation of the brain to create temporary lesions

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10
Q

Classic neuropsychology (lesion studies)

A

inference of function of brain regions by examining impairment of abilities of patients with lesions in that area

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11
Q

Cognitive neuropsychology (lesion studies)

A

examination of impairment of abilities to infer the building blocks of cognition

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12
Q

Donder’s subtraction method

A
  • A, B, C type tasks
  • based on isolation of specific cognitive processes –> subtraction of one from another to determine length of cognitive process
  • assumes seriality and pure insertion
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13
Q

Additive factor method

A
  • aimed at discovering the processing stages
  • information is processed in successive stages : input –> transformation –> output
  • theory: if experimental manipulation increases RT, the duration of 1+ processing stages is increased but output quality is not affected
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14
Q

Speed-accuracy tradeoff

A
  • instructions: be fast and accurate
  • no proof that RTs produced are actually as fast as pp can go with minimum errors
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15
Q

Outliers

A
  • lapses of attention
  • premature responses
  • natural skew
  • slower mean RT
  • skew towards caution
  • bad day

-> hard to discriminate naturally slow RTs from outliers

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16
Q

Diffusion model of decision making

A
  • neutral point: no information
  • information builds in either direction
  • at a certain point, threshold is reached –> response is made
  • more often correct than incorrect
  • smaller boundaries: more focus on speed, but less accuracy
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17
Q

Signal detection theory

A
  • stimulus vs. no stimulus
  • stimulus close to perceptive threshold
  • Hit: yes when tone is present
  • miss: no response when tone is present
  • false alarm: response when tone is not present
  • correct rejection: no when tone is not present
    –> depends on sensitivity (d’)
18
Q

ROC curve

A

measures % of hits against % of false alarms
- higher d’ changes shape of curve
–> differences are caused by differences in response criteria

19
Q

Sensitivity d’

A

likelihood of responding to a stimulus
- determined by comparing experimentally determined curves to standard ones
- high sensitivity = large distance between N and S+N curve -> steeper ROC curve
- d’ = 0: full overlap = guessing
- d’<0: large overlap = bad sensitivity
- d’>0: small overlap = good sensitivity

20
Q

Dipole

A
  • extracellular region of pos charge separated from region of neg. charge
  • source: pos. charge
  • sink: neg. charge
  • radial: perpendicular
  • tangential: parallel
21
Q

Volume conduction

A
  • pools of ions repel nearby ions of same charge -> creates wave-like effect that travels through extracellular space
  • brain is not homogenous -> signal hits body tissue this may interpede flow or not
  • dura layers: skull layers and scalp are very bad conductors
  • electrode gel transmits signal
    bigger dipole = stronger wave that travels further
22
Q

Capacitator

A
  • 2 pools of charges are separated by insulating layer
  • charge difference builds up across insulating layers (anions push against one side, cations accumulate on other side)
  • amount of charge building up depends on properties of layer, size of charge pool, and distance
  • stacks of capacitors: volumes
23
Q

Event-related potentials

A
  • extraction of response evoked by external event from EEG data in order to examine how tasks modulate brain activity

Components
- exogenous sensory components: triggered by stimulus
- endogenous sensory components: task-dependent neural processes
- motor : accompany preparation and execution of motor responses

24
Q

inverse problem

A

difficulty of identifying which brain currents are responsible for which signals (EEG and MEG)

25
Q

Event-related fields

A

average of recorded MEG signals –> allows more accurate estimation of source localisation than ERPs because of minimal distortion

26
Q

Spectral analysis

A

any oscillatory activity can be characterised as sum of different sinusoidal waves with distinct frequencies and amplitudes
- Fast Fourier Transformation: estimation of contribution of various frequencies on measured EEG signal

27
Q

Structural imaging

A
  • different types of tissue have different rates of absorption
  • used to construct detailed maps of brain structure
28
Q

Functional imaging

A
  • based on assumption that neural activity produces local physiological changes in that region of the brain -> used to produce dynamic maps of moment-to-moment brain activity during cognitive tasks
29
Q

Stereotactic normalisation

A
  • each brain is mapped onto a standard reference brain to correct for differences in brain size and shape –> Talairach coordinates
30
Q

Smoothing

A
  • enhances signal-to-noise ratio
  • facilitates detection of common activity across individuals
  • spreads raw activation of voxel to its neighbours
  • SNR: increases size of active regions –> voxels mutually reinforce each other: by turning signal into cluster activity and single voxels into noise

–> helps with averaging: greater area = greater chance of finding common regions of activity

31
Q

Correction for head movement

A
  • small movements in scanner produce spurious results which have ot be eliminated
32
Q

Cognitive subtraction

A
  • comparison of brain activity in a task which uses cognitive component X vs. baseline task without X
    = inference which region is specialised
  • meaningful interpretation only occurs relative to baseline
  • depends on assumption that 2 tasks can be found which differ only in small number of cognitive processes
33
Q

Factorial design

A
  • set of tasks with common component –> looking for shared region across different subtractions rather than in single subtraction
  • baseline task is required
34
Q

Parametric design

A
  • variable of interest is treated as continuous instead of categorical
  • measures association between brain activity and variable of interest
  • no baseline needed
  • allows separation of areas from other brain regions involved in maintenance / basis for cognitive processes
35
Q

Functional integration

A

brain regions communicate with each other: models how activity in different regions is interdependent –> used to infer effective functional connectivity between regions while performing a certain task

36
Q

Functional specialisation

A
  • implication that given region responds to limited range of stimuli that distinguishes it from neighbouring regions

vs. localisation:
- doesn’t assume other regions don’t also respond to same stimulus
- doesn’t assume region is solely responsible for task performance

37
Q

Brain computer interface

A

interface which connects brain to computer –> allows control over external devices without relying on motor input

38
Q

Dissociation of function

A

performance on one task is impaired while performance on anohter isn’t –> functions and processes are dissociable and separable
- logic: separate neural resources may be indicated by difficulty in one demain rel. to absence of difficulty in another domain

39
Q

Single dissociation

A
  • non-reciprocal dissociation: impairment on one task but not the other

possible reasons:
- hierarchical relationship: one function is necessary for the other
- task-resource artifact: Task A and B use same resources but A requires it more than B –> Task A suffers more from damage
- Task-demand artifact: single dissociation occurs because patient performs suboptimally on one task due to instructions becoming unclear, e.g., due to impairment

40
Q

Double dissociation

A

reciprocal dissociation of function: impairment on one task but not the other and vice versa
- relatively independent functions: each lesion gives insight into involvement in one function but not the other

Methods of Neuroscience (10 decks)

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