Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience

Question 1

Neuroscientist?
Neuropsychologist?
Biopsychologist?

Answer 1

• A person that studies /researches aspects of the nervous system and the brain.
• Multifaceted

Question 2

Developmental neuroscience

Answer 2

describes how the brain forms, grows, and changes.

Question 3

Cognitive neuroscience

Answer 3

is about how the brain creates and controls thought, language, problem-solving, and memory.

Question 4

Molecular and cellular neuroscience

Answer 4

explores the genes, proteins, and other molecules that guide how neurons function.

Question 5

Neurogenetics

Answer 5

focuses on inherited changes to neurons, including studies of certain genetic diseases, such as Huntington’s disease and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Question 6

Behavioral neuroscience

Answer 6

examines the brain areas and processes underlying how animals and humans act.

Question 7

Clinical neuroscience

Answer 7

explores how to treat and
prevent neurological disorders and how to rehabilitate
patients whose nervous system has been injured

Question 8

Neurophysiology

Answer 8

describes the study of the
nervous system itself and how it functions.

Question 9

Sensory neuroscience

Answer 9

examines features of the body’s sensory systems and how the nervous system interprets and processes sensory information.

Question 10

First writings about brains: Ancient Egyptian Writings…

Answer 10

• 1600- 1700 BCE
• Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus
• 8 references to the brain - the first known
  descriptions of the cranial structures, the meninges, the external surface of the brain, the cerebrospinal fluid, and the intracranial pulsations

Question 11

First writings about brains: Ancient Greece…

Answer 11

• 4th, 5th & 6th century BCE

Alcmaeon of Croton
- the brain was the seat of sensation and thought, governing action and faculty

Hippocrates
- believed the brain to be the seat of intelligence

Aristotle
- The heart was the seat of intelligence and the brain simply a cooling system.

Question 12

writings about brains: Middle Ages…

Answer 12

• ~1000 CE (Al-Zahrawi & Avicenna)
• Islamic medical writings discuss a wide array of topics, including brain/nervous system, forming a
  medical encyclopedia.

13th & 14th century
- first European textbooks with brain
references

Question 13

Renaissance: Vesalius (3)

Answer 13

• conducted dissections on human cadavers,
  noting brain and nervous system anatomy (e.g. corpus
  callosum
• CNS center of mind, not heart
• Nerves not hollow and originate from brain, not heart

Question 14

Renaissance: Swammerdam (2)

Answer 14

conducted research with muscle tissue, debunking “balloonist theory” (frog muscle in syringe expt)

Balloonist theory was a theory in early neuroscience that attempted to explain muscle movement by asserting that muscles contract by inflating with air or fluid.

Question 15

Renaissance: Descartes

Answer 15

linked physiology to mind with dualism (i.e.
pineal gland was the link)

Question 16

Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860)

Answer 16

• American railroad construction foreman
• explosion where tamping rod destroyed much of his left frontal lobe
• Controversy
• “Gage no longer Gage”?
• lived for 12 years after incident
• worked various jobs, with
  some success

Question 17

CTE – Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy

Answer 17

describe brain degeneration likely caused by repeated head traumas

Question 18

Luigi Galvani: Modern Times (Late 18th through 19th
Century)…

Answer 18

Luigi Galvani - electricity role (electrophysiology)

• Legallois functional localization of respiratory center in medulla oblongata (inferior and anterior
  aspect of brainstem)

Question 19

Bell & Magendie: Modern Times (Late 18th through 19th Century)…

Answer 19

Bell & Magendie
- dorsal/ventral nerve function

(Bell–Magendie law)
- the ventral spinal roots transmit motor impulses and the posterior roots sensory impulses,

• Broca’s and Wernicke’s work

Question 20

Camillo Golgi: Modern Times (Late 18th through 19th Century)…

Answer 20

impregnate aldehyde fixed nervous
system tissue with potassium dichromate
and silver nitrate = silver chromate

Turns neurons black. Make them opaque

Question 21

Santiago Ramón y Cajal: Modern Times (Late 18th through 19th Century)…

Answer 21

• received 1906 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Golgi
• their work (along with others) led to the
  “neuron doctrine”
• beginnings of chemical receptor theory

Question 22

Brodmann’s cytoarchitecture: Modern Times (Late 18th through 19th Century)…

Answer 22

(cytoarchitectonic)
(52 distinct areas)

Question 23

Testing for language lateralisation (2)

Answer 23

Dichotic listening task
Sodium amytal test

Question 24

Dichotic listening task

Answer 24

requires the subject to shadow, or repeat aloud, a message presented to one ear while ignoring a message presented to the other ear.

Question 25

Sodium amytal test

Answer 25

Put hypodermic needle in arteries: an anesthetic
Blood flow in hemispheres tend to be separate
Asked to repeat sentences

• Left hem injection: lang tend to shut down
• Right hem: slight deficit, more bilateral in language

Question 26

Neurological convention (in viewing brain)

Answer 26

• Sit behind you
• Head view
• Direction is as is

Question 27

Radiological convention (in viewing brain)

Answer 27

• In other room, look from feet
• Foot view
• L is R and R is L

Question 28

Assumptions of cognitive processes: (3)

Answer 28

• Each complex cognitive process results from the combined activity of simple cognitive processes (constituent cognitive
  processes)
• Each complex cognitive process is mediated by neural activity in a particular area of the brain
• Goal is to identify the parts of the brain that mediate various constituent cognitive processes

Question 29

Paired-image subtraction technique:

Answer 29

compare PET or fMRI images during several
different cognitive tasks

Question 30

Understanding Subtraction Logic: Mental Chronometry (2)

Answer 30

use reaction times to infer cognitive processes
* fundamental tool for behavioral experiments in cognitive science

Question 31

Simple Reaction Time

Answer 31

Hit button when you see a light

Question 32

Discrimination Reaction Time

Answer 32

Hit button when light is green but not red

Question 33

Choice Reaction Time

Answer 33

Hit left button when light is green and right button when light is red

Question 34

Examples of Mental Chronometry (3)

Answer 34

Simple Reaction Time
Discrimination Reaction Time
Choice Reaction Time

Question 35

Subtraction Logic (for time)

Answer 35

a measure of the duration of a particular process can be found by obtaining two measurements of time that include the process and subtracting one from the other.

Question 36

Limitations of Subtraction Logic (3)

Answer 36

Assumption of pure insertion
* You can insert a component process into a task without disrupting the other components
* Widely criticized

Question 37

Area for object recognition

Answer 37

Lateral Occipital Complex (LOC)

Question 38

Subtraction Logic: Brain Imaging Example (Bear vs. texture: object recognition)

Answer 38

Objects > Textures
- object shapes
- irregular shapes
- familiarity
- nameability
- visual features (e.g., brightness, contrast, etc.)
- actability
- attention-grabbing

Question 39

Affordances

Answer 39

determine what actions are possible with the object.
- One example would be a chair which ‘affords’ support such as sitting

Question 40

Donders’ method

Answer 40

In functional imaging studies, two paired conditions should differ by the inclusion/exclusion of a single mental process

Question 41

How do we control the mental operations that subjects carry out in the scanner? (2)

Answer 41

i) Manipulate the stimulus
* works best for automatic mental processes
ii) Manipulate the task
* works best for controlled mental processes