Biopsychology - 06 Ways of Studying The Brain

Question 1

What are the 4 ways of studying the brain?

Answer 1

-Post-mortems
-fMRI
-EEG
-ERP

Question 2

What are the 3 stages of a post-mortem?

Answer 2

1-Beahviour
2-Brain
3-Correlation

Question 3

What happens in the behaviour stage of a post-mortem?

Answer 3

-individual’s behaviour studied whilst still alive
-Behaviour could suggest brain damage

Question 4

What happens in the brain stage of a post-mortem?

Answer 4

-brain studied after death for lesions/abnormalities
-compared to a ‘normal’ brain in order to identify differences

Question 5

What happens in the correlation stage of a post-mortem?

Answer 5

-analysis of brain allows researcher to form correlation between abnormal behaviour and a particular area of the brain

Question 6

Post-mortem example (Broca)

Answer 6

patient could only say Tan
1-tests caried out showed patient had problems in producing speech
2-When Tan died, post-mortem carried out revealed large lesion on left frontal lobe
3-provided evidence for correlation between left frontal lobe and speech production

Question 7

Strength of post-mortems- Level of detail

Answer 7

-enable deeper regions of brain to be investigated
-allows for examination of brain’s structure beyond cerebral cortex

Question 8

Limitation of post-mortems- Cause & effect

Answer 8

-Form correlations between behaviour and brain damage
-problem as the behaviour may not be a result of that damage and may be caused by other factors like illness

Question 9

Limitation of post-mortems- Ethical issues (informed consent)

Answer 9

-Giving consent to brain being analysed in post-mortem
-E.g. Hm may not have given full informed consent giving his condition so other ways of examining the brain that can be done whilst alive could be more appropriate ethically

Question 10

What does fMRI stand for?

Answer 10

functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Question 11

What is the difference between an fMRI and an MRI?

Answer 11

MRI-takes image of brain’s structure
fMRI-takes image of the activity in the brain whilst participant carries out a task

Question 12

What are the 3 stages of an fMRI?

Answer 12

1-Blood flow
2-Oxygen
3-Magentic

Question 13

What happens in the blood flow stage of and fMRI?

Answer 13

They measure blood flow in the brain whilst a person performs a task

Question 14

What happens in the oxygen stage of an fMRI?

Answer 14

When an area of the brain becomes more active, those neurons use the most energy and so require more oxygen

Question 15

What happens in the magnetic stage of an fMRI?

Answer 15

Oxygen released for use by the active neurons so the haemoglobin becomes deoxygenated
Deoxygenated haemoglobin has a different magnetic quality than oxygenated haemoglobin

Question 16

fMRI example (love competition)

Answer 16

-Different people of varying ages asked to think about the people they most love whilst their brain was being scanned by an fMRI
-They were able to identify which individuals loved more deeply in comparison to others by measuring the level of activity in certain pathways in the brain linking emotion to a biological process

Question 17

What is temporal resolution?

Answer 17

How quickly the brain scan can detect changes in brain activity

Question 18

What is spatial resolution?

Answer 18

Hoe accurately the brain scan can show exactly which area of the brain is active

Question 19

Strength of fMRIs- Spatial resolution

Answer 19

-High spatial resolution of around 1-2 mm significantly greater than other techniques
-can provide more insight into brains activity as it offers a more accurate way of studying the brain

Question 20

Weakness of fMRIs- Temporal resolution

Answer 20

-low temporal resolution of around 1-4 seconds EEGs for example 1-10ms
-undermines the extent to which they can tell us about brain activity because the delay makes it harder to know accurately when the brain activity started

Question 21

Weakness of fMRIs- Cost/sampling

Answer 21

-cost $500,000-$3 million
-so less accessible for people and so smaller sample sizes for studies meaning that less conclusions can be made about the brain’s activity