Biopsychology

Question 1

What was the holistic theory?

Answer 1

The theory that all parts of the brain were involved in the processing of thought and action.

Question 2

What is localisation?

Answer 2

Theory that different parts of the brain are responsible for different behaviours, processes or activities.

Question 3

What is lateralisation?

Answer 3

The idea that different hemispheres of the brain are responsible for different tasks.

Question 4

What are the hemispheres?

Answer 4

• Brain is divided into two symmetrical halves called the left and right hemisphere.
• Some functions are controlled by certain hemispheres.
• As a rule activity on the left-hand side of the body are controlled by the right hemisphere and vice versa.

Question 5

What is the cerebral cortex?

Answer 5

• The outer layer of both hemispheres covering the inner parts of the brain.
• It is 3mm thick and is what separates us from other animals as it’s more developed in humans.
• It appears grey due to the location of cell bodies.

Question 6

Where is the motor area?

Answer 6

Top middle, in front of sensory.

Question 7

What is the motor area responsible for?

Answer 7

Control of voluntary movements.

Question 8

Where is the sensory area?

Answer 8

In front of parietal.

Question 9

What is sensory area responsible for?

Answer 9

Skin sensations (temperature, pressure, pain).

Question 10

Where is the frontal lobe?

Answer 10

At the front.

Question 11

What is the frontal responsible for?

Answer 11

Movement, problem solving, concentration, thinking, behaviour, personality, mood.

Question 12

Where is Broca’s area?

Answer 12

Bottom right corner of frontal lobe.

Question 13

What is Broca’s area responsible for?

Answer 13

Speech control.

Question 14

Where is the temporal lobe?

Answer 14

Middle/middle left

Question 15

What does the temporal lobe do?

Answer 15

Hearing, language, memory.

Question 16

Where is the brain stem?

Answer 16

Very bottom left

Question 17

What does the brain stem do?

Answer 17

Consciousness, breathing, heart rate.

Question 18

Where is the parietal lobe?

Answer 18

Top right

Question 19

What does the parietal lobe do?

Answer 19

Sensations, language, perception, body awareness, attention.

Question 20

Where is the occipital lobe?

Answer 20

Middle right

Question 21

What does the occipital lobe do?

Answer 21

Vision, perception

Question 22

Where is Wernicke’s area?

Answer 22

Middle

Question 23

What does Wernicke’s area do?

Answer 23

Language comprehension

Question 24

Where is the cerebellum?

Answer 24

Very bottom right

Question 25

What does the cerebellum do?

Answer 25

Posture, balance, coordination of movement

Question 26

What four lobes is the cortex of both hemispheres divided into?

Answer 26

Frontal, parietal, occipital, temporal.

Question 27

Describe the motor area.

Answer 27

A region at the back of the frontal lobes involved in regulating movement, controls the voluntary movement in the opposite side of the body, damage to this area can lead to loss of control over fine movements.

Question 28

Describe the somatosensory area.

Answer 28

Area at the front of the parietal lobes that processes sensory information such as touch, this is separated from the motor area by a ‘valley’ called the central sulcus, where sensory information from the skin is processed, amount of somatosensory area devoted to a particular body part denotes its sensitivity e.g., face and hands denote over half of the area.

Question 29

Describe the visual area.

Answer 29

Part of the occipital lobe that receives and processes visual information, each eye sends visual information for the right visual field to the left cortex and vice versa, damage to the left hemisphere can therefore lead to blindness in the right visual field.

Question 30

Describe the auditory area.

Answer 30

Located in the temporal lobe and concerned with analysis of speech-based information, damage may produce partial hearing loss, the more extensive the damage the more extensive the loss.

Question 31

Which side of the brain is language restricted to in most people?

Answer 31

The left side.

Question 32

What is Broca’s area?

Answer 32

• In the 1880’s Broca identified a small area in the left frontal lobe responsible for speech production.
• Damage to Broca’s area caused Broca’s aphasia - speech that is slow, laborious and lacking in fluency.

Question 33

What is Wernicke’s area?

Answer 33

• Area in left temporal lobe responsible for language comprehension and would result in Wernicke’s aphasia if damaged.
• Patients who have Wernicke’s aphasia often produce nonsense words as part of the content of their speech.

Question 34

What are the advantages of the theory of localisation of function in the brain?

Answer 34

• Petersen et al (1988) - used brain scans to demonstrate how Wernicke’s area was active during a listening task and Wernicke’s area was active during a reading task (suggests these areas have different functions).
• Tulving et al (19940 - semantic and episodic memories reside in different parts of the prefrontal cortex.
• Many highly sophisticated and objective methods of measuring activity in the brain providing sound evidence of localisation of brain function.
• Neurosurgery (surgically removing/destroying areas of the brain to control aspects of behaviour) is still used today in extreme cases of OCD and depression.
• Dougherty et al (2002) - 44 OCD patients undergone cingulotomy - success of procedures strongly suggest symptoms and behaviours associated with serious mental disorders are localised.
• Phinease Gage - 1m pole through left cheek behind left eye and exiting skull at top, had complete personality chance from calm and reserved to quick tempered and rude. Chance in temperament suggests frontal lobe was responsible for regulating mood.

Question 35

What are the disadvantages of the theory of localisation?

Answer 35

• Early neurosurgery was brutal and imprecise.
• Lashley (1950) - higher cognitive functions e.g. processes involved in learning, are not localised but distributed in a more holistic way in the brain. Removed areas of cortex in rats - no area seemed more important than any other in learning. Learning appeared to require every part of the cortex. Suggests learning is too complex to be localised.
• Plasticity (when brain becomes damaged a particular function has been compromised or lost the rest of the brain reorganises in attempt to recover lost function). Powerful argument against localisation.

Question 36

What is neural plasticity?

Answer 36

The apparent ability of the brain to change and adapt (functionally and physically) its structures and processes as a result of experience and new learning.

Question 37

What is neural plasticity also known as?

Answer 37

Neuroplasticity or cortical remapping.

Question 38

What is functional recovery?

Answer 38

Form of plasticity, following damage through trauma, the brain’s ability to redistribute or transfer functions usually performed by a damaged area to an undamaged area.

Question 39

What is brain plasticity?

Answer 39

• Brain appears to be plastic as it has the ability to change through life.
• During infancy the brain experiences a growth in synaptic connections peaking at about 15,000 at 2-3 years, about twice as many in adult brain.
• As we age synaptic pruning happens.
• Originally it was thought that changes were restricted to the developing brain of childhood and the adult brain was then fixed and static in terms of structure and function.
• Recent research suggests this is not the case and that neural connections can be changed and new neural connections will be formed as a result of learning or experience.

Question 40

What is synaptic pruning?

Answer 40

Rarely used connection are deleted and frequently used connections are strengthened.

Question 41

What did Maguire et al (2000) do, and what did the results show?

Answer 41

• Studied brains of London taxi drivers and found more grey matter in posterior hippocampus than in a matched control group.
• This part of the brain is associated with the development of spatial and navigational skills in humans and other animals.
• Consequence of ‘The Knowledge’ - assesses recall of streets and routes in London.
• This experience alters the taxi drivers’ brains.
• The longer they had been in the job the larger the structural differences.

Question 42

What did Draganski et al (2006) do, and what did the results show?

Answer 42

• Imaged brains of medical students three months before and after their final exams.
• Learning induced changes had happened in their posterior hippocampus and parietal cortex as a results of the exams.

Question 43

What did Mechilli et al (2004) do, and what did the results show?

Answer 43

Larger parietal cortex in bilingual compared to monolingual people.

Question 44

When does functional recovery occur?

Answer 44

Functional recovery of the brain occurs after trauma.

Question 45

What is the process of functional recovery?

Answer 45

• After injury or trauma the unaffected areas are often able to adapt and compensate for those areas that are damaged.
• The functional recovery that may occur is another example of plasticity.
• Healthy parts of the brain will take over the areas that are damaged, destroyed or even missing.
• Can occur quickly after trauma (spontaneous recovery) and then slow down after several weeks or months - they may then require therapy to further their recovery.

Question 46

What happens in the brain during recovery?

Answer 46

• Brain is able to rewire and reorganise itself by forming new synaptic connections close to the area of damage.
• Secondary neural pathways that would not be typically used to carry out certain functions are activated or unmasked to enable functioning to continue, often in the same way as before (Doidge 2007).

Question 47

What is axonal sprouting?

Answer 47

Growth of new nerve endings which connect with other undamaged nerve cells to form new neuronal pathways.

Question 48

What is recruitment of homologous (similar) areas?

Answer 48

Recruitment of similar areas on the opposite side of the brain to perform specific tasks (often occurs in stroke victims).

Question 49

What are the structural changes of recovery?

Answer 49

• Axonal sprouting.
• Reformation of blood vessels.
• Recruitment of homologous (similar) areas.

Question 50

What are the advantages of plasticity and functional recovery?

Answer 50

• Practical application - contribution to field of neurorehabilitation, after a few weeks the brain tends to slow so forms of physical therapy may be required to maintain improvements in functioning. Brain may require further intervention to be completely successful.
• Support from animal studies - Hubel and Wiesel (1963) sewed one eye of a kitten shut and analysed the brain responses. It was found that there of the visual cortex associated with the shut eye was not idle but continued to process information from the eye.
• Lazar et al (2005) - used MRI scans to show that meditators had thicker cortex than non-meditators, particularly in areas related to attentions and sensory processing.
• Hillel et al (2011) - individuals that took part in Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course showed increased grey matter in the left hippocampus, area associated with learning and memory.

Question 51

What are the disadvantages of plasticity and functional recovery?

Answer 51

• Negative plasticity - the ability of the brain to rewire itself may have maladaptive behavioural consequences. prolonged drug use has been shown to results in poorer cognitive functioning and an increased risk of dementia in later life. Phantom limb syndrome - reorganisation of somatosensory cortex after limb loss.
• Age and plasticity - functional plasticity reduces with age. Greater prosperity in childhood due to brain constantly adapting to new experiences and learning.
• Cognitie reserve - educational attainment may influence how well the brain functionally adapts after injury. Schneider et al (2014) - more time brain injury patients spent in education = greater chances of a disability free recovery.

Question 52

What is hemispheric lateralisation?

Answer 52

Idea that two halves (hemispheres) of the brain are functionally different and that certain mental processes and behaviours are mainly controlled by on hemisphere rather than the other e.g. language left.

Question 53

What is split brain research?

Answer 53

Series of studies which began in the 1960’s involving epileptic patients who had experienced a surgical separation of the hemispheres of the brain. This allowed researchers to investigate the extent to which brain function is lateralised.

Question 54

Who is Sperry and what did he do (summary)?

Answer 54

Studied a unique group of individuals, all had undergone the same surgical procedure, a commissurotomoy (corpus callous and other tissues connecting the hemispheres are cut down the middle), this separation controlled frequent and severe epileptic seizures.

Question 55

What did Sperry’s study allow him to see?

Answer 55

Allowed speedy to see the extent to which the two hemispheres were specialised for certain functions and whether the hemispheres performed task independently of each other.

Question 56

What was the procedure Sperry used?

Answer 56

• Sperry devised a general procedure in which an image or a word could be projected into the patients right visual field (processed by left hemisphere) and the dame or different image could be projected to the left visual field (processed by the right hemisphere).
• In the ‘normal’ brain the corpus callosam would immediately share the information between both hemispheres giving a complete picture of the visual world.
• However, presenting the image to one hemisphere of a split brain patient meant that the information could not be conveyed from that hemisphere to the other.

Question 57

What were Sperry’s findings in describing what you see?

Answer 57

• When a picture of an object was shown to a patient’s right visual field, the patient could easily describe what was seen.
• If the same object was shown to the left visual field, the patient could not describe what was seen and typically reported that nothing was there.
• For most people (and all Sperry’s patients) language is processed in the left hemisphere.
• So the patient’s inability to describe objects in the left visual field was due to a lack of language centres in the right hemisphere.
• In the normal brain, messages from the right hemisphere would be relayed to the language centres in the left hemispheres.

Question 58

What were Sperry’s findings in recognition by touch?

Answer 58

• Although patients could not attach verbal labels to objects projectsd into the left visual field, they were able to select the matching object from a grab-bag of different objects using their left hand (linked to RH).
• Objects were placed behind a screen so they were not seen.
• Left hand was also able to select an object that was most closely associated with the object presented to the left visual field.
• In each case the patient was not able to verbally identify what they had seen but could ‘understand’ what the object was using the RH and select the corresponding object accordingly.

Question 59

What were Sperry’s findings in composite words?

Answer 59

If two word were presented simultaneously, one on either side of the visual field (key on left and ring on right), the patient would select a key with their left hand (left visual field to RH to left hand) and say the word ring.

Question 60

What were Sperry’s findings in drawing?

Answer 60

• Superiority of RH in terms of drawing tasks.
• Picture is flashed to either their right or left visual field.
• In drawing the left hand continually outperformed the right hand in such tests despite for all patients they preferred to draw with their right hand.

Question 61

What were Sperry’s findings in left handedness?

Answer 61

• In a further study 400 left handed people were tested.
• In 80 cases language was located in the RH and for a further 80 language was located bilaterally (in both hemispheres).
• In right handed people 380 out of the 400 tested had LH dominance for language,

Question 62

What were Sperry’s findings in matching faces?

Answer 62

• RH appeared dominant in terms of recognising faces.
• When asked to match a face from a series of other faces, the picture processed by the RH (left visual field) was consistently selected, whilst the picture presented to the LH was consistently ignored.
• When a composite picture made up of two different halves of a face was presented (one half to each hemisphere) the LH dominated in terms of electing a matching picture.

Question 63

What are the advantages of split brain research?

Answer 63

• Demonstrated lateralised brain functions - Sperry’s work produced an impressive and sizeable body of research findings. LH more geared towards analytic and verbal tasks and RH more adept at spatial tasks and music. RH can only produce rudimental words and phrase but contributes emotional and holistic content to language. LH is key analyser whilst RH is the synthesiser.
• Strengths of methodology - highly specialised and standardised procedures. Developed useful and controlled procedure.
• Theoretical basis - SPerry’s work prompted theoretical and philosophical debate about the degree of communication between the two hemispheres in everyday functioning and nature of consciousness.

Question 64

What are the disadvantages of split brain research?

Answer 64

• Issues with generalisation - many researchers have urged caution in the widespread acceptance of findings (split brain constitutes an unusual and specific sample of people). only 11 took part in all variation of the procedure. This may have caused unique changes in the brain that may have influenced findings.
• Differences in function may have been overstated - one legacy is that Sperry’s work overemphasises and oversimplifies. Modern neuroscientists argue that the distinction of verbal and non-verbal labels is not clear cut. In normal brains the two hemispheres are in constant communication when performing everyday tasks and many behaviours typically located in one hemisphere can be effectively performed by the other when necessary.