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Psychology - Exam content > Biopsychology - Function in the brain > Flashcards

Biopsychology - Function in the brain Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the areas of the left hemisphere of the brain?

A
  • Cerebral cortex
  • Corpus callosum
  • Limbic system
  • Brain stem
  • Cerebellum
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2
Q

What is the cerebral cortex?

A

Outer layer of the cerebrum, covers the hemispheres of the brain.
Folds increase the surface area.
Home to ‘higher’ functions - reasoning, language, morals.
Appears grey because of cell bodies ‘grey-matter’.

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3
Q

What is the corpus callosum?

A

Bundles of millions of connective fibres (axons) join the left and right hemispheres of the cerebrum. These axons form the ‘white matter’ of the brain.

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4
Q

What is the limbic system?

A

Includes amygdala, hypothalamus, hippocampus and other areas.
Involved in many of our emotions and motivations, particularly those that are related to survival such as fear, anger and sexual behaviour.

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5
Q

What is the brain stem?

A

Controls heart, breathing, involuntary actions.

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6
Q

What is the cerebellum?

A

Responsible for motor actions such as balance, posture and smooth movement.

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7
Q

What is the holistic theory of brain function?

A

The theory that the brain works as one, with no area more or less responsible for any function.
This is no longer an accepted theory - we have very good evidence of localisation of function - that certain functions take place in specific areas of the brain.
However, the brain’s remarkable ability to recover from trauma and its plasticity tell us that functioning is not necessarily always limited to a specific area of the brain.

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8
Q

What is localisation?

A

The theory that specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological functions.

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9
Q

What is lateralisation?

A

One hemisphere of the brain being responsible for particular physical and psychological functions.

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10
Q

How is sensory processing and motor control housed?

A

Contralaterally (opposite side)
So damage to the left hemisphere will affect the right side of the body. Also, language for most people is based only in the left hemisphere.
The cerebrum is made up of the left and right hemispheres connected by the corpus callosum.

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11
Q

What are the 4 lobes of the left hemisphere?

A
  • Frontal lobe
  • Parietal lobe
  • Occipital lobe
  • Temporal lobe
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12
Q

What are the 4 cortexes of the hemispheres of the brain?

A
  • Motor cortex
  • Somatosensory cortex
  • Visual cortex
  • Auditory cortex
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13
Q

What is the motor cortex?

A
  • Found in the frontal lobe
  • Responsible for controlling voluntary movements
  • Damage to this area results in impaired movements
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14
Q

What is the somatosensory cortex?

A
  • Found in the parietal lobe

- Responds to heat, cold, touch, pain and our sense of body movement

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15
Q

What is the visual cortex?

A
  • Found in the occipital lobe
  • Vision
  • Damage can cause partial or total blindness
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16
Q

What is the auditory cortex?

A
  • Found in the temporal lobe
  • Complex processing of sounds happens here
  • Also Meyer (2010) found that this area is activated when watching a silent film, for example seeing a door banging
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17
Q

What is the difference between the left and right hemispheres of the brain?

A

Language areas are only found in the left side of the brain.

But each hemisphere has each lobe and specialised cortexes.

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18
Q

What is Broca’s area?

A
  • Found in the frontal lobe

- Responsible for converting thought into speech

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19
Q

What is Wernicke’s area?

A
  • Found in the temporal lobe

- Plays an important role in understanding other people’s speech and for producing speech which makes sense

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20
Q

What would damage to either Broca’s area or Wernicke’s area create?

A
  • Result in aphasia - inability or impaired ability to understand or produce speech.
  • Broca’s aphasia (aka productive aphasia) may make speech stilted, based mainly on using nouns, no connective words. It is effortful but lacks richness.
  • Wernicke’s aphasia (aka receptive aphasia or fluent aphasia) speech is effortless but flows easily but the meaning of words is lost.
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21
Q

How did the physicians Broca and Wernicke study patients?

A

Performed post-mortems to study localisation.

Impairment + visible injury = localisation

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22
Q

Who was Phineas Gage?

A

Had an iron rod shot through his brain and lived for 12 more years.
He became challenging, impatient and rude; reportedly ‘not Gage’.
His frontal lobes were damaged - we now know that this area is associated with impulse control and mood regulation.

23
Q

What evidence is there for localisation?

A

Petersen et al

  • Brain scans of people doing a listening task and a reading task
  • Wernicke’s area was more active during a listening task and Broca’s was more active during a reading task.
  • Supports localisation of function

Tulving et al

  • Carried out brain scans (PET) to show images of the brain while participants recalled different types of memories
  • They located different sections of the pre-frontal cortex for (left) semantic and (right) episodic memories
24
Q

What neurosurgical evidence for localisation is there?

A

From 1950s onwards brutal and imprecise lobotomies were performed as treatments.
The frontal lobes were servered form the brain with devastating effects, including personality changes and losing the ‘self’.
This supports localisation of function.

25
Q

What evidence is there for holistic brain function?

A

Lashley (1950)
Removed parts of the cortex (10-50%) in rats who were learning a maze.
He found that maze learning was not housed in a particular part of the cortex - this ‘higher level’ task was distributed across the brain.
This argues against localisation.
However, the research is done on rats, they are different species who don’t have the same cognitive abilities as humans, so can’t be generalised to humans.

26
Q

How is vision processed in the brain?

A
  • Vision from left of the nose is the left visual field
  • This is picked up from both eyes
  • This information crosses to the right hemisphere of the brain and is processed in the right visual cortex
  • Vice verse for the right visual field
27
Q

Why does separating the hemispheres control epilepsy?

A

Cutting the corpus callosum means seizures are contained in one hemisphere and cannot spread to the whole brain.
This is done when no other treatments work and is known as ‘hemispheric deconnection’ or ‘split brain’.

28
Q

How did Sperry examine certain functions specialised in the two hemispheres?

A
  • 11 patients had undergone a split brain operation as a treatment for epilepsy + a control group
  • Natural experiment
  • The procedure was designed to make it possible to get information into one hemisphere only, so that communication, perception and memory of each hemisphere could be tested
  • A tachistoscope was used
  • The patient focused on a dot in the middle of the screen
  • Word/s flashed for 1/10 of a second so information only went to one hemisphere
  • On table under screen and out of sight, items could be handled in the tactile tests
29
Q

What would participants say of the word tree was projected to the right of the central dot?

A

Tree because the information in the right visual field goes to the left hemisphere and the area for speech production (Broca’s area) is in the left hemisphere.
If they use their right hand they can draw or find the object because the hand is contralaterally controlled by the same hemisphere. With the left hand, they cannot.

30
Q

What was the tactile task participants did?

A

Participants with split brain simply had an object placed in their left or right hand and were then asked to find it from an assortment of objects without looking.
If participants used the same hand to find the object they could; if they used the opposite hand they could not.
OR they were asked to select the object which matched a word on the tachistoscope screen; again they could only find the object that the same field had seen.

31
Q

What are the summary findings of split brain research?

A

When visual information is presented to the left visual field (and so right hemisphere) participants are not able to describe it and may say they saw nothing.
However, when information is presented to the right visual field (so left hemisphere) the participant can say what they saw.
This shows that language production is lateralised only to the left hemisphere.
The words flashing task shows that each hemisphere has a separate understanding and separate memory in a split brain patient.

32
Q

Why is Sperry’s split-brain research useful?

A

Because it tells us that speech production is housed only in the left hemisphere - so we already knew this was primarily in the LH but not the extent of the specialisation.
It also tells us the importance of the corpus callosum + its role in whole brain communication.

33
Q

What aspects of Sperry’s methodology made the research valid?

A

Participants stared at a central dot, information was flashed to one VF for 1/10 second so information only went into one hemisphere.

34
Q

What aspects made Sperry’s methodology reliable?

A

Standardised equipment and tasks used for all participants. So it is replicable.
Relatively objective questions with clear right and wrong answers, which increase reliability.

35
Q

What are the problems with Sperry’s sample?

A

Participants had differing degrees of surgery, differing levels of medication prior to the operation, and differing time periods since their operation.
These are problematic because the participant’s capabilities could have varied and affected the results. Ideally they would have screen + gathered very similar participants.

36
Q

Sperry’s sample only had 11 participants in the ‘experimental’ condition. Why is this a problem?

A

Because it is unlikely to be representative of people with split brains therefore it may not be generalisable to all split-brain patients.

37
Q

Sperry’s control group did not have epilepsy or the associated medication history. Why is this a problem?

A

Because these could have acted as confounding variables and affected the split brain patient’s capabilities; acting like another IV.

38
Q

What is plasticity?

A

The capacity of the brain to change.

39
Q

What are the two primary condition neuroplasticity occurs in?

A
  • During normal brain development and learning

- Functional recovery (compensate for lost function or to maximise remaining function in the event of brain injury)

40
Q

What is neurogenesis?

A

Formation of new neurons; most of this happens before we are born but a little continues into adulthood especially in the hippocampus.

41
Q

What is synaptogenesis?

A

Formation of new synapses; happens as we learn, particularly when making long term memories.

42
Q

What is synaptic pruning?

A

Getting rid of unneeded synapses; peaks between 3 and 16 years of age but continues into adulthood.

43
Q

Why is Maguire’s study of London taxi drivers evidence of brain plasticity?

A

The longer they had been taxi driving, the greater the volume of they grey matter in the back of their hippocampi.

44
Q

What research was done on newborn kittens that showed neural reorganisation?

A

One eye was sewn shut in newborn kittens.
The brain reorganised itself so that the parts of the visual cortex that should have received information from the shut eye processed information from the remaining eye instead.

45
Q

What case study shows functional recovery?

A

Jodie Miller
Aged 3 she had her right hemisphere removed to treat severe seizures.
10 days later she could walk out of the hospital.
This is functional recovery (and plasticity).

46
Q

What is negative plasticity?

A

Refers to the negative effects on brain plasticity.
For example, phantom-limb syndrome is the sensation that a severed limb still exists. It can be very painful.
It is thought to be a result of somatosensory cortex reorganisation following trauma.

47
Q

What is functional recovery?

A

Brain trauma either through internal injury (stroke) or from a motorbike accident, results in damage and death to neurons, glial cells and blood vessels.
The brain may be able to adapt to this injury; this is a form of brain plasticity called functional recovery.

48
Q

What is neural reorganisation?

A

Healthy brain areas may take over the functioning of damaged or missing parts of the brain.
Either areas alongside or a similar area in the other hemisphere.

49
Q

What is involved in neural regeneration?

A
  • Axonal sprouting

- Reformation of blood vessels

50
Q

What is axonal sprouting?

A

Healthy neurons will grow fine nerve endings which connect with other undamaged neurons to form new neural pathways.

51
Q

What is reformation of blood vessels?

A

Blood vessels may change structure or function to assist with recovery, particularly the response to swelling and inflammation.

52
Q

What is cognitive reserve?

A

The plasticity effect of all that education means the brain is better equipped to reorganise post-trauma.
Schneider et al found that the longer a person with brain injury had spent in education, the greater chance they would have of a disability-free recovery.

53
Q

Why does age of injury matter?

A

Degree of recovery is negatively correlated with age; on average younger people who suffer brain injury are able to regain much greater functioning than older people.

54
Q

What are the applications to functional recovery?

A

Understanding functional recovery has contributed to neuro-rehabilitation following stroke and other injury.
Intervention is needed to restore functioning. The first six months is crucial.
Current research involves looking at whether stem cells or drugs can be used to assist with neuro-rehabilitation.

Psychology - Exam content (78 decks)

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