Brain damage and the Mind

Question 1

Name 7 impairments of attention

Answer 1

impairments of attention:

• Hemispatial/unilateral neglect
• representational neglect
• Blindsight (type 1 and 2)
• apperceptive visual agnosia
• associative visual agnosia
• Allochiria
• Prosopagnosia

Question 2

What is the difference between type 1 and type 2 blind sight?

Answer 2

Type 1 blindsight: patients have to be prompted to guess what they can see
Type 2 blindsight: patients indicate awareness without prompt (vague sensations)

Question 3

What do both unilateral neglect and representational neglect suggest?

Answer 3

They suggest that the underpinning mechanisms of imagination are the same ones we use to interact with the external world

Question 4

Define blindsight

Answer 4

Blindsight is a disorder where patients appear to show awareness of objects but are not consciously aware of them due to loss of areas in the primary visial cortex. (cant see properties of objects but can see movement)

Question 5

Define representational neglect

Answer 5

Represntational neglect is where patients canr even imagine in their head things on the contralateral side. When asked to desrcive a scene they knew well as if they were standing opposite it they cannot describe contalteral information. If you ask hem to change perspective however they can describe things previously neglected.

Question 6

Define unilateral/hemispatial neglect

Answer 6

Hemispatial/unilateral neglect is where patients don’t seem to notice/ be abe to attend to information of the contralateral side to the injury. The damage is confined to a single side of the brain. This can occur when someone has a stroke in the parietal lobe- they cant pay attention ton information on the opposite side to where the damage is.

Question 7

What is apperceptive visual agnosia

Answer 7

people cant recognise or copy objects

Question 8

What is associative visual agnosia?

Answer 8

This is where people cannot make meaningful associations to objects so they can copy something but not tell you what they have copied. They can lose entire categories and not others

Question 9

What is allochiria?

Answer 9

Allochiria is where patients transfer the right side features of things to the left hand side when they draw

Question 10

What is propagnosia?

Answer 10

This is where someone cannot recognise familiar faces and this can even be inherited.

Question 11

What are two memory impairments?

Answer 11

• Retrograde amnesia

- Anterograde amnesia

Question 12

What is the difference between retrograde and anterograde amnesia?

Answer 12

Retrograde amnesia is where someone forgets everything prior to the accident whereas antergrade amnesia is where someone cant form new memories after an accident.

Question 13

Is the lack of ability to form new memories in anterograde amnesia the same as learning?

Answer 13

No, they can still accidentally learn things as shown in implicit tests.

Question 14

HM is an example of someone with what?

Answer 14

HM had anterograde amnesia

Question 15

What are two language disorders?

Answer 15

• Brocas aphasia

- werknickes aphasia

Question 16

What does aphasia in general mean?

Answer 16

Aphasia is loss of language function

Question 17

What is the difference between broacs and werknickes aphasia?

Answer 17

Brocas aphasia is when someone doesn’t have fluency when they speak, they cant form coherent sentences. This is an issue with speech production. Whereas werknickes aphasia is when someone can fluently speak but what they are saying is meaningless. Language comprehension is the issue

Question 18

What is isolation aphasia and how is it caused?

Answer 18

Isolation aphasia is where someone is unable to comprehend speech or produce meaninful speech but can repeat speech and learn new sentences due to damage around the werknickes area.

Question 19

What is another issue with brocas aphasia other than being influent?

Answer 19

Brocas aphasia can mean aggramatism where someone cant understand or produce speech with complex syntactical rules.
Boller and Dennis 1979 thought they have trouble carrying out sequences of commands

Question 20

What does double dissociation mean in terms of speech production?

Answer 20

difference in ability to be able to verbally or write words

Question 21

Does the werknickes area all do the same thing?

Answer 21

There is thought to be 2 parts to werknickes; one part responsive to speech and non speech sounds
one part responsive to external sources of speech and recall

Question 22

What area when damaged is a particular trigger for conceptual processing impairments?

Answer 22

Damage to the temporal lobes is a particular trigger fro impairments in conceptual processing.

Question 23

What is semantic dementia and what is it an exmaple of?

Answer 23

Semantic dementia is an impairment in conceptual processing .
This is losing lower levels of concepts, people may refer to things by unspecific categories, less specific than usual.

Question 24

When you get a conceptual processing impairment is it losing all categories? give an example.

Answer 24

These impairments can mean we lose only specific categories while the others arent affected.
Autopagnosia is where someone has the inability to name body parts but has no issue understanding any other words.

Question 25

Define rehabilitation

Answer 25

Rehabilitation is “the active process whreby people who are disabled by injury or disease work together with professional staff, relatives and members of eider community to achieve optimum physical, psychological, social and vocational well being” Mclellan 1991

Question 26

What is neuropsychological rehabilitation?

Answer 26

Neuropsychologcal rehabilitation: process of helping functional recovery after brain injury.

Question 27

What is the most common effect after brain injury?

Answer 27

Memory issues

Question 28

In cognitive rehabilitation what are patients encourages to do?

Answer 28

• Reinforce, strengthen or establish previously learned behaviour
• Establish new patterns of cognitive activity or mechanisms to compensate for the impairment

Question 29

Define plasticity

Answer 29

Plasticity is “the ability of the nervous system to respond to intrinsic and extrinsic stimuli by recognising its structure, functions and connections”. The brains ability to adapt and change regarding to circumstances

Question 30

Kolts and Gibbons 2013 said ….. is the mechanism underpinning rehabilitation

Answer 30

plasticity

Question 31

Who has more plasticity adults or children?

Answer 31

Children

Question 32

does brain training in regards to repeated exposure to the same things to strengthen neurones and neuronal connections work?

Answer 32

Lots of evidence it does but Thomas and Baker 2013 found ots of these studies have major flaws so questionable as to whether it actually is effective.