Brain damage and the Mind Flashcards
Name 7 impairments of attention
impairments of attention:
- Hemispatial/unilateral neglect
- representational neglect
- Blindsight (type 1 and 2)
- apperceptive visual agnosia
- associative visual agnosia
- Allochiria
- Prosopagnosia
What is the difference between type 1 and type 2 blind sight?
Type 1 blindsight: patients have to be prompted to guess what they can see
Type 2 blindsight: patients indicate awareness without prompt (vague sensations)
What do both unilateral neglect and representational neglect suggest?
They suggest that the underpinning mechanisms of imagination are the same ones we use to interact with the external world
Define blindsight
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)
Define representational neglect
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.
Define unilateral/hemispatial neglect
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.
What is apperceptive visual agnosia
people cant recognise or copy objects
What is associative visual agnosia?
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
What is allochiria?
Allochiria is where patients transfer the right side features of things to the left hand side when they draw
What is propagnosia?
This is where someone cannot recognise familiar faces and this can even be inherited.
What are two memory impairments?
- Retrograde amnesia
- Anterograde amnesia
What is the difference between retrograde and anterograde amnesia?
Retrograde amnesia is where someone forgets everything prior to the accident whereas antergrade amnesia is where someone cant form new memories after an accident.
Is the lack of ability to form new memories in anterograde amnesia the same as learning?
No, they can still accidentally learn things as shown in implicit tests.
HM is an example of someone with what?
HM had anterograde amnesia
What are two language disorders?
- Brocas aphasia
- werknickes aphasia
What does aphasia in general mean?
Aphasia is loss of language function
What is the difference between broacs and werknickes aphasia?
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
What is isolation aphasia and how is it caused?
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.
What is another issue with brocas aphasia other than being influent?
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
What does double dissociation mean in terms of speech production?
difference in ability to be able to verbally or write words
Does the werknickes area all do the same thing?
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
What area when damaged is a particular trigger for conceptual processing impairments?
Damage to the temporal lobes is a particular trigger fro impairments in conceptual processing.
What is semantic dementia and what is it an exmaple of?
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.
When you get a conceptual processing impairment is it losing all categories? give an example.
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.
Define rehabilitation
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
What is neuropsychological rehabilitation?
Neuropsychologcal rehabilitation: process of helping functional recovery after brain injury.
What is the most common effect after brain injury?
Memory issues
In cognitive rehabilitation what are patients encourages to do?
- Reinforce, strengthen or establish previously learned behaviour
- Establish new patterns of cognitive activity or mechanisms to compensate for the impairment
Define plasticity
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
Kolts and Gibbons 2013 said ….. is the mechanism underpinning rehabilitation
plasticity
Who has more plasticity adults or children?
Children
does brain training in regards to repeated exposure to the same things to strengthen neurones and neuronal connections work?
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.
