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Psychology 365- Cognitive Psychology > Chapter 2: Cognitive Neuroscience > Flashcards

Chapter 2: Cognitive Neuroscience Flashcards

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1
Q

What are the levels of analysis for cognitive functions/ Principles of the nervous system

A
  • neuronal representation: how neurons represent information
  • localized representation: how specific brain regions represent information
  • distributed representation: how multiple brain regions represent information
  • neural networks (DMN): how large networks of brain regions represent information
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2
Q

What is a neuron?

A
  • the basic unit of the brain and the nervous system
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3
Q

How many neurons and connections do we have in the brain?

A
  • ~80-100 billion neurons

- over ten trillion connections

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4
Q

What part of the neuron is the receiving end and which one is the transmitting end?

A
  • Receiving end: dendrite

- transmitting end: axon

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5
Q

Do neurons touch each other ?

A

no

  • they have gaps between them called synapses
  • the communicate using chemical signals called neurotransmitters
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6
Q

What role does dopamine play?

A
  • reward processing and addiction
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7
Q

what role does glutamate play?

A
  • learning
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8
Q

what role does GABA play?

A
  • inhibition
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9
Q

Afferent versus Efferent

A
  • afferent: sensory information, incoming information

- efferent: motor output

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10
Q

What is the membrane potential at resting potential?

A

(-70mV)

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11
Q

What happens during the depolarization phase of an action potential

A
  • when a neurotransmitter excites the neuron it results in moving towards a positive charge
  • if this excitation crosses a threshold level, it triggers a large depolarization called an action potential
  • reaches +40mV
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12
Q

What happens during the repolarization phase of an action potential

A
  • after a neuron fires a signal, the neuron returns to resting potential
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13
Q

What happens during the hyperpolarization phase of an action potential

A
  • becomes more negative before returning to resting potential
  • (-80mV)
  • inhibitory , less likely to fire an action potential
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14
Q

How does an action potential work

A
  • the AP propagates to the end of the neuron and triggers the release of a NT which will affect other neurons
  • the signal switches from electrical to chemical at terminal
  • the prescence of myelination (glial cells) speeds up neural transmissions
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15
Q

Do Action Potentials vary in strength?

A

no they do not (this means they are binary)

  • this means that every action potential Is the same height and shape
  • what does change is the frequency of an action potential
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16
Q

What are the characteristics of strong stimuli regarding action potentials

A
  • stronger stimuli are represented by a higher rate of firing
    for example, stronger pressures on skin versus light pressure on skin
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17
Q

How long does it take for one action potential

A

aprox. 1ms ( 1/1000ms)

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18
Q

What does it mean for Action Potentials to be an all or none response

A
  • this means that if the excitation a neuron exceeds a threshold level (50mV), it will trigger an action potential, though if it does not reach the threshold potential than there will not be an action potential
  • either fires or it doesn’t
  • INTENSITY DOES NOT CHANGE, ONLY FREQUENCY!!!!
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19
Q

What is the Principle of Neuronal Representation?

A
  • all experiences are based on representations in the nervous system
  • ex. some neurons respond to specific inputs like vision or hearing
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20
Q

What network of regions does memory involve

A
  • hippocampus, temporal lobe, memory coding areas (visual areas)
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21
Q

What are the 3 components of Neuronal Representation?

A
  1. feature detectors
  2. neurons for complex stimuli
  3. sensory coding
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22
Q

What are Feature Detectors?

A
  • the visual cortex has neurons which respond to specific types of stimuli (simple and complex cells)
  • this is best understood in the visual system
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23
Q

Neurons that respond to specific stimuli from the external word including ? (3)

A
  • orientations
  • movements
  • lengths
    EXAMPLE
  • when you look at a tree you have different neurons in the Primary Visual Cortex fire in response to vertical aspects (trunk), diagonal, colour, movements and so on.
24
Q

What are end-stopped cells?

A
  • a type of neuron that responds to more complex features like a stimulus of a specific length moving in a specific direction
25
Q

What is Hierarchical Processing?

A
  • after a neuron fires, they code for simple features and then send the info off to more complex areas
  • neurons which code for simple features (size, shape, movement) send inputs to higher regions containing neurons which code for complex features
  • ex. faces
  • simple to complex processing
26
Q

What does the Fusiform Face Area (FFA) do?

Where is it located?

A
  • its located in the temporal lobe, and specializes in facial recognition of both humans and animals.
27
Q

What is sensory coding?

A
  • this is how neurons represent various characteristics of the environment (this involves groups of neurons)
28
Q

What are the 3 different kinds of sensory coding?

A
  1. Specificity Coding- specific neurons that respond to one stimulus
  2. Population Coding- all neurons respond to one stimulus
  3. Sparse Coding - subset of neurons respond to stimuli
29
Q

What is Specificity Coding?

A
  • these are neurons that only respond to one object or entity
  • grandmother cells: neurons that respond to only one individual like your grandmother
  • other examples: Jennifer Aniston cells, face specific neurons
30
Q

What are the limitations of specificity coding

A
  • this would mean that we would need separate neurons for every variation of every object which is not realistic because there is way to many variations
  • neurons die constantly which would result in random loss of memories , which doesn’t happen
31
Q

What is Population Coding?

A
  • each object is represented by the firing of ALL neurons in a network
  • can represent many different orientations, colours and aspects
  • pattern of activation stays the same, loss of neurons would not change the rate of firing.
32
Q

What are the limitations of Population Coding?

A
  • this would take up way to much energy
  • expensive
  • prone to errors
33
Q

What is Sparse Coding?

A
  • an object is represented by pattern of firing of a subset of neurons while other remain silent
  • used to represent information in visual, auditory and olfactory systems (eg. pitch of sound)
  • most popular coding theory
34
Q

What are population and sparse coding involved in? Explain how specific memories are stored in neuronal representation.

A
  • perception
  • representation of memory and higher cognitive functions like reasoning
  • specific memories are stored as patterns of neuronal activations which are re-activated during retrieval.
35
Q

Do we know how activation of neurons can result in a unified perception of an object or entity?

A
  • no it is not fully understood.
  • it is a combination of all types of coding
  • there are no grandmother cells or conscious centre where all the neurons merge to create a unified perception for something
36
Q

What Is Localized Representation

A
  • the localization of function

- specific areas are served by specific areas of the brain

37
Q

What does Broca’s Area specialize in?
Where is it located?
Whats another name for it?

A
  • language production
  • also called Brodmans Area 44 (BA44)
  • located in the frontal lobe
38
Q

What is Broca’s Aphasia?

A
  • slow, laboured, ungrammatical speech due to damage in Broca’s area due to stroke or injury.
  • results in choppy speech
  • they are not able to make grammatically correct speech production but they do still make sense when they talk.
39
Q

What does Wernicke’s Area specialize in?
Where is it located?
Whats another name for it?

A
  • language comprehension

- Brodmans Area 22 in temporal area

40
Q

Whats is Wernicke’s Aphasia

A
  • Fluent and grammatically correct but incoherent
  • these patients are unable to understand other peoples speech, match words with meanings or use the rules of grammar
  • the intended speech of these patients is not what they say
41
Q

What is the evidence for localization in the brain ?

A
  • brocas and wernicke’s areas
  • damage to occipital lobe can cause cortical blindness
  • auditory cortex and hearing
  • primary somatosensory cortex (perception of touch, pressure, pain)
  • frontal lobes (thinking, problem solving, language production)
42
Q

What Is prosopagnosia?

A
  • the inability to recognize faces

- results from damage to the fusiform face area

43
Q

How do fMRI’s work

A
  • neural activation associated with oxygen and blood flow to brain areas
  • our blood contains iron in our hemoglobin, de-oxygenated blood responds more strongly to magnetic fields than oxygenated blood
44
Q

Parahippocampal Place Area shows fMRI activation with what?

A
  • shows activation when viewing spatial layout

- for example: indoor and outdoor scenes, not objects

45
Q

What is Distributed Representation

A
  • involves several areas in the brain being involved in a specific task.
  • even the simplest tasks are multidimensional
46
Q

Evidence for Distributed Representation

  • FFA
  • Amygdala
  • Temporal lobe
  • Prefrontal Cortex
A

(for example, looking at a face involves identifying )

  • the presences of a face: fusiform facial area
  • emotions: amygdala
  • intent/focus: temporal lobe
  • attractiveness: prefrontal cortex
  • familiarity: movement of facial parts
  • memory
47
Q

What is you Episodic Memory

A
  • memory for personal events
48
Q

What is your Semantic Memory

A
  • memory for general knowledge
49
Q

Does memory involve one or more brain areas?

A
  • multiple brain regions activating together
50
Q

What is Arcuate Fasciculus?

A
  • brocas area and wernickes areas connecting together for language
51
Q

What is Conduction Aphasia?

A
  • patient has the inability to link speech comprehension and production even tho they can use both separately, but not together
  • they are not able to answer a question or repeat
52
Q

What are the Four principles of Neural Networks

A
  1. Structural Connectivity
  2. Functional Connectivity
  3. Dynamics of cognition
  4. Default mode network
53
Q

What is Structural Connectivity

A
  • the complex structural pathways that form the brains information highway
  • the wiring diagram of the brain
  • white matter connections connect brain regions to different brain regions
54
Q

What is Functional Connectivity?

A
  • how structural networks create functional pathways that serve different functions
  • the extent to which neural activity in 2 brain regions are connected
55
Q

How do you know if 2 areas are functionally connected

A
  • when both are structurally connected information is passed from the first to the second (primary - secondary)
  • when both are receiving inputs from another area (third?)
  • they do not have to be structurally connected
56
Q

What are the Dynamics of Cognition

A
  • the pattern of activity across functional networks change in response to conditions
  • eg. coffee- visual networks, attentional networks., motor networks, visuo-motor coordination
57
Q

What is the Default Mode Network?
Does the DMN increase or decrease when a person is engaged in a task?
When is the DMN active

A
  • some parts of the brain are active all of the time
  • fMRI shows brain activity when at rest
  • activity in DMN decreases when a person is engaged in a specific task
  • DMN active during mind wandering
  • DMN is vital for sleep, memory and creativity

Psychology 365- Cognitive Psychology (11 decks)

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