Chapter 2 Cognitive Neuroscience Flashcards
Action potential
Propagated electrical potential responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons. Action potentials typically travel down a neuron’s axon.
Axons
Part of the neuron that transmits signals from the cell body to the synapse at the end of the axon.
Brain imaging
Technique such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (f MRI) that results in images of the brain that represent brain activity. In cognitive psychology, activity is measured in response to specific cognitive tasks.
Broca’s aphasia
A condition associated with damage to Broca’s area, in the frontal lobe, characterized by labored ungrammatical speech and difficulty in understanding some types of sentences.
Broca’s area
An area in the frontal lobe associated with the production of language. Damage to this area causes Broca’s aphasia.
Cell body
Part of a cell that contains mechanisms that keep the cell alive. In some neurons, the cell body and the dendrites associated with it receive information from other neurons.
Cerebral cortex
The 3-mm-thick outer layer of the brain that contains the mechanisms responsible for higher mental functions such as perception, language, thinking, and problem solving.
Cognitive neuroscience
Field concerned with studying the neural basis of cognition.
Connectome
“wiring diagram” of neurons in the brain
Cortical equipotentiality
The idea, popular in the early 1800s, that the brain operates as an indivisible whole, as opposed to operating based on specialized areas.
Default mode network (DMN)
Network of structures that are active when a person is not involved in specific tasks.
Dendrites
Structures that branch out from the cell body to receive electrical signals from other neurons.
Distributed representation
Occurs when a specific cognition activates many areas of the brain.
Double dissociation
A situation in which a single dissociation can be demonstrated in one person and the opposite type of single dissociation can be demonstrated in another person (i.e., Person 1: function A is present, function B is damaged; Person 2: function A is damaged, function B is present).
Experience-dependent plasticity
A mechanism that causes an organism’s neurons to develop so they respond best to the type of stimulation to which the organism has been exposed.
Extrastriate body area (EBA)
An area in the temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies, but not by faces or other objects.
Feature detectors
Neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli.
Frontal lobe
The lobe in the front of the brain that serves higher functions such as language, thought, memory, and motor functioning.
Functional connectivity
The extent to which the neural activity in separate brain areas is correlated with each other.
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
A brain imaging technique that measures how blood flow changes in response to cognitive activity.
Fusiform face area (FFA)
An area in the temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces.
Hierarchical processing
Processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain.
Levels of analysis
A topic can be understood by studying it at a number of different levels of a system.
Localization of function
Location of specific functions in specific areas of the brain. For example, areas have been identified that are specialized to process information involved in the perception of movement, form, speech, and different aspects of memory.
Microelectrodes
Small wires that are used to record electrical signals from single neurons.
Multidimensional
The multidimensional nature of cognition refers to the fact that even simple experiences involve combinations of different qualities.
Nerve fibers
See Axon
Nerve impulse
An electrical response that is propagated down the length of an axon (nerve fiber). Also called an Action potential.
Nerve net
A network of continuously interconnected nerve fibers (as contrasted with neural networks, in which fibers are connected by synapses).
Neural circuit
Group of interconnected neurons that are responsible for neural processing.
Neural network
Groups of neurons or structures that are connected together.
Neuron doctrine
The idea that individual cells called neurons transmit signals in the nervous system, and that these cells are not continuous with other cells as proposed by nerve net theory.
Neuron
Cell that is specialized to receive and transmit information in the nervous system.
Neuropsychology
The study of the behavioral effects of brain damage in humans.
Neurotransmitter
Chemical that is released at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials.
Occipital lobe
The lobe at the back of the brain that is devoted primarily to analyzing incoming visual information.
Parahippocampal place area (PPA)
An area in the temporal lobe that contains neurons that are selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes.
Parietal lobe
The lobe at the top of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for sensations caused by stimulation of the skin and also some aspects of visual information.
Population coding
Neural representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons.
Principle of neural representation
Everything a person experiences is based on representations in the person’s nervous system.
Prosopagnosia
Condition caused by damage to the temporal lobe that is characterized by an inability to recognize faces.
Receptors
Specialized neural structures that respond to environmental stimuli such as light, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli.
Recording electrode
When used to study neural functioning, a very thin glass or metal probe that can pick up electrical signals from single neurons.
Reference electrode
Used in conjunction with a recording electrode to measure the difference in charge between the two. Reference electrodes are generally placed where the electrical signal remains constant, so any change in charge between the recording and reference electrodes reflects events happening near the tip of the recording electrode.
Resting-state fMRI
The fMRI response recorded when a person is at rest (not involved in any cognitive tasks)
Resting-state functional connectivity
A method for determining functional connectivity that involves determining the correlation between the resting-state fMRI in separated structures.
Resting potential
Difference in charge between the inside and outside of a nerve fiber when the fiber is at rest (no other electrical signals are present).
Seed location
The area of the brain associated with carrying out a specific cognitive or motor task that serves as the reference area the resting-state functional connectivity method.
Sensory code
How neural firing represents various characteristics of the environment.
Sparse coding
Neural coding based on the pattern of activity in small groups of neurons.
Specificity coding
The representation of a specific stimulus by the firing of neurons that respond only to that stimulus. An example would be the signaling of a person’s face by the firing of a neuron that responds only to that person’s face.
Structural connectivity
Structural connectivity is the brain’s “wiring diagram” created by nerve axons that con-nect different brain areas.
Synapse
Space between the end of an axon and the cell body or dendrite of the next axon.
Task-related fMRI
The fMRI response that occurs in response to a specific cognitive task.
Temporal lobe
The lobe on the side of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for language, memory, hearing, and vision.
Test location
When measuring resting-state functional connectivity, the activity at the test location is compared to the activity at the seed location to determine the degree of functional connectivity between the two locations.
Time-series response
The way the fMRI response changes over time.
Track-weighted imaging (TWI)
A technique for determining connectivity in the brain that is based on detection of how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers.
Visual cortex
Area in the occipital lobe that receives signals from the eyes.
Voxel
Small cube-shaped areas in the brain used in the analysis of data from brain scanning experiments.
Wernicke’s aphasia
A condition, caused by damage to Wernicke’s area, that is characterized by difficulty in understanding language, and fluent, grammatically correct, but incoherent speech.
Wernicke’s area
Area in the temporal lobe associated with understanding language. Damage to this area causes Wernicke’s aphasia.
