Chapter 3 - Physiology of the mind

Question 1

who discovered white and grey matter

Answer 1

Thomas Willis

Question 2

what did Franz Joseph Gall discover

Answer 2

• commisures
• white matter runs from one side of the brain to the other side of the spinal chord
• intelligence correlates with brain size (seems to be true between species, but not within)
• cortex of the brain
• the cerebellum (he thought it predicted amativeness and sexual desire)

Question 3

commissures

Answer 3

bundles of white matter connecting the 2 sides of the brain
- discovered by Franz Joseph Gall

Question 4

phrenology

Answer 4

Gall claimed that you are able to determine a person’s intelligence by examining the shape and size of their skull

Question 5

physiognomy

Answer 5

assessing a person’s character or personality traits based on their facial features, expressions, and overall appearance

Question 6

Pierre Flourens

Answer 6

stood in contrast to Gall and did not believe in phrenology
- used ablation techniques and other scientific experiments to refute phrenology

Question 7

ablation techniques

Answer 7

surgically removing small parts in the brain and observing the changes in behavior

Question 8

Flourens’ ablation studies

Answer 8

he removed the cerebellum of a dog and observed the dogs behavior
- found that the dog could now only walk zigzag but his intellectual faculties and senses remained intact
- concluded that the cerebellum is responsible for locomotion

also studied the cortex using ablation

Question 9

Jean Baptiste Bouillaud

Answer 9

dealt with speech disorders and localization of language

Question 10

Ernest Aubertin

Answer 10

Bouillaud’s son-in-law who found a patient with symptoms consistent with Bouillaud’s theory

Question 11

Paul Broca

Answer 11

a chief surgeoun in a Paris hospital
- performed a brain autopsy on patient Tan and found brain damage of the left frontal lobe
- he was able to locate the specific area that causes speech disorder
- Broca’s area
- the speech order is called motor aphasia (able to understand speech but cannot talk)

Question 12

Carl Wernicke

Answer 12

found sensory aphasia (Wernicke’s area)
- can produce speech but in an impaired manner

Question 13

conduction aphasia

Answer 13

one can speak and understand language, but cannot repeat phrases

Question 14

Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig

Answer 14

discovered that stimulation of specific points in an area (the motor strip) results in specific movements on the opposite side of the body
- did this by surgically exposing a dog’s cortex and applying mild electrical stimulation

Question 15

David Ferrier

Answer 15

• discovered that the occipital cortex of the brain contained a visual area
• discovered an auditory area in the temporal lobe and the sensory strip behind the motor strip
• ablation of the sensory strip resulted in a loss of sensitivity in parts of the body

Question 16

Wilder Penfield

Answer 16

used brain stimulation in order to study the brain
- when he stimulated the temporal lobe (interpretive cortex), 2 responses were elicited
- interpretative responses: with specific emotional attitudes
- experiential responses: either hallucinatory dreams or flashbacks of past experiences

Question 17

Shepherd Franz and Karl Lashley

Answer 17

• studied cats with the use of ablation
• later studied rats’ ability to solve a maze after ablation
• Lashley later conducted a larger and more systematic study on rats and memories

Question 18

Lashley’s findings

Answer 18

• equipotentiality: memories are evenly distributed across the cortex
• law of mass action: if the damage to the brain is too great, all cells lose their function of memory

Question 19

redundancy hypothesis

Answer 19

each individual memory is stored in multiple places, and when a part of the brain is damaged, it can be taken over by other areas

Question 20

Milner and Penfield

Answer 20

researched the hippocampus
- patient HM

Question 21

corpus callosum

Answer 21

the brain bar connecting the left and right hemispheres
- when cut a patient is split brained

Question 22

Scoville

Answer 22

destroyed parts of HM’s hippocampus in hopes to remove his epilepsy
- HM’s epilepsy diminished
- however he lost his LTM and was not able to learn anything new

Question 23

declarative memory

Answer 23

being able to consciously experience or recall stored knowledge

Question 24

procedural memory

Answer 24

someone can learn new skills

Question 25

tomography

Answer 25

dividing the brain into sections and then mapping them