Chapter 6: The Neuroscience Approach Flashcards
What is Neuroscience?
Neuroscience is the study of the nervous system anatomy and physiology. It is concerned with both the structure and the functions of the brain.
What are three categories of methods we use to collect data in Neuroscience?
- Investigation of brain damage
- Recording brain activity
- Direct stimulation of the brain itself
What are case study and lesion study methods?
Techniques to examine brain damage. Case study is examination of brain damage as a result of an accident, while lesion study is examination of brain damage as a result of lesion (deliberate wound or injury in brain tissues)
What does it mean that areas of the brain are Interdependent?
It means that the effects of damage to one area could have a variety of functional interpretations
What is Single-Cell recording?
A brain recording technique where a single neuron’s electrical activity is measured via a microelectrode
What is Multiple-Unit recording?
A brain recording technique where a group of neurons’ collective electrical activity is measured via a electrode
What is an Electroencephalogram (EEG)?
It is a recording of brain’s electrical activity. EEG output is in the form of wave patterns.
What are Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)?
Resulting waves that are recorded in an EEG as a response to the subject’s experience of a particular event
What are three main Brain Mapping Procedures?
- Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT)
- Positron Emission Tomography (PET)
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
What is, in short, Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT)?
An imaging procedure where an X-ray scan yields an image of a single cross section of the brain.
(downside: doesn’t have fine temporal resolution)
What is, in short, Positron Emission Tomography (PET)?
An imaging procedure where a scan measures blood flow in the brain while a participant is carrying out a cognitive task. This is accomplished by the use of radioactive isotopes (tracers) attached to carrier molecules such as glucose or oxygen.
(downside: radioactive risks)
What is, in short, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
MRI creates detailed 2D or 3D images of the brain using a magnetic field and radio waves.
fMRI scans detect alterations in local blood flow and oxygen level.
(current preferred method as it provides better spatial resolution and there are no radioactivity risks)
What are neurons and what is their purpose?
Neurons are the microscopic basis of the brain and they conduct a message in the form of an electrical impulse
What are Dendrites?
Feathery projections of neurons where messages are received from
What are Neurotransmiters?
Molecules that transmit signals across the synapses
How do Sagittal, Horizontal and Coronal planes “divide” the brain?
Sagittal: vertically into right and left halves
Horizontal: horizontally into dorsal and ventral
Coronal: vertically into anterior and posterior
(see image: https://tinyurl.com/y7st5vc8)
What is the Corpus Callosum?
Connecting fibers that transfer information between the right and left hemisphere
What is the brain tissue made up from?
Nuclei; Collections of cell bodies and tracts. Tracts are collections of nerve cell axons
What is Frontal Lobe mainly responsible for?
Problem solving and language production
What is the Temporal Lobe mainly responsible for?
Auditory processing
Pattern recognition
Language comprehension
What is the Parietal Lobe mainly responsible for?
Attention
Spatial processing
Somatosensory processing
What is the Occipital Lobe mainly responsible for?
Extensive processing of information
What is the Primary Motor Cortex mainly responsible for?
Activation of different muscle groups
What is the Primary Somatosensory Cortex mainly responsible for?
Somatosensory processing (works like a topological body map)
What is a Visual Agnosia?
Inability to recognize a visual object
What is the difference between Apperceptive Agnosia and Associative Agnosia?
Apperceptive Agnosia is the inability to assemble features of an object into a whole, while Associative Agnosia is the inability to assign a name or label to a recognizable whole
What is Perceptual Categorization Deficit?
Inability to recognize an object that has undergone a transformation such as change in perspective
What is Prosopagnosia?
The inability to recognize faces and tell them apart
What is Specificity Coding?
A coding in which activity in a single neuron represents an object or feature.
What is Distributed Coding?
A representation (i.e. a face) formed by a specific pattern of activation among a group of cells
What is Fusiform Face Area (FFA)?
A region of the brain located in the fusiform gyrus that appears to be dedicated to the processing of face information
What are the six distinct structures that underlie attentional effects and what is their role?
- Reticular Activating System (RAS)
(controls brain’s arousal) - Superior Colliculus
(shifts visual attention) - Thalamus
(determines how much information will be forwarded to the cortex) - Intraparietal Sulcus in Parietal Lobe
(allocates attentional resources to different tasks) - Cingulate Cortex
(selects an appropriate response) - Frontal Lobe (selection of motor responses and others…)
What is the Equipotentiality Principle?
According to Equipotentiality Principle, all parts of the brain participate in memory storage
What is learning?
Learning is an alteration in the nervous system that provokes a change in the organism’s behavior.
What is essential in the brain for learning processes?
Synaptic Plasticity. (capacity for change in the structure or biochemistry of a synapse)
What is the Hebb rule?
It states that if two connected neurons are active simultaneously, the synapse between them will become strengthened
What is Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)?
It is the enduring facilitation of synaptic transmission that occurs following activation of a synapse by intense high frequency stimulation
What is Consolidation in memory?
The process in which information is transferred from working memory to long term memory
What are Anterograde Amnesia and Retrograde Amnesia?
Inability to retain new information following and prior to a traumatic event respectively. Both type of amnesias are associated with hippocampus damage
What is the role of the hippocampus?
It processes recent information that has received from the cortex and sends it back so that it can be stored for a permanent use
Are areas used for storage and rehearsal of verbal information in working memory united or separate anatomically?
Separate (according to Smith, Jonides and Koeppe 1996)
Which brain areas are responsible for declarative memory consolidation?
Hippocampus is responsible for episodic memory while the Limbic Cortex is responsible for semantic memory
Is procedural memory dependent on the Hippocampus?
No. The Basal Ganglia play the most critical role in skill learning (procedural memory)
What is Executive Dysfunction?
Frontal Lobe damage that diminishes capacity to perform goal-directed behaviors
What is Environmental Dependency Syndrome?
A phenomenon in which a stimulus in the environment triggers an automatic behavior
(the person often lacks personal autonomy)
What is Sequencing
It is the sequential ordering of actions that is necessary in problem solving
What are Automatic Attentional Processes?
Processes that occur when one is experiencing familiar situations. They do not require conscious control since they are triggered by environmental stimuli
What are Controlled Attentional Processes?
Processes that are operational when one responds to novel situations for which there is no prior learned reaction. They require conscious control
What are Action Schemas?
Structures that control automatic attentional processes
What are two categories of Action Schemas according to Norman and Shallice?
- Contention Scheduling (used in habitual performances)
2. Supervisory Attentional System (SAS) (used for non-routine actions)
What are Capture Errors in problem solving?
The failure to suppress or turn off inappropriate schemas that might be triggered inadvertently
What are the levels of the three-tiered hierarchy of attentional systems according to Stuss and Benson?
- Automatic System (posterior brain areas; makes associations between sensory representations and other representations)
- Supervisory System (frontal lobe; runs executive processes and is used in problem-solving)
- Metacognitive System (prefrontal cortex; monitors, regulates any aspect of cognition; it includes planning, resource allocation etc.)
What is an engram
A physical change in a part of the brain that is associated with learning
What is psychological inertia?
A behavioural deficit where patients cannot stop an action once they started it.
