Class 14 - Frontal Lobe

Question 1

What are the divisions of the prefrontal cortex?

Answer 1

Dorsolateral prefrontal, orbito frontal and medial frontal cortices

Question 2

Where does the prefrontal cortex receive its input?

Answer 2

Dorsomedial nucleus of the thalamus

Question 3

Where does the motor cortex project to?

Answer 3

Spinal motor neurons, cranial nerves, basal ganglia and red nucleus

Question 4

Where does the premotor cortex project to?

Answer 4

spine, motor cortex

Question 5

Where does the premotor cortex receive projections from?

Answer 5

PE and PF parietal areas, dorsolateral prefrontal area

Question 6

Where does the eye fields receive projections form?

Answer 6

PG and superior colliculus

Question 7

Where is the dorsolateral prefrontal area connected to?

Answer 7

Posterior parietal, STS, cingulate cortex, basal ganglia, superior colliculus, tegmentum

Question 8

Where is the orbital frontal cortex connected to?

Answer 8

Receives from temporal lobe, amygdala, gustatory cortex, somatosensory cortex, olfactory cortex, dopaminergic cells in tegmentum
Projects to hypothalamus and amygdala

Question 9

Is the prefrontal cortex a major convergence zone?

Answer 9

Yes. Emotion, auditory, somatosensory, visual, memory/learning and motor

Question 10

What are the two main functions of the frontal lobe?

Answer 10

Goal-directed behaviour and executive functions (planning, adaptation, ignoring distractions, contextual cues)

Question 11

What are the main functions of the premotor cortex?

Answer 11

Selecting movements to be executed or choosing behaviour in response to external cues

Question 12

What are types of multiple cues the prefrontal cortex can respond to?

Answer 12

Internal (working memory, dorsolateral frontal)
External (feedback about rewarding stimuli, orbital frontal cortex)
Context (regulation of external reactions, orbital and ventromedial frontal)
Autonoetic awareness (self-knowledge, ventromedial frontal cortex)

Question 13

What are the three categories towards doing a complex executive task?

Answer 13

Shifting, updating (working memory), inhibition

Question 14

What is the difference between hot and cold executive functions?

Answer 14

Cold = only cognition (IQ)
Hot = emotion and social interaction (EQ)

Question 15

What are the five frontal cortical circuits?

Answer 15

Motor (Motor, oculomotor)

Cognitive (dorsolateral, orbitofrontal, anterior cingulate circuits)

Question 16

What does the rostral prefrontal cortex do?

Answer 16

Metacognition (integration of everything in the frontal lobe)

Question 17

What does the superior medial circuit do?

Answer 17

Energization

Question 18

What is the left frontal lobe better at?

Answer 18

Language and encoding memories

Question 19

What is the right frontal lobe better at?

Answer 19

Non verbal movements, facial expresion and retrieving memories

Question 20

What has less asymmetry, the posterior or anterior frontal lobe?

Answer 20

Posterior

Question 21

Why are bilateral lesions usually required to constrain frontal function?

Answer 21

There is less asymmetry in the frontal lobe. In other words, frontal love function is hetergeneous

Question 22

What can visual search tasks figure out?

Answer 22

The systematic order that they search for things in a picture of random shapes. Can also test visuospatial function and attention

Question 23

What does the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test do? How does it work?

Answer 23

Tests for response inhibition if they cannot shift to a different concept, or sort randomly.
They have to sort cards, and then figure out the sorting criteria. Then you change the sorting criteria. They then need to shift to a different concept.

Question 24

Does the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test only diagnose frontal lesions?

Answer 24

No, there are other lesions that could impair this task - e.g. ventral recognition stream

Question 25

What is the Stroop test?

Answer 25

Read out the color of the word when the word says a different color. Diagnoses response inhibition

Question 26

What does the tower of London test for?

Answer 26

Mainly planning but also some working memory

Question 27

What does the Iowa Gambling task do?

Answer 27

Assess for “hot” executive functions. There are small rewards and small penalties. There are large rewards and large penalties. The best thing to do is choose small rewards. However, impaired people tend to pick the high risk high reward cards.

Question 28

What can frontal lobe patients do with tinker toys

Answer 28

Make shitty underdeveloped creations

Question 29

What is prefrontal lobotomy?

Answer 29

Ablation of the prefrontal cortex. Initially for psychosis