Cognition

Question 1

What might cause visual agnosia?

Answer 1

Lesions to the temporal lobe (the “what” pathway)/ventral occipital lobe

Question 2

How is visual input converted to object identity?

Answer 2

Retinotopy is greater in V1 and progressively, more visual input if represented by a neuron leading to a full picture of object identity

Question 3

What is it called when you can’t recognize someone by their face?

What usually causes this?

Answer 3

Prosopagnosia

The right fusiform face area is damaged

Question 4

Describe how cognition is lateralized

Answer 4

Dominant hemisphere = speech/language

Non-dominant hemisphere = music/spatial perception/recognition of faces

Question 5

What is Balint’s Syndrome? What causes it? What are the symptoms?

Answer 5

An impairment in spatial cognition

Caused by bilateral lesions in the parietal lobes (results in bilateral deficits)

Symptoms:

• Optic ataxia (difficulty coordinating eye movements to engage visual targets)
• Ocular apraxia (difficulty doing reaching movements with arm contralateral to the lesion)
• Simultagnosia: inability to perceive multiple objects at the same time

Question 6

Damage to where can cause left neglect?

Answer 6

The posterior right parietal lobe

Question 7

What is alexia? What can cause alexia?

Answer 7

Word-blindness or inability to read - can still recognize words spelled aloud because it’s a visual perceptual issue

Stroke in PCA

Question 8

What are some symptoms of dysexecutive syndrome?

Answer 8

Lack of inhibition, including utilization behaviour and difficulty on stroop test

Perseveration: inability to switch rules (seen on Wisconsin card sort test)

Emotional shallowness

Impaired working memory

Difficulty planning multiple steps

Question 9

What is hypothesized to cause the positive symptoms of Schizophrenia?

Answer 9

Overactivation of dopaminergic synapses in nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex

Question 10

List some of the structural differences in the brain of a person with Schizophrenia

Answer 10

Enlarged lateral ventricles
Increased size of caudate, putamen and GP
Decreased size of hippocampus, nucleus accumbens, amygdala and thalamus

Question 11

How does Huntington’s disease progress?

Answer 11

Usually starts with mild personality changes in ages 30-40 and progresses to severe dementia with chorea

Question 12

What is the difference between Frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s?

Answer 12

Frontotemporal dementia starts at a younger age
Does not involve amyloid plaques
Because it affects the frontal/temporal regions, it results in difficulty maintaining normal social interactions/inhibition