Cognition Flashcards
Cognitive domains and which lobes are responsible (5)
memory (temporal/frontal), executive function (frontal), attention (frontal/parietal), visuospacial (parietal), language (frontal/temporal)
4 main regions of parietal lobe
post central gyrus, superior parietal lobule, supramarginal gyrus, angular gyrus
Parietal lobe receives input from
prefrontal cortex, premotor/motor cortex, vestibular regions, sensory regions
parietal lobe functions
-processes/integrates somatosensory/visual info (especially wrt movement)
Gerstmann’s syndrome
left parietal lobe damage (lesion in angular and supramarginal gyri
-can’t write, math, name fingers
right parietal lobe damage
- neglect of contrlateral side of body/space; denial of defect
- can’t recognize faces
Temporal lobe
location, inputs, included structures
- below Sylvian fissure and anterior to occipital cortex
- input from sensory, parietal/frontal lobes, ventral visual stream, limbic, BG
- includes auditory, gustatory, amygdala, limbic, hippocampus
Temporal lobe functions
- primary auditory cortex (auditory processing)
- Wernicke’s area (language comprehension)
- hippocampus/amygdala (learning/memory)
Wernicke’s Aphasia
- lesion in superior temporal gyrus
- speech comprehension impaired
- word salad
4 types/durations of memory
sensory, working, short term, long term
stages in formation/retrieval of memories
encoding (processing/combining new info)
storage (creating permanent record)
recall (calling back or recognition)
Hippocampus main function
- consolodates memories
- ‘librarian of memories’
- critical for explicit memory
Hippocampus
location
- curved sheet of cortex in medial temporal
- from amygdala to splenium of corpus collosum
3 subdivisions of hippocampus
dentate gyrus, subiculum, cornu ammonis (CA) subfields
Entorhinal Cortex (EC)
- main input to hippocampus and target of hippocampal output
- inputs from many other structures
Amygdala
location, inputs, outputs, functions
- at anterior end of hippocampus
- input from somatosensory, visual, auditory, visceral (esp. olfactory)
- efferent to cerebral cortex and hypothalamus
- emotional, visual, olfactory memory formation
Frontal lobe location/regions
- 20% of neocortex
- all cortical tissue anterior to central sulcus
- motor, premotor, prefrontal regions
primary motor cortex
controls contralateral side of body
motor homunculus
voluntary skilled movements
Broca’s Aphasia
- lesion in broca’s area (LHS)
- inability to speak fluently
prefrontal cortex function
-planning/organizing, selective attention, problem solving, initiating, self monitoring, abstract thinking
occipital lobe
location, function
- posterior pole of cerebral hemisphere
- parieto-occipital sulcus separates from these lobes
- visual processing center
- Brodmann area 17, V1 primary visual cortex
Akinetopsia
inability to perceive motion
occipital lobe dysfunction
Occipital lobe dysfunctions (2)
- Visual agnosia (inability to recognize an object)
- prosopagnosia (inability to recognize a face)
Two areas of language
Brocas: production
Wernicke’s: comprehension
Wernke-geshwind model (neural basis of language)
- comprehension (primary auditory cortex/Heschl’s gyrus) to wernicke’s area
- Production: broca’s area to facial area of motor cortex
- Reading: visual areas 17-19 to angular gyrus (Wernicke’s area), reading out loud to broca’s
Wada test
anesthetic injected into half of brain to test which side language ability is on
