Cognition

Question 1

What areas comprise the association cortex?

Answer 1

Primary motor
Primary sensory
Primary visual
Primary auditory
Primary olfactory and taste

Question 2

Why is the association cortex necessary?

Answer 2

Produces meaningful perceptual experience of the world
Enable us to interact effectively
Support abstract thinking and language

Question 3

What is the role of the parietal, temporal and occipital lobes in the cortex?

Answer 3

Integrate sensory information as well as information stored in memory.

Question 4

What is the role of the association cortex?

Answer 4

Responsible for complex processing that occurs between the arrival of input in the primary sensory cortices and the generation of behaviour

Question 5

What do inputs include in the association cortex?

Answer 5

Projections from the primary and secondary sensory and motor cortices, the thalamus, and the brainstem.

Question 6

Where do outputs reach in the association cortex?

Answer 6

Hippocampus, the basal ganglia and cerebellum, and the thalamus

Question 7

Describe multisensory integration

Answer 7

Neural and functional systems must combine information from the different sense to achieve a unified conscious experience.

Question 8

What is the binding problem?

Answer 8

How the brain unites varied sensory and motor events into a unified perception or behaviour. How the brain represents the pairing of two or more sensory inputs.

Question 9

What is the neural basis of attention in the frontal lobe?

Answer 9

People with frontal lobe injuries have difficulty disengaging attention from environmental and/or irrelevant stimuli

Question 10

Describe the neural basis of ADHD

Answer 10

General reduction of volume in some cortical structures. A greater decrease in the volume in the left-sided prefrontal cortex.

Question 11

What is the neural basis of attention in the parietal lobe?

Answer 11

Parietal & frontal lobes are associated with attention in contralateral space (internally, eye movements, head turns, limb reaches).

Question 12

Describe the neural basis of left neglect

Answer 12

Occurs following damage to right parietal
Left side of sensory space non existent, inattentive to left side (ignore eating, washing on that side, can bump into doors, objects).

Question 13

What is extinction in left neglect?

Answer 13

Inability to perceive multiple stimuli of the same type simultaneously. (e.g. presentation of two forks, patient reports only one fork).
Intact visual fields, reflects an attentional deficit.

Question 14

What is planning

Answer 14

An executive function involving the formulation, evaluation and selection of a sequence of thoughts and actions to achieve a desired goal.

Question 15

What role does the frontal lobe have in planning?

Answer 15

Coordinates all task components and neural activity. Creates and executes a plan of behaviour in time and space. Patients with frontal lobe injuries are unable to organise their behaviour.

Question 16

What is the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task?

Answer 16

Grant and Berg

Cards are presented and patient is asked to match the cards (not told how to match but is told if a match is wrong).

Question 17

What does the WCST indicate about the frontal lobe?

Answer 17

People with intact frontal lobes may sort on a basis of colour and then change to form or number
People with frontal lobe damage will keep matching in accord with original rule (perseveration).

Question 18

What is the mirror neuron theory?

Answer 18

In all communication, there must be common understanding. Producing and perceiving a message must share a common representation in the brains of the speaker and listener.

Question 19

What does the macaque monkeys study indicate about mirror neurons?

Answer 19

Some neurons responded not only when a subject performed a given action, but also when the subject observed someone else performing that same action.

Question 20

What are mirror neurons?

Answer 20

A neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another.

Question 21

What do fMRI studies indicate about mirror neurons?

Answer 21

The human inferior frontal cortex and superior parietal lobe are active when a person performs an action and when that person sees another individual performing an action.

Question 22

What is the link between mirror neurons and understanding meaning?

Answer 22

Mirror neurons provide the link between the speaker and listener during communication. People may recognise actions of others because they yield similar neural activation when they perform those actions.

Question 23

What were Kimura’s (1967) discoveries about the normal brain?

Answer 23

Normal participants recall more digits presented to the right ear than the left (access to left hemisphere)
Normal participants recall music played to left ear than right ear (access to right hemisphere)

Question 24

What is cerebral asymmetry?

Answer 24

Left hemisphere excels at language, right hemisphere is specialised for spatial skills, specifically controlling movements in space.

Question 25

What is the difference between sex in cognition?

Answer 25

Women have stronger verbal fluency whereas men have stronger spatial reasoning.

Question 26

What is the difference in volume between men and women?

Answer 26

Women have greater volume in the prefrontal and medial paralimbic systems whereas men have greater volume in the medial/orbital frontal and angular gyrus.

Question 27

What is the difference between men and women in grey matter?

Answer 27

Women have increased cortical grey-matter concentration across the cerebral cortex compared to men.

Question 28

What are some neuronal differences between the sexes?

Answer 28

Medial frontal cortex has more dendritic fields in male rates (greater number of synapses)
Orbito frontal region has more dendritic fields in female rats