Cognitive neuroscience: week 2 Flashcards
Field concerned with studying the neural basis of cognition
Cognitive neuroscience
A topic can be understood by studying it at a number of different levels of a system.
Levels of analysis
A network of continuously interconnected nerve fibers (as contrasted with neural networks, in which fibers are connected by synapses).
Nerve net
The idea that individual cells called neurons transmit signals in the nervous system, and that these cells are not continuous with other cells as proposed by nerve net theory.
neuron doctrine
Part of a cell that contains mechanisms that keep the cell alive. In some neurons, the cell body and the dendrites associated with it receive information from other neurons.
Cell body
Structures that branch out from the cell body to receive electrical signals from other neurons.
Dendrites
Part of the neuron that transmits signals from the cell body to the synapse at the end of the axon.
Axons
Space between the end of an axon and the cell body or dendrite of the next axon.
Synapse
Group of interconnected neurons that are responsible for neural processing.
Neural circuits
Specialized neural structures that respond to environmental stimuli such as light, mechanical stimulation, or chemical stimuli.
Receptors
Whos idea of individual neurons that communicate with other neurons to form neural circuits was an enormous leap forward in the understanding of how the nervous system operates.
Cajal’s
In the 1920s, ____ was able to record electrical signals from single sensory neurons, an achievement for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1932
Edgar Adrian
Small wires that are used to record electrical signals from single neurons.
mocroelectrodes
Difference in charge between the inside and outside of a nerve fiber when the fiber is at rest (no other electrical signals are present).
resting potential
An electrical response that is propagated down the length of an axon (nerve fiber). Also called an Action potential.
Nerve impulse.
Propagated electrical potential responsible for transmitting neural information and for communication between neurons. Action potentials typically travel down a neuron’s axon.
Action potential
Chemical that is released at the synapse in response to incoming action potentials.
neurotransmitter
Rate of neural firing is related to the intensity of___
Stimulation.
Everything a person experiences is based on representations in the person’s nervous system
principle of neural representation
the idea of neurons that respond to specific qualities was brought to the forefront by a series of papers by ____________, which would win them the Nobel Prize in 1981.
David Hubel and Thorsten Wiesel,
Neurons that respond to specific visual features, such as orientation, size, or the more complex features that make up environmental stimuli.
feature detectors
A mechanism that causes an organism’s neurons to develop so they respond best to the type of stimulation to which the organism has been exposed.
experience-dependent plasticity
Area in the occipital lobe that receives signals from the eyes.
visual cortex
The lobe on the side of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for language, memory, hearing, and vision.
temporal lobe
Processing that occurs in a progression from lower to higher areas of the brain.
hierarchical processing
How neural firing represents various characteristics of the environment.
sensory code
The representation of a specific stimulus by the firing of neurons that respond only to that stimulus. An example would be the signaling of a person’s face by the firing of a neuron that responds only to that person’s face.
specificity coding
Neural representation of a stimulus by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons.
Population coding.
Neural coding based on the pattern of activity in small groups of neurons.
sparse coding.
Location of specific functions in specific areas of the brain. For example, areas have been identified that are specialized to process information involved in the perception of movement, form, speech, and different aspects of memory.
localization of function
The 3-mm-thick outer layer of the brain that contains the mechanisms responsible for higher mental functions such as perception, language, thinking, and problem solving.
cerebral cortex
the study of the behavior of people with brain damage.
neuropsychology
The idea, popular in the early 1800s, that the brain operates as an indivisible whole, as opposed to operating based on specialized areas.
cortical equipotentiality
An area in the frontal lobe associated with the production of language. Damage to this area causes Broca’s aphasia.
Broca’s area
A condition associated with damage to Broca’s area, in the frontal lobe, characterized by labored ungrammatical speech and difficulty in understanding some types of sentences.
Broca’s aphasia
Area in the temporal lobe associated with understanding language. Damage to this area causes Wernicke’s aphasia.
Wernicke’s area
A condition, caused by damage to Wernicke’s area, that is characterized by difficulty in understanding language, and fluent, grammatically correct, but incoherent speech.
Wernicke’s aphasia
The lobe at the back of the brain that is devoted primarily to analyzing incoming visual information.
Occipital lobe
receives signals from the skin and is responsible for perceptions of touch, pressure and pain.
somatosensory cortex
receives signals from the ears and is responsible for hearing.
The auditory cortex
Where is the auditory cortex located
Upper temporal lobe
Where is the somatosensory cortex located
in the Parietal lobe.
The lobe at the top of the brain that contains mechanisms responsible for sensations caused by stimulation of the skin and also some aspects of visual information.
parietal lobe
The lobe in the front of the brain that serves higher functions such as language, thought, memory, and motor functioning.
frontal lobe
Condition caused by damage to the temporal lobe that is characterized by an inability to recognize faces.
prosopagnosia
A situation in which a single dissociation can be demonstrated in one person and the opposite type of single dissociation can be demonstrated in another person (i.e., Person 1: function A is present, function B is damaged; Person 2: function A is damaged, function B is present).
double dissociation
Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
A brain imaging technique that measures how blood flow changes in response to cognitive activity.
Small cube-shaped areas in the brain used in the analysis of data from brain scanning experiments.
voxels
The fMRI response that occurs in response to a specific cognitive task.
task-related fMRI
An area in the temporal lobe that contains many neurons that respond selectively to faces.
fusiform face area (FFA)
An area in the temporal lobe that contains neurons that are selectively activated by pictures of indoor and outdoor scenes.
Para hippocampal place area (PPA)
An area in the temporal cortex that is activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies, but not by faces or other objects.
extrastriate body area (EBA)
The multidimensional nature of cognition refers to the fact that even simple experiences involve combinations of different qualities.
multidimensional
Occurs when a specific cognition activates many areas of the brain.
distributed representation
memories for events in a person’s life, like remembering what you did yesterday
Episodic memories
memories for facts, like knowing that the capital of California is Sacramento
Semantic memories
Groups of neurons or structures that are connected together.
Neural networks
There are complex structural pathways called ___ that form the brain’s information highway.
networks
brain’s “wiring diagram” created by nerve axons that connect different brain areas.
Structural connectivity
A technique for determining connectivity in the brain that is based on detection of how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers.
track-weighted imaging (TWI)
structural description of the network of elements and connections forming the human brain” or wiring diagram of neurons in the brain.
connectome
The extent to which the neural activity in separate brain areas is correlated with each other.
functional connectivity
If the responses of two brain areas are correlated with each other, this means that they are?
Functionally connected
The fMRI response recorded when a person is at rest (not involved in any cognitive tasks)
resting-state fMRI
A method for determining functional connectivity that involves determining the correlation between the resting-state fMRI in separated structures.
resting-state functional connectivity
The procedure for measuring resting-state functional connectivity was introduced by
Bharat Biswal and coworkers (1995).
The area of the brain associated with carrying out a specific cognitive or motor task that serves as the reference area the resting-state functional connectivity method.
seed location
The way the fMRI response changes over time.
time-series response
When measuring resting-state functional connectivity, the activity at the test location is compared to the activity at the seed location to determine the degree of functional connectivity between the two locations.
test location
Network of structures that are active when a person is not involved in specific tasks.
default mode network (DMN)
