dissociations and FMRI(L1) - matt roser Flashcards
what do patient studies provide?
provides a major source of knowledge about brain and mind, can tell a lot about trauma, stroke, tumour, epilepsy.
what are some neuropsycholgocial deficits?
agnosia
aphasia
apraxia
amnesia
ataxia
what is agnosia?
loss of ability to recognize objects, people, sounds, shapes, or smells; that is, the inability to attach appropriate meaning to objective sense-data (“The man who mistook his wife for a hat”)
what is aphasia?
general term relating to a loss of language ability
what is apraxia?
a general term for disorders of action
what is amnesia?
lack of mnemonic abilities
what is prosopagnosia?
faceblindness
why is behavioural testing useful?
existence of selective deficits tell us about the way function is organised in the brain
what are the goals of behavioural testing?
the goals are to relate brain anatomy to behaviour and to investigate mental processes
what do the behavioural tests aim to do?
tell us what functions are compromised and spared
what is the sagital section?
front to back of brain
what is the coronal section?
left to right view of the brain
what is the lateral section?
top and bottom of the brain
how can cognitive functions be dissociated?
through selective impairment
-same for brain regions
what do dissociation studies require?
require a minimum of two groups and two tasks
-the comparison between groups show deficits
what is the main function of dissociation studies?
determine whether a deficit is specific to a particular function or reflects a more general impairment
what are brodmann areas?
pre central gyrus, primary motor area - area 4
inferior frontal gyrus, brocas area - area 44
what happens in single dissociation studies?
- two conditions: temporal lobe and controls
-measured declarative and non declarative memory
-found that in a single dissociation study that temporal lobes are involved in declarative memory
what are limitations of single dissociations?
-possible that poor performance was caused by another factor such as deficit in concentration - the test of declarative memory required more concentration than our test of non declarative memory
what happens in double dissociation studies?
two regions of the brain are monitored as well as a control condition
-found that temporal lobes involved in declarative memory and cerebellum involved in nondeclarative memory
why are studies of double dissociations good?
-provide strong evidence that there are cognitive processes critical for task x and not y, vice versa
-evidence that observed differences in performance reflect functional differences between the groups
what did Gazzaniga et al, find?
-hypothetical results showing single and double dissociations between cognitive processes
-temporal love in signal dissociation 90% correct in recency and 70% familiarity memory and the frontal lobe is better at familiarity memory than recency memory
what are limitations of patient studies?
modularity is assumed
lesions are extensive and varied
lesion anatomy inaccurate, as connections not considered
poor temporal resolution
who proposed phrenology and what is it?
Sir Franz Joseph Gall
-created the phrenomotor to measure and create maps of faculties within the brain
what is the modularity of function?
assumes that mental processes occur with a high degree of isolation from other mental processes and when one area is damaged other regions do not adapt their function
-brain plasticity and neglects dynamics
what is brain plasticity?
intact regions in the brain change their behaviour so it is difficult to infer function of damaged region
what is meant by lesions are extensive and varied?
-patients who are studied often have large lesions -> often damage to several functions centres, less patients with pure deficits
-lesion size and location variable, hard to find a group of similar patients and inferences from individuals are weak
what is meant by the lesions anatomy innacurate?
Anatomical scans show regions that are destroyed, but intact regions may not be functioning
Regions may be disconnected from other regions that provide input
what is meant by individual differences in functional anatomy?
We assume that an anatomical region of the brain does the same function in all individuals
Clearly violated assumption – e.g. Wada test indicates left hemisphere predominates in language processing in most, but not all, individuals
what is meant by poor temporal resolution and experimental control?
- not possible to infer the stages of processing
-A memory deficit may arise from a failure of encoding, retention or recall
-There is no experimental control over lesion location, but animal studies using experimental ablation can provide this
what are benefits of patient studies?
-show which areas are necessary for particular cognitive function -> double dissociation
-show cognitive, emotional and social consequences of a deficit
-cost & time effective
why can’t speech be localised in the broca’s area?
-damage is not limited by functional boundaries
-lesion might be smaller than functional module
-interindividual differences in brain organization
result might reflect increased vulnerability of region to injury (e.g. because of vasculature)
-Area might just be interconnected with the actually relevant area
what are lesion studies?
-observing lesion maps of those with lesions to explain differences In abilities
why are control groups important in lesion studies?
-so we can control for the effect of RH damage caused by blood supply, and contrast across the factor of Visual Field Deficits presence
what does FMRI stand for?
functional magnetic resonance imaging
what do the darker parts in FMRI scans represent?
historically showed brain structure and brain function
what is Magnetic Resonance Imaging Physics (MRI)?
Uses a magnetic field (Bo) and radio energy to produce an image
A large magnet (50,000 x Earth) aligns nuclei that have a net magnetic moment (from odd number of protons/neutrons) e.g. H2O
Nuclei absorb and re-emit radio frequency energy
how are MRI images acquired?
nuclei spin around the magnetic field
RF pulse (oscillating magnetic field) tips M out of alignment with Bo and synchronises the phase of spins
M gradually returns to alignment and spins lose phase coherence -> change detected as MRI signal
what is mapping lesions?
extension of mapping structure to function using the lesion maps to make complex patterns of Data intelligible
how is normal variability in structure mapped?
-second order structures like sulcal asymmetry
-colour coded maps for statistical significance of gyro/sulcal variability
-large numbers of neurologically normal participants
what is the basis of FMRI?
Blood Oxygen Level Dependent response
what is the BOLD response?
- levels of de/oxyhaemoglobin change from regional cortical activity
Momentary decrease in blood oxygenation immediately after neural activity increases, known as the “initial dip” in the haemodynamic response function (HRF).
- blood flow increases to a level which overcompensates for the increased demand. Regional blood oxygenation actually increases following neural activation.
The blood flow peaks after around 6 seconds and then falls back to baseline, often accompanied by a “post-stimulus undershoot”.
De/oxyhaemoglobin have different magnetic properties
Local field strength is affected by relative levels
This affects the local signal in the image.
Increased signal is obtained from ‘active’ regions.
what composes of experimental logic?
-cognitive subtraction originated with reaction time experiments
-measures the time for a process to occur by comparing two reaction times,
-given tasks
-what is the assumption of pure insertion- can insert a component process into a task w/o disrupting the other components but task difficulty may differ between conditions
how does block design fmri be experimented with?
-tasks are given with a rest in between of 30 seconds