Domains of Neuropsychology Flashcards
specific major domains of neuropsychology
intelligence, attention/concentration and processing speed, language, visuospatial, memory, executive functions, sensorimotor, emotional/neuropsychiatric
subsumed measures of intelligence
ability to problem solve, think rationally but abstractly, adapt to circumstances, act in a goal-directed manner, reason, learn, comprehend
emotional intelligence
ability to perceive, process, understand, control emotion in oneself and others
theory of mind
ability to make inferences about other people’s intentions, motivations, and emotional states
savantism
rare syndrome in which ppl with ID or ASD have 1 or more specific or narrow remarkable talents that exist in contrast to their intellectual disability
may be congenital or acquired as result of CNS disease/injury
6 times more common in males
most commonly involve exceptional memory, can also involve exceptional calculation, calendar knowledge, artistic, and/or language abilities
attention
process whereby individuals receive and subsequently process incoming information. closely associated with perception, EF, memory, WM
types: simple, focused, selective, sustained, alternating, divided
working memory
form of processing speed (or often executive function) information before it is sent to STM whereby information that is being actively maintained or rehearsed can be retained for up to several minutes
concentration
ability to sustain attention over time or to mentally manipulate information
simple attention
voluntary
capacity
attention to info that’s lost if not referred
digit span, corsi blocks
focused attention
ability to allocate and direct attention that’s dependent on capacity
digit symbol coding
selective attention
process by which one chooses some information from amidst other surrounding information or distractors
cancellation
sustained attention (vigilance/concentration)
maintaining attention over a period of time
CPT
alternating attention
shifting one’s attention back and forth between tasks
TMT-B
divided attention
concentrating on more than 1 task at a time or multiple aspects within a task, referred to as multi-tasking by some in the lay public
PASAT
Posner and Petersen’s (2012) model of attention
divides attention into posterior and anterior networks
posterior: orienting and shifting attention
anterior: detection subsystem (executive attention subsystem) and involves detecting stimuli either from sensory events or from memory
ARAS
ascending reticular activating system
the alerting network of attention
can influence both anterior and posterior networks, operating at high or low levels of arousal
processing speed
speed with which mental activities are performed
prominent feature of brain’s cognitive efficiency, affects attention and other higher-order cognition
dependent on neural transmission and integrity and volume of white matter making up portico-cortical connections
also affected by basal ganglia, frontal (dorsolateral prefrontal), cerebellum
coding and PASAT
how ARAS is relevant to attention
arousal and attention
how anterior cingulate and limbic system is relevant to attention
determines saliency of stimuli and associated emotion/motivation
how prefrontal is relevant to attention
response selection, control, sustained attention, focus, switching, searching, and alternating attention
how orbitofrontal is relevant to attention
inhibition of responses
sustained attention
how dorsolateral frontal is relevant to attention
initiation of responses
sustained attention
shifting attention
how medial frontal is relevant to attention
motivation
contingency of responding
focused attention
how thalamus is relevant to attention
sensory relay between subcortical areas and the cortex
various nuclei play a role in specific attentional focus
pulvinar nuclei: extracting info from the target location and filtering distractions
superior colliculus: shifting attention, eye movements
inferior colliculus: orientation to auditory stimuli
how inferior and posterior parietal are relevant to attention
underlies disengagement from a stimulus and the representation of space
damage is associated with hemispatial inattention/neglect
how right hemisphere is relevant to attention
spatial attention
appreciation of gestalt
associated with hemispatial inattention/neglect
what is the most common type of cognitive impairment following brain injury or illness and why?
attentional difficulties
because white matter tracts and structures subsuming these functions are diffusely represented thru the brain
specific disorders with deficits of attentions
delirium: span and arousal
adhd: executive (self-regulation and sustained
hemispatial inattention (neglect): most commonly associated with lesions in temporal-parietal; usually contralateral; spatial focused and selective attention
TBI: mod-severe TBI leads to issues with arousal, poor attentional capacity, distractibility, executive, processing speed. concussion leads to working memory, attention, processing speed
depression, anxiety, fatigue, sleep, low/poor arousal, environmental factors, medications
4 areas that comprise language competence
phonology
syntax
semantics
pragmatics
brain regions that control language
expressive: anterior
receptive: posterior
both language dominant hemisphere (left mostly, especially for semantics and syntactics and right can deal with prosody)
