Executive Control Flashcards
Where is the prefrontal cortex?
anterior of arcuate sulcus
What is true about motor areas moving towards prefrontal cortex?
They’re agranular
What is true about the prefrontal cortex layers?
They include a granular layer
What are the two ways of describing people with prefrontal cortex damage?
Pseudo-psychopathic and pseudo-depressive (not a strict dichotomy)
Both sorts are described as no longer themselves
What is a luchotomy?
Separates frontal lobe from the rest of the brain. This is really what a lobotomy is.
What else besides personality change happened to people with luchotomies?
They had cognitive difficulties like trouble learning new things and getting distracted when they should be on task.
What is characteristic of pseudodepressive?
Apathy, flat affect, lack of drive, dorsolateral damage
What is characteristic of pseudopsychopathic?
Social disinhibition, impulsiveness, inappropriate facetiousness (witzelsucht), orbitofrontal damage
What are some impairments of executive control?
Inefficiency
Rule-breaking
Perseveration
Capriciousness (abandoning an approach although it is working)
Vacancy (poverty or lack of fluency of thought or speech)
Environmental dependence (habitual responses)
Poor reflex suppression
What was found through the six element task?
Frontal lobe patients distributed their time less efficiency.
What is the Wisconsin card sort test?
4 cards that differ on three dimensions and they have to decide the rule to choose the right card even though the rules change
What happens to dorsolateral prefrontal patients on the Wisconsin card sort task?
They perseverate old rules even when they can verbalize that its not working.
What happens to prefrontal damage patients on the Brixton test?
They show capriciousness. The Brixton test shows a colored in dot and people have to decide where the circle will be on the next page. They also select options that don’t fit any rule
What happens to prefrontal damage patients on the word fluency task?
They come up with fewer words and break more of the rules of the task. Shows vacancy
What is Dynamic Aphasia
Not anomia or classic aphasia. It involves damage immediately in front of Broca’s area.
The patient struggles to create sentences when a picture does not contain all of the information needed to form the sentence or already tell the explicit story.
Concreteness
