Frontal lobe syndromes Flashcards
What are the 3 main brain areas involved in frontal lobe syndromes?
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC)
Lateral prefrontal cortex
Anterior cingulate gyrus
What are the 6 main symptoms of frontal lobe lesions?
Dysexecutive syndrome (cannot plan) Confabulations Disinhibition Persistence of a single behaviour Breaking social rules Emotional instability (mood swings)
Linking frontal lobes to personality, Gardini (2009) found that thrill seekers have a higher volume of what than avoidant people?
Grey matter in frontal lobes.
What are the functions of the frontal lobes?
Decision making
Personality
Engaging with the environment
Controlling behaviour
Confabulations are often an issue with…
source memory.
What are the 4 main assessment tasks of frontal lobe damage?
Tower of London/Hanoi
Wisconsin Test
Stroop Task
Iowa Gambling Task
What does the Tower of London/Hanoi task test for?
Planning abilities.
What does the Wisconsin Task test for?
Rule extraction and categorisation skills.
What does the Stroop task test for?
Attention and inhibitory control.
What does the Iowa Gambling task test for?
Decision making and inhibitory control.
People with orbiotfrontal damage continue playing which decks in the Iowa Gambling Task?
Bad decks
What is the theory proposed by Norman & Shallice?
Supervisory Attentional System (SAS)
Contention scheduling ensures…
the appropriate schema is activated.
Contention scheduling prevents…
multiple actions executing at once.
The supervisory attentional system controls…
contention scheduling.
Damage to the supervisory attentional system results in…
the incorrect selection of actions.
The anterior cingulate is mostly involved in…
inhibitory control.
Basal ganglia are mostly involved in…
anticipation.
Grafman’s (1989) Structured Event Complex (SEC) suggests that actions are stored in…
script-like data structures.
According the the structured event complex, frontal damage disrupts access to________ ________. This is supported by patients being better at __________ tasks.
structured events; pre-structured
What is the Somatic Marker Theory?
That emotional process guide behaviour, especially decision making.
Somatic markers are used when choices are ________/_________ and overload _______ _______.
complex/conflicting; cognitive processes
What frontal region processes somatic markers?
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
Which assessment task supports the Somatic Marker Theory?
Iowa Gambling Task
