Higher function

Question 1

Describe frontal lobotomies

Answer 1

Used surgically from the 1940s to the 1980s
Treated anxiety, schizophrenia etc.
Resulted in personality changes and epilepsy
Loss of inhibition, blunting of the personality, apathy etc.

Question 2

What are the main functions of the parietal lobes?

Answer 2

Interpreting sensory information
Knowledge of numbers
Awareness of spatial sense and navigation

Question 3

What is agnosia?

Answer 3

Failure to recognise an object when there is no specific sensory deficit

Question 4

What is apraxia?

Answer 4

Loss of ability to perform a specific purposeful movement even though there is no paralysis

Question 5

What is sensory neglect?

Answer 5

Ignoring everything on the left side of the body

Question 6

Name four specialisations of the left hemisphere

Answer 6

Analytic thought
Logic
Language
Maths and science

Question 7

Name four specialisations of the right hemisphere

Answer 7

Holistic thought
Intuition
Creativity
Art and music

Question 8

What is a Commissurotomy and when is it used?

Answer 8

Surgical splitting of the corpus callosum

Only known relief for frequent and violent epileptic seizures

Question 9

Describe two split brain discoveries

Answer 9

Ability to speak resides almost exclusively in the left hemisphere (word recognition)
Ability to recognise faces almost exclusively resides in the right hemisphere