Higher Mental Functions Flashcards
What is cytoarchitectonics?
The science behind whether the cortex could be separated into different areas on the basis of different cell patterns
What does brain area 4 contain?
Primary motor cortex
What do brain areas 1,2 and 3 contain?
Primary somatosensory cortex
What does brain area 17 contain?
Primary visual cortex
What do brain areas 41 and 42 contain?
Auditory cortex
What do brain areas 44 and 45 contain?
Broca’s area
What does brain area 39 contain?
Wernicke’s area
What is the two-part model of visual perception?
‘What’ and ‘where’ aspects of object recognition
Outline the grandmother cell (hierarchical) hypothesis
Most cells in visual cortex respond best to bars/edges of light in a particular orientation onto the retina (have a simple receptive field) –> afferents with circular receprtive field converge onto a cortical cell to form a bar-shaped receptive field –> cortical cell converges onto another cortical cell to give bar-shaped receptive field anywhere within a large area of retina
What is the principle of the grandmother cell hypothesis?
Grandmother is recognised because a particular set of gnostic cells are active and project onto one cell or small cell group in the inferotemporal cortex
Describe the ‘feature detection theory’
Primary visual cortex cells recognise edges and corners of object –> activated –> feed this information into a gnostic cell which responds to basic outline shape –> groups of cells in other parts of visual association cortex recognise colour, size, movement etc –> inputs onto cells of inferotemporal cortex –> object recognition
What is the ‘where’ pathway in object recognition?
Facilitated by the posterior parietal association area and involved selecting what is object and what is background in visual image
What is optic apraxia?
Inaccuracy in reaching for objects
Where is the ‘what’ pathway in object recognition?
In the inferotemporal association cortex
What is the function of the orbitofrontal association area?
Equates to psychodynamic superego
