Lecture 14/15/16: Corpus Callosum and Apraxia Flashcards
What is the corspus callosum and what is its function?
Large white matter bundle (a lot of axons that start from 1 hemisphere and go to the other hemisphere), over 200 millions axons. Bilateral connectivity!
Function:
→ Transfer and integration of information between the two hemispheres.
→ between homologous brain regions.
→ Interhemispheric communication (send information from one hemisphere to another)
Other commisural fibres
Corpus callosum (biggest one)
Anterior commissure
Posterior commissure
Hippocampus commissure
These 3 are not as useful for interhemispheric communication.
What are the different techniques you can use to see the corpus callosum?
- Structural MRI
- Diffusion MRI: Corpus callosum is uniformly red in diffusion imaging (CC is white matter tract)
The CC is almost the only thing attaching the two hemispheres.
What are the different ways to study the corpus callosum?
The corpus callosum can be divided into subsections and each subsection connects specific homologous areas of the brain. This parcellation is usually referred to as the Witelson Parcellation (7 regions).
In order to study the different sections and what their role is, they parcellated the CC into the 7 sections. Mathematical separation, not based on function or cytoarchitecture.
How did they go about the division of the corpus callosum?
Parcellation
- This parcellation and association between each part of the CC and what brain areas they connect comes from experimental work with monkeys (ablation/sectioning and tracing).
- And clinical work with humans (study patients with lesions in the CC and see where their deficits are)
- These callosal regions may be associated roughly with various cortical regions, although there is considerable overlap” Witelson
- Separated in half and then first third, last third, first fifth and last fifth. Gradual passing from one section to the next.
Diffusion imaging
Put a seed or region of interest in one section of the corpus skeleton, you can see with diffusion imaging where those fibres go roughly.
What is the function of each part of the corpus callosum, what parts of the brain do they connect??
Genu: connects the very anterior part of the frontal lobe and orbitofrontal areas
Rostral body: Connects premotor areas and also go on top of the supplementary motor areas.
Anterior mid body: connects sensori-motor areas (around the central sulcus)
Posterior midbody: connects the more anterior parietal areas
Isthmus: connects posterior parietal areas
Splenium: connects the occipital areas of the brain and they go to some parts of the anterior temporal lobe.
Parcellated the CC into 25 equal sections to be able to see how gradual connectivity was. It is not complete one to one mapping with the Witelson Parcellated area and the region they connect.
How do the results from the tracing in monkeys compare to the results with the diffusion imaging in humans?
Study that related diffusion imaging in human results with the little table from tracing studies in the monkeys and the correspondence is very similar. The diffusion imaging studies support what is found with the monkey tracing research.
What is the microstructure in the CC??
-Microstructural organization of axons vary along the CC (axon properties will vary from one area to another).
Things that can vary: circumference of the axon (size), myelination and density of the axons in one space) . These will all affect the transmission of the information from one region to another.
Bigger axons, more myelinated or just more axons will make the transfer faster between one area to another. Measure the speed of info transfer between the 2 hemispheres.
- Properties such as fiber density and axon diameter affect the conduction of information.
- It is possible to measure the speed of information transfer by the CC.
Visual field and CC
If you present something quickly in the left visual field, it will I only be perceive by the right visual cortex. If your corpus callosum is intact, the information will be transferred right away.
MEG/ EEG very goof for temporal resolution. Could see that the right hemisphere receives the info a little bit before the left hemisphere.
FMRI: Temporal imaging is not so good. You cannot se the CC.
The crossing that happens from the motor cortex to the hand. If you want to use the left hand, the right motor cortex controls the left hand.
Poffenberger Paradigm
1912
- Measures InterHemispheric transfer time (IHTT)
Used light projection and varied whether it was flashed in the right or left visual field and also varied the instruction to the participants (use right hand, use left hand). Experiment to understand the crossing between the motor and visual areas of the CC to measure the interhemispheric transfer time. Light flashes very fast to make sure that it is perceived first by one visual hemifield. Participant click a button every time they see a square
Question: Where does the transfer occur in the corpus callosum?
at the visual level (dotted line)
at the motor level (full line)
To answer:
1) Manipulate motor and visual aspects in turn and see which affects the transfer time (placed it further or closer in the visual fied, darker or lighter).
2) Localised CC lesions –> the fastest way for neuronal transfeer of infor was from occipital to motor and then between the homologous motor areas.
Answer –> transfer is faster at the motor level.
Crossed trials are slower!! by a few milliseconds
if i use right hand and the light is in the right visual fied –> info can stay in one hemisphere to produce a task. Flashed in right visual field, left occipital areas receive info, sent to left motor areas to control right hand.
If stimulus in left visual field –> right occipital areas receive info, right hand to click in response the info needs to cross to other hemisphere.
Left visual fied and need to press with left: no crossing necessary.
Why is the corpus callosum useful??
Two hemispheres working together
* Motor coordination - if you want to move at the same time or in a sequence.
* Language (LH is dominant)
- Pragmatic (use of language in social circumstances)
- Understand non-literal expressions, affective prosody (intenations)
* Emotion processing
- Facial expression
- Regulation/managing emotions
- Verbal expression
Corpus callosum differences and
abnormalities
1) Normal variations in the population
- Sex: some subregions of the CC are larger in women
- Manual preference: CC larger in left handed individuals
2) Acquired abnormalities
- Callosotomies (surgical sectioning of the callosoomy)
- Traumatic brain injuries
- Strokes…
3) Developmental abnormalities
- Corpus callosum agenesis (baby born without orwith part missing)
- Variations in developmental disorders: the example of autism
History of corpus callosum
- As early as in the 19th century, Wernicke, Dejerine and others were aware that interhemispheric communication was essential for high-order cerebral functions.
- Later, Split-brain experiments on animals and human patients with section of the CC (cats, monkeys)
- Geschwind, 1965: ‘Disconnection syndrome in animals and man’ based on lesion studies
- Sperry, Bogen and Gazzaniga, 1969: ‘Interhemispheric relationships. Syndromes of hemisphere disconnections
What is th split-brain?
The split brain is when you completely cut the corpus callosum. This allows you to study lateralization of function and what the patient is lacking when the two hemispheres are seperateed.
Roger Sperry (1959-1968)
* Studied the functional specialisation of each hemisphere
* Surgery to cut the corpus callosum in some epileptic patients
* First observation: no apparent cognitive damage! Almost normal
* But… when designing the right experiments, were able find specific deficits and learn about hemispheric specialisation.
Roger Sperry’s Split Brain Experiment
Mainly cats and monkeys
* The main discovery → when you cut the connections between the two brain hemispheres: each hemisphere functions independently as if each was a complete brain (as if the animal has two seperate brains).
* Train one side of the brain: the other side of the brain doesn’t know anything about it. The two hemispheres were working in isolation
* Divide the optic chiasm so the visual information is only presented to one hemisphere
Explain Myers and Sperry’s experiment
→If you cut the CC and the optic chiasm
* Only the information from one eye is transmitted to one hemisphere (right visual fied gives info to right hemisphere)
* Blindfold the other eye
* Can teach a task to one hemisphere only
* Then move the patch to the other eye: no memory or effect of the learning from the other eye (no memory of the task because the this brain hemisphere didnt see anything that was happening)
* Compared to control cats (blindfold technique): learning is transferred to the other hemisphere
Results:
either CC or optic chiasm is sectioned = patch on first eye, learn which to pick to get the result and read 100% success. Move patch to the other eye and still have 100% success
both CC and optic chiasm sectioned = had to relearn it when patch was transferred.
Explain Sperry’s human case example 1
Visual stimulation –> force the information to be seen by one hemisphere only.
In humans, they do not have a section of the CC.
* The patient fixed his gaze on a central point on a board
* Lights are flashed in both the left and right visual hemi field
- Ask the patient: what did you see?
- Answer: ‘’light flashing in the right hemi field’’
* Flash lights in only the left hemifield
- Ask what did you see: they deny having seen any lights. The left hemistphere has to verbalize the answer, there was nothing in the right visual field.
- If you ask them to point where the lights were flashed instead of asking for a verbal answer, they point to the correct side. The information cannot be transfered to the left speaking hemisphere, but the patient can use the right motor cortex to select what theys see.
* Speech is in the left hemisphere!
Sperry human case - Example 2
Tactile stimulation/discrimination test
* Object in the right hand :
- able to name and describe the object
- Object in the left hand:
- not able to name or describe
- able to match it to the same object in a collection of object presented visually.
- would be able to tell that they are holding something.
- Not crossing in the hemisphere
- only some somatosensory ipsilateral crude input
Ex: Presence/absence of stimulationThis proves that the right hemisphere does the perception, its just not able to do the language aspect of naming or describing. It can feel the object and choose a matching object in a collection of objects.
Explain Sperry’s human case example 3
- A picture or written information is flashed in one hemifield
OR - An object is placed out of view in one of the patient’s hand
1) If presented to the left hemisphere (right visual hemifield or right hand):
→ Able to name and describe (verbally and in writing)
2) If presented in left hand or left visual hemifield and asked to name it:
→ wrong guess
Even when they have the object in their hand, still unable to name it (knowledge remains in the right hemisphere)
But able to give a non-verbal answer (find the object with the left hand, identify the pencil by touch, or point)
Sperry and Gazzaniga experiment
In this experiment, they flashed two words or two pictures at the same time. So the patient sees both things at the same time. If they ask the patient to verbally answer what they saw:
* The left hemisphere can verbally say what is in the right visual field: ‘‘Apple’’
If they ask them to show you what they saw with the right hand they would point to the spoon:
Or show with the right hand (not the left hand). They can point at the spoon or chose the spoon.
This experiment showed that the 2 hemisphere worked independently at the same time and don’t have a clue of what the other hemisphere is doing.
- If you present only the word in the left visual hemifield and ask what the word is they don’t know…They will say they didnt see anything.
→ The left hand can point or select the spoon,not the right hand
Dichotic listening task
Normal controls
* Present two different sounds simultaneously in each ear
* When you ask the subject to say what they heard, most frequently they report (verbally) what they heard in the right ear → dominance left hemisphere is dominantt for language so it will naturally report what is presented in the right ear.
If asked to attend specifically to what is presented
to the left ear (or present a sound only in the left ear), can do it
→ Selective auditory attention
Patients with section of the Corpus callosum
→ Deficits to name what is presented to the left ear. Very difficult for them to attend to what is presented in the left ear. Cannot switch their attention to it because the info is not crossing the corpus callosum
Sperry’s human case - Example 4
Patient sees a word that is flashed, hald of the word is in the right visual field and the other half is in the left visual field
Ask split brain patient What is the word? Give a verbal answer of what they saw.
-They answer: “art”
- Ask the patient to point with the left hand–> Point with the left hand one of 2 cards HE or ART on it
-They point the card with: “He”
Conclusion: both hemispheres simultaneously saw a
different portion of the word
Chimeric Face test
Chimeric face: two different faces mixed together.
Flash chimeric face with two half different faces in each hemifield.
→ If you ask the patient to verbally tell you what they saw, the person said that they saw the women (what the left hemisphere saw).
→ If you ask them to point to the face they saw with their left finger, they would point to the man (what the right hemisphere saw).
→ The one hemisphere completes a symmetrical face
so both hemispheres ‘‘think’’ they saw a full face.
Explain Gazzaniga’s concept of the left-hemisphere interpreter
Gazzaniga and the concept of the “left-hemisphere
interpreter”.
* Experiment:
- show two pictures at the same time, one in each hemifield (right visual field = chicken, left visual field = winter scene).
- patient has to point with his two hands at pictures of two objects corresponding
→ left hand is pointing at the card with a picture of
a snow shovel (right hemisphere saw snow scene)
→ right hand is pointing at the card with a picture
of a chicken (left hemisphere saw chicken)
- Ask the patient why his left hand is pointing at the shovel:
‘’you use a shovel to clean out the chicken shed’’
→ the left hemisphere who will produce the answer to this question did not see the winter scene. So the answer of a split brain patient would say is ‘’you use a shovel to clean out the chicken shed’’. Left hemisphere will try and make up a verbal story that matches what is happening.
Generating emotional reactions
The two hemisphere need to be working together for emotional reactions. If you want to verbalize an emotion and the emotion is processed by the right hemisphere and you don’t have have communication between the two hemispheres, it becomes very hard.
Experiment:
* Present a funny picture to the right hemisphere (in left visual field):
Patient said she saw nothing when asked
But they did smile and chuckle.
When asked why you are laughing: ‘‘I don’t know, nothing….’’
→ the right hemisphere can’t describe what was seen but the emotional reaction is there .
What are the positive symptoms of being a split brain patient?
Some split-brain patients can:
* Draw different pictures with each hand simultaneously
* Do visual search tasks faster than controls
→ Experiments indicated that the separated hemispheres
were able to scan their respective hemifields independently
How do we know that the two hemispheres are working stimultaneously?
Working simultaneously
* Helping-hand phenomenon: the right hand that ‘knows’ the answer may try to correct the left hand.
* Cross-cuing: some language abilities in the right hemisphere, some language comprehension. The right hemisphere will try to correct the he answer if it knows the answer.
→Cross-cuing from one hemisphere to the other may also happen
In real life, thye are not forced to use one hand so they would just use the hand that knows the answer. In experimental settings, you will see that the hand that knows the answer will try to correct the other hand.
What experiment determined the cross-cuing.
Experiment
Simple: present a green or red flash to the right hemisphere (left visual field)
* The patient answers at chance level at first but improves when a second guess is allowed.
Why?
- If the answer guessed by chance (by the left ‘speaking’ hemisphere) is the good answer, the patient sticked to the answer
- If the answer is wrong: the right hemisphere hears the left hemisphere’s guess and cues the left hemisphere that it’s wrong by frowning or by a shake of the head (try to demonstrate non verbal cue from right hemisphere)
→ when the answer is said out loud, the right hemisphere (that saw the light) hears the answer and then is able to correct what the left hemisphere said.
Working simultaneously
- Experiments in monkeys
- Present something separately to each hemisphere (eye) at the same time
- Each hemisphere memorizes a different scenario: each hemisphere can learn the two tasks.
Left eye: learns that if press the button with the cross → food
Right eye: learns that if press the button with the circle → food
→Learned those two associations in the same time it takes a normal monkey to learn one
→When CC sectioned: Evidence that each hemisphere acts as an only brain
Lateralisation of functions
These studies have helped us understand the brain specialization and lateralization of function.
- Controlateral motor control (lateralized)
- Left hemisphere: language and speech
- Right hemisphere:
- musicn (prosody)
- spatial processing
- visuo-motor tasks
- emotional processing
The right hemisphere
- Visual-constructional tasks: the right hemisphere is
better - When asked to draw the example, even if the splitbrain patient is right-handed, better with the left hand because if they use their right hand it is the left hemisphere that controls the right hand. The left hemisphere is not good for spatial analysis and spatial construction.
Block design test
Right hemisphere
you need to reproduce either a 2D picture or 3D construction with blocks. It is really a spatial visual task. Segment the picture into squares that you see and visualy match the picture with tthe blocks.
* Spatial awareness
* Block Design task
* Better performance with the left hand because right hand is not as good because it is controlled by the left hemisphere.
What happens when Joe is showed a word on the left side?
Word flashes to left side and his right hemisphere sees nothing. He says that he cannot see anything. When asked to draw it (LH) he realizes that it was a phone, because he draws a phone and then his left hemisphere can see the drawing and say what it is.
The face hemisphere and Joe
The right hemisphere (left field): focusing on the face
The left hemisphere (right field): focusing on the fruits that make the face