Lecture 15 (executive functions)

Question 1

What are the four classical key concepts of executive functions?

Answer 1

Working memory, inhibition, flexibility, and planning.

Question 2

Which part of the brain is important in the working memory?

Answer 2

Superior parietal cortex.

Question 3

What does it mean that the working memory is multimodal?

Answer 3

It can work with information in different forms

Question 4

Inhibition?

Answer 4

the ability to inhibit a learned response. Much about impulsive behavior.
It is a basal ability not to react motoric.

Question 5

How to measure inhibition?

Answer 5

continuous performance test (CPT).

Question 6

Which network is activated in inhibition?

Answer 6

The same network is activated here as in the working memory.

Question 7

Flexibility?

Answer 7

loss definition. But the ability to change strategy and implement new rules, change focus.
Important for the ability to vary, put something into perspective, and mentalize.

Question 8

Who have a hard time using flexibility?

Answer 8

People with frontal damage, autism, schizophrenia.

Question 9

A test to test flexibility?

Answer 9

Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST)

Question 10

Another way to understand flexibility?

Answer 10

extinction learning, reversal learning – unlearning of conditioned learning.

Question 11

How is planning measured?

Answer 11

Tower of London, Tower of Hanoi, Stocking of Cambridge etc.
But hard to measure in a test and easier to observe in real life.

Question 12

The analogy between processing speed and cognitive functions?

Answer 12

The cognitive functions are the grey matter (our neurons), where processing speed is the white matter (the axons which connect our neurons).

Question 13

What happens to the processing speed in people with a psychiatric disease?

Answer 13

Slower processing speed and more variability are observed in multiple different psychiatric diseases.

Question 14

Dorsal stream?

Answer 14

where something is compared to something else and its movement.

Question 15

Ventral stream?

Answer 15

what something is based on its characteristics.

Question 16

The brain’s perception-action circuit?

Answer 16

The behavior-oriented cortex makes the decisions and do a planned behavior on the basis of sensory interpretations.

Question 17

Which parts of the brain support positive and negative conditioning and basal emotions?

Answer 17

Striatum and amygdala.

Question 18

What is striatum involved in (behavior)?

Answer 18

Striatum is involved in reward-oriented behavior and learning of intentional behavior to habituated and repetitive behavior (routines).

Question 19

Which neurotransmitter is the primary in reward-oriented behavior?

Answer 19

Dopamine

Question 20

Where is positive conditioning in amygdala signaled to?

Answer 20

Ventral striatum.

Question 21

Which part of the brain is involved in regulation of emotions?

Answer 21

The ventral medial prefrontal cortex

Question 22

Which part of the brain is critical for flexibility?

Answer 22

Ventral medial prefrontal cortex

Question 23

Examples on cognitive flexibility?

Answer 23

Extinction learning, reversal learning, and set-shifting tasks

Question 24

Inattentional blindness?

Answer 24

like with the video with the gorilla where people don’t see it even though you would think that no one could miss that.

Question 25

Voluntary attention?

Answer 25

the shifts in attention comes from within. They are conscious.

Question 26

Reflexive attention?

Answer 26

involuntary reorientation toward a sudden or important event. Bottom-up process. Attention is being captured and controlled by sensory inputs from lower levels of the nervous system.

Question 27

Event-related potential (ERP)?

Answer 27

used by neuroscientists when studying moment to moment consequences of attention in the brain. It is when you take many EEGs and average them – then you get an ERP

Question 28

When is superior colliculus used in attention?

Answer 28

a part of the midbrain. Has something to do with the movement of the eyes toward objects of attention, especially overt (åbenlys) attention.

Question 29

When is pulvinar used in attention?

Answer 29

part of the thalamus. Heavily involved in visual processing. Important for the orienting and shifting of attention.

Question 30

When is parietal cortex used in attention?

Answer 30

seems to play a special role in controlling attention.

Question 31

When is temporoparietal junction used in attention?

Answer 31

crucial for bottom-up, reflexive shifts in attention driven by characteristics of stimuli.

Question 32

Dorsal frontoparietal network ?

Answer 32

provides top-down (voluntary) control of attention.

Question 33

Right temporoparietal?

Answer 33

involved in steering attention to novel or unexpected stimuli.

Question 34

Extinction?

Answer 34

unable to detect two stimuli at the same time, given one of each side. The normally balanced competition for attention isn’t working. The right side overrules so the left side is left unseen.

Question 35

Anosognosia?

Answer 35

denial of illness.

Question 36

Oculomotor apraxia?

Answer 36

a pronounced difficulty in voluntarily steering visual gaze toward specific targets.

Question 37

Optic ataxia?

Answer 37

a spatial disorientation in which the patient is unable to accurately reach for objects using visual guidance.

Question 38

The default mode network?

Answer 38

seems to be selectively activated when we are at our most introspective and reflective, and relatively deactivated during behavior directed toward external goals.