lecture 15: temporal and occipital lobes

Question 1

occipital lobe function

Answer 1

• serves only visual functions
• this makes it very different from other parts of the brain

Question 2

what does damage to the occipital lobe cause

Answer 2

• blindness and blindisght
• apperceptive agnosia

Question 3

anatomy of the temporal lobe

Answer 3

Lateral surface:
superior, middle and inferior temporal gyrus
1. inferior = IT cortex, visual structure (part of ventral visual stream)
2. middle = visual structure (part of ventral visual stream)
3. superior = auditory functions

Medial surface: medial temporal lobe
medial temporal gyrus = located on the inside, the medial temporal lobes, all the sensory system projects onto it

Question 4

effects of damage to the superior temporal gyrus

Answer 4

• auditory region of the brain
• deafness
• wernicke’s aphasia
• auditory agnosia

Question 5

effects of damage to the middle and inferior temporal gyrus

Answer 5

• achromatopsia
• akinetopsia
• ventral simultagnosia
• associative agnosia

Question 6

effects of damage to the right medial temporal love

Answer 6

• copying is ok
• visual memory impaired
• cortical ventral stream is not damaged, its the stuff on the inside that the central stream projects to which is damaged

Question 7

effects of damage to the left medial temporal lobe

Answer 7

• hearing is ok
• verbal memory is impaired

Question 8

patient H.M

Answer 8

retrograde amnesia = memory for things he accumulated before the surgery
anterograde amnesia = unable to form new memories
–> he was talking about days in the army as present tense, stuck 30yrs in the past

Question 9

what spared memories do patients with medial temporal lobe damage have

Answer 9

1. mirror drawing
   - shows improvement = shows there must be some residual memory
2. tower of Hanoi
   - moving three discs from one pole to another following a set of rules
   - signs of improvement after multiple attempts shows residual memory could be intact

Question 10

what are the multiple memory systems that stem from memory

Answer 10

• declarative (explicit)
  and
• non-declarative (implicit)

Question 11

what are declarative memories (def and eg.)

Answer 11

= memories that are affected by medial temporal lobe lesions
eg:
- facts
- events

Question 12

non-declarative memories (def and eg.)

Answer 12

= affected by damage elsewhere, not medial temporal lobe lesions
eg:
- skills and habits
- priming
- simple classical conditioning
- nonassociative learning