Lecture 2: History of neuropsychology: Chapter 1 Flashcards
What are the 4 important people for neuropsychology in antiquity (400 BC - 300 CE)?
- Aristotle
- Hippocrates
- Herophilus
- Galen
What was Aristotle’s view? (4)
- Carefully observe things in nature and making theories with them.
- The human body is sacred, so you can’t dissect them to study the body.
- All things that make decisions have a heart and the heart is the seat of intelligence
- Brain cools the body
What were the medical practices of the ancient Greeks and Romans based on?
Body had 4 elements (earth, air, water, fire) served by 4 humours (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile).
The humours had to be correctly balanced to prevent becoming ill
What are some aspects about Hippocrates? (4)
- Father of modern medicine
- Brain is for mental functions
- First lesion observations: what happens when an area is damaged
- Tried to convince others that symptoms aren’t attributable to forces like the gods
What are 2 important aspects of Herophilus?
- Pioneerd observation over philosophising
- Described the nervous system through dissections
–> First basic anatomy
What are 3 aspects of Galen?
- Pioneered dissection and comparative anatomy
- Mapped ventricular system and cranial nerves
- Distinguished sensory and motor nerves
Why was there so little progress in neuropsychology before the renaissance? (3)
- Notion that the soul had no physical basis
- Experimentation on humans is forbidden
- Scientific method isn’t established
What is some progress made in neuropsychology before the renaissance?
- Gross anatomy
- Idea that brain is important for mental function
- No specific theory of brain-behavior relationships
What are 3 important people for neuropsychology in the renaissance?
- Vesalius
- Descartes
- Gall
What are 2 aspects of Vesalius?
- Founder of human anatomy
- Created detailed descriptions and drawings of the anatomy of the brain
What are 3 aspects of Descartes?
- Mind body dualism
- Body is a machine and only humans have an interface to a greater power (thinking)
- Influenced empirical physiology: possible to study physical body
What are 2 aspects of Gall?
- Shaped the idea of localization
- Developed phrenology
What are 4 aspects of neuropsychology before 19th century?
- More knowledge about brain structure
- Relationship between brain and behavior still unclear
- No conceptual framework that ties brain/behavior together
- Views are influenced by religious and political ideas
What are 4 important people in the 19th century for neuropsychology?
- Charcot
- Broca
- Wernicke
- Hughlings Jackson
What are 4 aspects of Charcot?
- First neurology professor
- First described and categorized neurological disorders
- Developed systematic examination
- First associated specific lesiosn with clinical symptoms
What are 2 aspects of Broca?
- Identified critical area of language production
- Established methods of behavioral observation and post mortem anatomy
What are 2 aspects of Wernicke?
- Identified critical area for language comprehension
- Established the idea of disconnection aphasia
What are 3 aspects of Hughling Jackson?
- Suggested hierarchical organization of brain
- Founded the first journal for neurology (brain)
- Distinguished between different types of epilepsy
What are 2 aspects of Galton? And why is he controversial?
- Meant a lot for methodology: brought maths to psychology
- Pioneered psychometric assessment
Galten was a racist –> he wanted to prove race supremacy with science
What are 3 important people for neuropsychology in the 20th century?
- Luria
- Fodor
- Milner
What was the consequence of the many headtraumas (due to the world wars) in the 20th century?
Realization that the brain functions as an integrated whole –> holism
What are 4 aspects of Luria?
- Studied soldiers with brain injuries
- Pioneered systems view of brain function
- Developed a comprehensive assessment battery
- Developed rehabilitation protocols for brain injury
What are Luria’s 3 functional units and where are they located?
- Arousal and tone (brainstem, medulla)
- Processing information (temporal, parietal, occipital)
- Planning and executing (frontal)
What are the functions of Luria’s functional units?
- Arousal/tone: regulates wakefulness, consciousness
- Processing info: perception and storing and retrieving info
- Planning/executing: planning, decision making, problem solving, executing complex behaviors
What is Luria’s hierarchical organization? (3)
Hierarchical processing happens within each functional unit
- Primary: input
- Secondary: processing
- Tertiary: integration with other areas, organize behavior
All functional units are involved in each mental activity
What are 2 important aspects of Fodor?
- Introduced modularity as a concept: brain processes that operate independently
- Turned away from holism and connectionism
What are 2 aspects of Brenda Milner?
- Uncovered brain basis of memory through her work with patient H.M.
- Established dissociations between different aspects of memory
What are the 3 categories of lessons learned from history?
- Diaschisis
- Compensation
- Individual differences, different brains
- Interfering impairments
- Poorly developed concept of localization of function
What is holism?
The idea that everything is integrated and connected
What was the case of patient HM?
He suffered from severe epilepsy. He couldn’t make new memories. This indicated semantic memory is independent of episodic memory
What is the idea of compensation in the brain?
Other brain areas compensate for damaged areas with different strategies
What is diaschisis? What are 3 widespread effects of brain injury?
A brain region that is intact shows changes in functioning as a result of connections to a lesioned brain region. So a lesion can have more widespread effectis
- Connections
- Synchronisation difficulties affecting communication
- Organization differences that influence information processing streams
What does it mean to have individual differences concerning neuropsychology?
There is a lot of variation in typical brain anatomy and physiology
What are 4 aspects of the dark history of neuropsychology?
- Experimentation without consent
- Using experimental medical procedures
- Racial and class judgment
- Misuse of assessments
What are 4 ways to ensure we’re doing better in the future?
- Informed consent and independent ethical review
- Monitore guidelines for introducing new treatments
- More inclusive research
- Incorporating theories from other disciplines and cultures
What has always been an important question in the brain-behavior debate?
Localization: where is the soul or mind, which organs play a role in the mind affecting the body
What were the 3 different forms of soul according to the ancient Greeks?
- Survival via food (plants
- Activities of organism in relation to environment (animals)
- Higher order soul that can distinguish between good and bad (humans)
People were the only beings who had all three forms of soul
Where was the soul according to Plato and Hippocrates? And according to Aristotle?
In the brain
Aristotle: in the heart
What did philosophers that studied anatomical structure in the ancient time think about the ventricles?
The ventricles were called cells and it was thought the mind was located there
What are the different functions of the mind according to the cell theory of the mind (ancient period)?
- Receive info from the senses
- Interpret image –> what does it mean and how important is it for me
- Memory
How is the cell theory of the mind still aplied in current cognitive psychology?
- General system of info processing: no separate functions for different stimuli or knowledge
- Theory doesn’t consider individuals but describe mental processes in general
What did Aristotle mean with Physiognomy?
The interpretation of the face: a shape of one’s face was regarded as a reflection of their character
Where did Descartes think the mind was located?
Cavity in the middle of the head: pineal gland
Why did Gall’s perspective break with the earlier idea of a soul and an undivided mind?
Gall proposed independent functions. So all functions had their own location on the brain surface that could be measured by mapping skull bumps
What is the clinico-anatomical method?
Correlating symptoms and patterns of behavior presented throughout life to brain lesions discovered post-mortem. Based on the assumptions of differentiation and localization
Used by Charcot and later Wernicke and Broca
What is empiricism by John Locke?
Don’t believe in innate characteristics. Everythin was learned and learning was accomplished through the principle of association
What is the Gestalt movement?
Espouses the view that the whole is greater than the parts
What is the opposite of locationalism?
Holism
Who discovered language was mainly left hemispheric?
Broca
Who sought a balance between holistic an locationalistic views?
Luria: brain is a single complex functional system within which various subsystems contribute to joint activity
What are Luria’s 3 broad classifications?
- 3 interacting functional units
- 3 hierarchically organized levels of processing
- Behavior that isn’t/is regulated by language processes related to left or right hemisphere
What are three assumptions in phrenology that are still used nowadays?
- Localization of function
- Differentiation of function
- Mental abilities originate in the brain
Who are the diagram makers and when were they active?
Diagram makers were a group of scientists in 19th/20th century. They created detailed diagrams of brain structure and function assuming localization and differentiation of function
What were the 2 types of visual agnosia according to Lissauer? What kind of dissociation is this and what does that imply?
- Apperceptive: poor internal description of outside world (impaired perception)
- Associative: object perceived, but unable to relate the image to info stored about that object
Single dissociation: implies sequential process, so differentiation of function
What did Wilbrand and Dejerine discover concerning object recognition?
They saw a double dissociation in their patients
- One could recognize objects, but wasn’t able to read
- One couldn’t recognize objects, but was able to read
This indicated a parallel process
What did Lashley (1950) mean with the concept that the brain functions through mass action?
A concept suggesting that the brain functions as a coordinated whole
What is Fodor’s (1983) theory of modularity and what are it’s 4 characteristics? Where does the theory come from?
A module:
1. Is domain-specific
2. Has innateness
3. Is encapsulated
4. Has a fixed neural architecture, not sharing processes with other modules
Fodor believes, like Chomsky, that language ability is an innate specific property. We have no awareness of these language processes and don’t control is. Therefore language is a module
Why did David Marr (1982) play a crucial role in theory development in cognitive neuropsychology?
He proposes that the functions of the brain could also be performed by computers.
The brain is a collection of neural networks and connectionist models can conceptualize cognitive function in the form of input leading to activity and then to output
What are 3 principles of neural network connectionist models (Marr)?
- Emergence of properties: if a property exists, it’s becaus it has emerged from the model itself and not that it existed innately (model can teach itself)
- Graceful degradation: if damage occurs, the model won’t completely stop working, but it functions with missing info
- Content addressability: a small amount of info can activate an entire trace
What is the cause of diaschisis?
Changes in the stream of processing caused by the brain’s attempt to adapt or by metabolic changes. This causes a lesion in one location to have more widespread effects
What do we mean with interfering impairments as a lesson learned from the past?
Certain cognitive deficits may impair other cognitive functions due to dependence of functions.
E.g. someone with visual perceptual deficit may have visual attention problems as well
What do we mean with poorly developed concept of function localization as a lesson learned from the past?
There is still no consensus over a theoretical framework for localization of function in the brain.
What are the 3 main concepts that are proposed for a theoretical framework for localization of function?
- Modules
- Networks
- Mass action
