Lecture 9 Flashcards
Brain size and evolution
-Succeeding members had increasing brain size.
-Modern human brain size is larger compared normal body-weigh.
-Pre-frontal and frontal brain was the last one to develop and the most complicated one.
Was better social intelligence the cause of larger brain?
No. Larger brain is correlated to more social cognition but not better or worse.
What is clear about the brain and evolution research?
-Once larger brains developed so did the culture.
-Humans used larger brains for social cognition.
Memes (Richard Dawkins)
1- Ideas and behaviors that are passed easily from person to person in a culture.
2-Allows rapid social transmission
3-“Selfish gene”
3 types of cultural transmission?
1- Vertical
2-Oblique
3-Horizontal
Vertical
from parents to children
Oblique
From older generation (non-parent) to younger generations
Horizontal
between parents
What could go wrong with the cultural transmission
They can be disrupted by many clinical disorders.
How is culture transmitted?
1-Memes
2-Traditions
What are types of intelligence?
It is unclear if the brain size is tied to intelligence.
1-Musical
2-Verbal
3-Mathematical
4-Spatial
5-Logical
6- Social etc.
What is actually related to brain size?
1-Good nutrition and culturally enriched environment
2- Helps to form new connections which helps with learning and memory that results in bigger brain size.
What are major frontal lobe functions?
1- Top-down process
2-Planning, selecting, reasoning, judgement
3-Ignoring stimuli/task focus and persistence
4-Tracking past events and behaviors
5- Self-other related process.
Prefrontal cortex functions
1-Internal cues
2- External cues
3- Context cues
4- Self awareness
Dorsolateral PFC?
1-Working memory, attentional selection, planning
2- Self-regulation (resisting to urges)
3-Problem solving
Orbifrontal cortex
1-Close to the limbic system
2-Forming social attachments
3- regulating emotions
4- flexible behaviors and adaptation
Ventrolateral PFC
1-Arousal- alertness
2-Emotion, rewards, motivation, threat detection and fear
3- Context-based memory retrieval
4- Lesion to this area causes insomnia
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex
!!!! Each part of the medial prefrontal cortex contributes to processing self-identity.
1-Self perception
2-Self referential
3-Social decision making, social emotion regulation
4-Lesions make it harder to remember self-relevant information
Anterior cingulate cortex (medial)
1-Emotional expression
2-attention alocation
3-mood regulation
4- self conscious (emotional reaction)
5-lesions can cause lack of empathy
Dorsomedial prefrontal cortex
1-Conducts signals between cognitive control and affective brain regions
2-Generates and regulates emotions
3-self-identitiy processing
4-Distinguishes self from other
Medial premotor cortex
1-Connects to parietal lobe
2-Mediates self-motivated movements
Lateral premotor cortex
1-Selects movement sequences
2-Plans, organizes and optimizes behaviors
Primary motor cortex
1- Adjacent to and organized like somatosensory cortex
2-Generates signals to initial body movements
3-controls muscle activity
4-Acquisition and p
erformance of skilled movements
5-Has the mirror neuron system (faciliates skill learning)
Broca’ s area
Broca’s area is largely located in the premotor cortex.
Old emotion theory (Paul Eckman)
1-state based theory
2- basic emotions are recognizable cross-culturally.
Dimensional theory of emotions
1-There is a range of emotions
2-Less or more aroused, more or less pleasant
Modern emotion research
1- Motor behaviors matter (resting face, voice tone)
Emotion
1- Complex reactions that are physiological,experiential, neurobehavioral
2- early evolutionary benefits
Social emotions
1- Emotions that depend on other people.
Helmholt’s unconscious inference
Using intuition when interpreting others emotions
Psychological projection
projecting your own feelings on others and thinking they feel how you actually feel.
Self-reported cognition
One’s subjective evaluation of their cognitive abilities and mental processes.
Symptoms of fronttemporal dementia
1-Extreme changes in behavior and personality. (inappropriate social behavior, lack of empathy)
2-affects men and women equally
3- 10-30% of cases have genetic causes
Symptoms of Frontal Lobe lesion
1-Motor disturbances (movements, voluntrary gaze, speech,corollary discharge)
2-Thinking alterations ( decrase in IQ, loss of divergent thinking, loss of behavioral spontaneity)
3-Difficulty using environmental cues (response inhibition, risk taking, decrease self-regulation, decrease associative learning)
4- Poor temporal memory (Delayed response, recency memory)
5-Impaired social & sexual behavior (pseudo depression, orbifrontal syndrome)
Corollary discharge
Motor related timing knowing when something occured or is it due to your actions
Pseudo
not genuine, false (not depression but depression like traits)
Orbifrontal syndrome
brain lesion that causes disinhibition
What’s the difference between dementia &lesion and tumour
1-Dementia and lesions have interventions but not treatments
2-Brain tumour can be benign (non-cancerous)
3- Tumours can be removed with surgery
Chronic stress
PFC neurons generate top-down process through repeated excitatory connections on dendrites spines. Chronic stress causes loss of spined and dendrites.
