lecture 9 - frontal lobe

Question 1

localisation of function

Answer 1

The different regions of the brain are physio-logically different (different neuronal organization, different connections to other brain areas).
 Hypothesis: should also have different roles in cognitive processing.
 How do we find out what these roles are?

Question 2

different parts of brain from these lectures and what they do

Answer 2

temporal lobe - what is it,
parietal lobe - what can i do with it
-frontal lobe -all this info travels to the frontal lobe- picks the best thing to do

Question 3

frontal lobe-prefrontal cortex - executive function

Answer 3

those abilities that enable
a person to
-determine goals,
-formulate new and useful ways of achieving them, and
-,then follow and adapt this proposed course in the face of competing demands and challenging circumstances ,often over long periods of time.

Question 4

phineas gage and damaged cortex
-what was he like before and after his accident

Answer 4

Pre-accident: well respected, hard-working
 no impairment of movement or speech, new learning intact. Memory and intelligence unaffected
. Personality changes: disinhibited, capricious, disregards social conventions, unable to hold a job.
 “He is no longer Gage.

-his executive functions were diminished

Question 5

the chimp who hated visitors
-what did his behaviour tell us

Answer 5

The chimp hates visitors: throws stones at them as soon as they arrive.
 When not busy, he goes to collect stones and stashes them for later use.
 First demonstration of “premeditated attacks” and long term planning by primates - use of prefrontal cortex

Question 6

what separates frontal lobe and parietal/temporal lobe

Answer 6

central sulcus

Question 7

4 major parts of frontal lobe

Answer 7

-precentral gyrus -primary motor cortex
-premotor cortex
-prefrontal cortex : 2 parts - dorsolateral PFC and ventromedial PFC

Question 8

precentral gyrus : primary motor cortex

Answer 8

-controls bodily movements
-electrical stimulation evokes movements of different body parts, depending where you stimulate
-contralateral organisation (left controls right, right controls left)
-somatotopic organisation-mouth,hands,arms etc

Question 9

premotor cortex

Answer 9

action plans
-the more forward you go in the pre motor cortex- the more the long term the action plans are that the cortex helps you decide on
-neurons fire for specific action
-eg grasping object,cracking peanut

-makes sure actions are not affected by distractors and seen through to the end

Question 10

prefrontal cortex : dorsolateral PFC

Answer 10

-following of long term plans
-long term planning
-goal corrected behaviour
hierarchy- top level goal and then smaller goals to acheive top level goal

eg making a sandwhich (very abstract, independent of situation)
- Slicing bread (get bread, get knife)
- spreading butter (get from fridge, open)
- put ham on top (get from fridge, open)(more concrete goals)
 Concrete motor movements(lower level goals)

Question 11

what do dorsolateral PFC lesions imapir?

Answer 11

they can impair the detection of such errors in action sequences
eg making a cup of tea but forgetting the tea bag step

Question 12

brocas aphasia

Answer 12

-problems not with speech understanding but speech production
-also with coordinating longer sentences
-ungrammatical speech

Question 13

tower of london test

Answer 13

a test used in applied clinical neuropsychology for the assessment of executive functioning specifically to detect deficits in planning

Question 14

tower of london task
-frontal patients
-parietal patients

Answer 14

-frontal patients are impaired in tower of London (requires planning) but fine with WAIS (spatial skills)
-damage to prefrontal cortex (dorsolateral) makes it really tricky to do this

-parietal patients are fine with tower of London but impaired in the wais

-double dissociation highlights frontal deficit in strategic planning

Question 15

dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is also important in

Answer 15

following of long term plans even when distracted

Question 16

-what is the stroop task
-what is the luria hand test

Answer 16

-consists of colour words printed in different colors of ink
-prefrontal cortex helps us with naming the colours here

is a task that requires a patient to imitate three hand motions performed by a clinician.

Question 17

utilisation behaviour

Answer 17

denotes the appropriate usage of an object by a patient, however at an inappropriate situation

-the sight of an object elicits a stereotyped action which is inappropriate in the wider context

Question 18

The sight of an object elicits a stereotyped action which is inappropriate in the wider context.
give an example of this

Answer 18

If there is a glass within reach, the patient will grasp it.

If a bottle is placed on the desk he will grasp this too and pour water into the glass and drink it
. Why: `You held them out to me, I thought I had to use them.’
 Examiner “from now on don’t grasp any of the objects I will show you, and in no case must you use them.”
 behaviour remains unchanged.
 Patients remember instruction not to grasp the objects, but: “you held out the objects to me and I thought I had to reach and grasp them.”

Question 19

Ventromedial Prefrontal cortex

Answer 19

-emotional evaluation of actions and plans

Question 20

ventromedial prefrontal cortex is connected to the _____
-explain

Answer 20

amygdala
the amygdala sends information about emotional value to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
-

Question 21

Wisconsin card sorting task

Answer 21

-allows us to see work of ventromedial prefrontal cortex
-patient has to draw from two different decks
-pile a has huge wins and losses and pile b has smaller wins and losses

-people start to notice their loosing alot when they keep picking A so they usually switch decks
-but those with ventromedial cortex damage dont often switch