lecture week 2 Flashcards
what is cognitive neuroscience
an extension of cognitive psychology
what is the black box typically mean
what intervenes between the stimulus and the response , providing a solution of the behaviour
what helps us understand cognitive neuroscience
biology
what does cognitive neuroscience study
the study of how mental functions and processes are related to brain structure and function, it allows us to look inside of the brain with machines
what is a MRI do
take picture of the brains structure
what dies an fMRI do
watch the pattern of activity in the brain and track the moment-by-moment changes
what is dualism
mind is mystical and spiritual, but the brain is a biological being. the mind and brain are separate substances, but they interact and influence one another
what is epiphenomenalism
not caused indirectly, but it is a byproduct. the mind is simply a by-product of the brain processes and is irrelevant to understanding behaviour
what is parallelism
have a relationship; changes in the brain have consequences for what you experience and vice versa. mind and brain are two separate aspects of the same reality; every event in the mind has a corresponding event in the brain, and vice versa
what is phrenology
individual differences in mental abilities are reflected in unique patterns of cranial shapes
what is the current view on the brain being the organ of the mind
they work together to serve functions, but they are more involved in certain things
what is the different between the fusiform face area (FFA) and the parahippocampal place area (PPA)
the FFS remembers faces or things that people carry expertise, and the PPA remembers spaces or landscapes
when is your brain at rest
during the default mode, the network
what are neural recordings
the ability to measure activity in an individual neuron, they find out what groups of neurons work where
what are the two parts of the nervous system
- central nervous system: brain and spinal cord
- peripheral nervous system: everything else
what is the central nervous system
the central command systemw
what is the peripheral nervous system
the body’s link to the outside world, it has two subcategories within it
1. the autonomic NS
2. the somatic NS
what is the autonomic NS
you do not need to think about it: heart rate etc. it has two subcategories within it
1. sympathetic NS : fight or flight response
2. parasympathetic NS: rest and digest
what is a single neuron in neural recordings
certain cells are likely specific to what they like and respond to. when a neuron becomes active, they see what they like.
what is electrocorticography (ECoG)
electrical activity from large areas of the cortex can also be measured, it responds mostly to faces but cares about other things kind of.
what are the benifits of neural recordings
- direct measure of neural activity
- shows how specific the area inside the brain are
- gives insight into the functional specificity of individual neurons
what are the limitations
- typically performed in animals only
- often requires animal sacrifice
- limited insight into large-scale network properties of the brain
- you can’t measure many things because they are so specific
what plays a role in spatial communication and navigation
hippocampus
what is reversible lesions
only temporarily deactivates the brain in that region, and it becomes better later
what is neuropsychology
the study of psychological impairments following neural injury in humans
what is Broca’s aphasia
close to the motor area, they do not say much, and if they do, it’s only a couple of words. they have difficulty producing speech, paucity of language
what is wernicke’s aphasia
temporal lobe gets damaged, there is no problem procuding speech but it is non sensical. They are fluent speech output, but little meaning
what is prosopagnosia
face blindness, they have difficulty identifying familiar faces
what happens to split brain patients
communication between each hemisphere of the brain is lost due to a severed corpus callosum. unique opportunity to assess how each hemisphere processes information of the other
how does split brain syndrome work
the left hemisphere is verbal, and the right hemisphere is visuospatial. The info on the right is processed through the left hemisphere, and the info on the left is processed to the right hemisphere.
limitations of lesion studies
- when damage happens it is hard to know if they are pin pointing damage to wanted regions
- sensory perception, the visual or auditory regions can be subsided by the other one if they get damaged
what is facial electromyography (fEMG)
measures changes in facial muscle activity, which is important in studies of emotions.
what is electrocardiography (ECG)
measures electrical activity of the heart and can link changes in cardiovascular functioning to behaviour
what is psychophysiology
most often refers to the study of the relationship between bodily psychology and psychological functions, the scientific study of the interaction between the body and the mind
how does fear conditioning work
fear response has to have been negatively elicited in the past to have a response, for example getting shocked every time a blue square comes on the screen
what is electroencephalography (EEG)
it measures small electrical potentials from the scalp, and those electrodes measure voltage changes relative to reference electrodes. EEG tracks how things travel over time, and figures out where signals are coming from and what changes in activity after the event occurs.
what is event related potential
represent systematic changes in neural activity linked to cognitive processing, what is happening in your brain that helps memorize
what is the subsequent memory effect
part in the brain that happens during encoding that will predict why you remember it later
what is functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI)
non-invasive imagining technique that can measure metabolic activity related to neural functioning, it has an excellent spatial resolution, which measures brain activity very precisely
what can fMRI be used for
to communicate with non-responsive patients, as they use thoughts to answer questions
what are the limitations of fMRI
reverse inference: the idea that every time you see something the same region applies.
1. it has been seen as a modern phrenology
2. very expensive
