Localisation Of Function

Question 1

Localisation is…

Answer 1

The theory that specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological functions e.g. the hippocampus and memory

Question 2

What are the four lobes and where are they situated?

Answer 2

• Frontal lobe - front
• Parietal lobe - middle top
• Temporal lobe - middle bottom
• Occipital lobe - back

Question 3

What 4 localised areas do we study?

Answer 3

• motor cortex
• somatosensory cortex
• visual cortex
• auditory cortex

Question 4

Motor cortex :

Where is it?
What’s its function?
How is it organised?

Answer 4

• Posterior region of the frontal lobe on both hemispheres
• responsible for the generation of voluntary motor movements i.e. sends neural messages to muscles via the CNS
• localised, contralateral and somatotopically organised

Question 5

Somatosensory cortex:

Where is it?
What’s its function?
How is it organised?

Answer 5

• front of Parietal lobe of both hemispheres
• detects sensory events arising from receptors in the different areas of the body then produces sensations of touch, pressure, pain and temperature
• localised, contralateral and somatotopically organised

Question 6

Visual cortex:

Where is it?
What’s its function?
How is it organised?

Answer 6

• both Occipital lobes - largest system in human brain
• interprets information from the eyes (via the optic nerve), different areas process different types of information. Damage can cause loss of vision/cortical blindness
• localised and largely contralateral

Question 7

Auditory cortex:

Where is it?
What’s its function?
How is it organised?

Answer 7

• temporal lobe of both hemispheres
• concerned with hearing/sound processing
• localised and largely contralateral

Question 8

What is Contralateral?

Answer 8

The right hemisphere of the brain controls the left side of the body and the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body

Question 9

What is somatotopically organised?

Answer 9

• the point for point correspondence of an area of the body to a specific point in the brain (motor cortex or somatosensory cortex)
• areas which are more sensitive/more finely controlled have larger portions of the cortex whereas insensitive areas/ coarsely controlled areas have smaller portions

Question 10

What did Hurovitz (1999) study about the visual cortex?

What is Prosopagnosia?

Answer 10

• Found damage to area VI leads to a complete loss of all vision including visual imagery in dreams
• loss of the ability to recognise familiar faces or identify faces at all. Usually the result of damage to the visual cortex

Question 11

Summarise evaluations of localisation of functioning

Answer 11

• Hurovitz found that damage to Area VI (a specific area within the visual cortex) leads to a complete loss of ALL vision including visual imagery in dreams
• case study of phineas gauge
• case studies lack reliability + generalisability
• Danelli’s case study of EB questions theory

Question 12

Summarise Phineas Gauge Case study

Answer 12

a railroad worker in 1848. He was preparing to blast a section of rock with explosive powder but accidentally hit his tamping iron on the rock causing an explosion to ignite and send the meter length pole through his left cheek, passing behind his left eye and exiting out of his skull taking most of the pre frontal lobe matter with it.He survived but the damage to the prefrontal lobe left him with a major change in his personality – he turned from a clam polite person into a quick tempered rube man. The frontal lobe has been linked to regulating mood so as this part was lost it seems this correlated with his change in personality.