Localisation of function in the brain

Question 1

what is the difference between localisation and the holistic theory

Answer 1

Localisation = Scientists such as Broca and Wernicke argued that specific parts of the brain perform different tasks
Holistic theory = all parts of the brain process thoughts and actions

Question 2

What are the two hemispheres of the brain?

Answer 2

• right hemispheres
• left hemispheres

Question 3

What is counterlaterisation?

Answer 3

The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and vice versa

Question 4

Draw an image of the brain

Answer 4

the frontal lobe = at the front
the parietal lobe =- at the top
the occipital lobe = at the back
the temporal lobe = below the parietal lobe

Question 5

Name all 4 lobes and their function

Answer 5

The frontal lobe = Is also called the motor area that controls descision making and controlling muscle movement . Damage to this area would cause loss over fine movements

Parietal lobe = is also known as the somatosensory area where sensory information from the skin such as touch, heat and pressure is represented. Damage to this area may cause a loss in sense

Occipital lobe = the visual area where eye sends information from the right visual field to the left visual cortex

Temporal lobe = the auditory area which analyses speech - based information. If damaged, it may cause hearing loss

Question 6

What are the two areas of the brain?

Answer 6

• Broca’s area
• Wernickes area

Question 7

What is the location and function of the Brocas area?

Answer 7

• The Broca’s area in the left frontal lobe that is responsible for speech production
• damage to the brocas area is characterised by laborious, slow and lack of fluent speech.
• people with broca’s aphasia have difficulty with prepositions and conjunctions (a,the,and)

Question 8

What is the location and function of Wernickes area?

Answer 8

• Wernickes area is in the left temporal lobe and is responsible for language comprehension
• Damage to wernickes area causes wernickes aphasia where people produce nonsense words (neologisms)

Question 9

What is the strength of localisation?

Answer 9

• One strength is that there is damage to areas in the brain have been linked to mental disorders
• For example, neurosurgery has been linked to treating mental disorders
• A specific example is a cingulotomy which involves isolating a reigon called the cingulate gyrus which has been implicated with OCD
• Darin Dougherty reported that 44 people with OCD had undergone a cingulotomy.
• At post - surgical follow ups, 30% met the criteria for a successful response and 14% had a partial
• this suggests that behaviours associated with mental disorders can be localised
• Also localisation can contribute to real life applications

Question 10

What is a second strength of localisation?

Answer 10

• Another strength is that there is evidence from brain scans which supports the idea that brain function can be localised
• for example, petersen et al (1988) used brain scans to demonstrate how the wernickes area is active during a listening task and how the Brocas area was active during a reading task
• Also Buckner and Petersen did a long term memory study which revealed that the semantic and episodic memories reside in different parts of the prefrontal cortex
• These objective methods for measuring brain activity have provided sound scientific evidence that many brain functions are localised

Question 11

What is a limitation of localisation?

Answer 11

• one limitation is that language may not be localised just to Broca’s and Wernicke’s area
• Dick and Tremblay found that 2% of modern researchers think that language in the brain is completely by Broca and Wernicke’s area .
• Advances in brain techniques like fmri scans provide evidence that language function is distributed far more holistically than thought