Localisation of the brain

Question 1

What does localisation of the brain mean ?

Answer 1

The idea that certain function of the brain have certain location within the brain.

Question 2

What is the frontal lobes cortex called ?

Answer 2

motor cortex

Question 3

What is the frontal lobe ?

Answer 3

• Responsible for voluntary movements
• Sends signals to muscles in the body
• Left cortex = right body
• Right cortex = left body
• Logical mapping of body regions

Question 4

What is the parietal lobes cortex called ?

Answer 4

Somatosensory cortex

Question 5

What is the parietal lobe ?

Answer 5

• Receives information from the skin to produce sensations
• Linked to pressure, pain and temperature
• Different parts of the cortex receive messages from different locations

Question 6

What is the occipital lobes cortex ?

Answer 6

Visual cortex

Question 7

What is the occipital lobe ?

Answer 7

Receives visual information such as colour, shape and movement

Question 8

What is the temporal lobes cortex called ?

Answer 8

Auditory cortex

Question 9

What is the temporal lobe ?

Answer 9

• Responsible for analysing and processing acoustic information
• contains different pair
• For example: the primary auditor is involved in processing simple features of sound, loudness, tempo and pitch

Question 10

What are the two different language centres ?

Answer 10

• Broca’s area
• Wernicke’s area

Question 11

What is Boca’s area ?

Answer 11

• There was a patient called patient tan (could only say tan)
• Post-mortem found that tan had a lesion on his left frontal lobe
• This is also known as Broca’s area
• Damage in this area leads to motor/ expressive aphasia (unable to speak fluently)

Question 12

What is Wernicke’s area ?

Answer 12

• Patients who could talk but not understand language
• Lesion was in the left temporal lobe
• This lobe is responsible for language comprehension
• Damage = sensory aphasia

Question 13

What was Lashley’s study ?

Answer 13

• removed 10-50% of areas of the cortex in rats
• Found rats where still able to navigate and learn a route
• This suggested that higher cognitive skills used the whole brain
• Shows that cognitive thinking requires more holistic function

Limitation

Question 14

What was Petersons study ?

Answer 14

• Used brain scans to identify activity during listening and reading tasks
• Found activity in Wernicke’s area for listening and Broca’s for reading
• This therefore supports that localisation occurs as different activity in different parts of the brain
• Scientific evidence for the theory

Strength

Question 15

What was Dougherty’s study

Answer 15

• Found that those who had undergone a cingulatomy showed a reduction in OCD symptoms
• 30% successful response
• Shows that behaviours associated with serious disorder can be localised
• Therefore having real-life application to neuro-surgery

Strength

Question 16

How does localisation of the brain research limit the idea of specific areas ?

Answer 16

• Most psychologists now believe that language is more holistic
• Advances in brain imaging have shown that language is distributed through the brain rather than being localised to the Broca’s and Wernicke’s area
• Language streams across the cortex rather than in single areas
• This shows that language is not just part of certain areas and happens across the whole brain