Localisation Of The Brain Flashcards
Name the 5 areas of the brain
- Broca’s
- Motor
- Somatosensory
- Visual
- Wernicke’s
- Auditory
This goes from the left to the right hand side of the brain and under - as if looking at picture of brain.
Broca’s and Wernicke’s are both language centres
Name the four brain lobes
- Frontal
- Parietal
- Occipital
- Temporal
This goes from left to right side and under - as if looking at picture of brain
Function of motor area
Controls voluntary movements
Function of visual area
Processing of visual information
Function of auditory area
Processing of auditory information
Function of somatosensory area
Sensory system
Function of Broca’s area
Speech production
Function of Wernicke’s area
comprehension
Explain Paul Broca’s patient Tan as a case study to support localisation of function in the brain
- Tan could speak spoken language but was unable to speak it or write it
- Broca studied 8 patients with similar defects who all had lesions on their left frontal hemisphere
- Patients with damage on their right did not have these problems
- This conformed Broca’s suggestion that a language centre in the back of the frontal lobe is crucial for speech production
Explain Petersen’s use of brain scans as evidence of localisation
- demonstrates how Wernicke’s area was active during a listening task and Broca’s area was active during a reading task
- Confirming that these areas of the brain have different function
Explain Tulving’s use of brain scans as evidence of localisation
- a study of LTM revealed that semantic and episodic memories reside in different parts of the prefrontal cortex
Explain the neurosurgical evidence to support localisation
- Dougherty reported on 44 OCD patients who had undergone a cingulotomy - involves lesioning the cingulate gyrus.
- at the 32 week post-surgical follow up a third had met the criteria for successful response to the surgery and 14% for partial response
- the success of procedures like this strongly suggests that symptoms and behaviours associated with serious mental disorder are localised
Explain the weakness that there are individual differences in language areas
- the pattern of brain activation observed in response to various language activities varies from person to person
- e.g. in a study of silent reading, Bavalier found large variability across individuals.
- Activity was observed in the right temporal lobe as well as the left, frontal and occipital lobes
Explain Karl Lashley’s research as a weakness of localisation of function of the brain
- believed that basic motor functions are localised but higher cognitive functions such as learning are not . They are distributed more holistically
- he removed between 10-50% of cortex in rats that were learning a maze
- no area proved more important than any other area in terms of ability to learn the maze
- suggested that learning is too complex to be localised and requires involvement from the whole of the brain
- after injury, the effects of brain damage were due to the extent of damage rather than the area of damage
Explain equipotentiality theory as a weakness of localisation
- Lashley believed that when the brain is damaged through illness or accident and functions have been compromised , the rest of the brain appears to be able to recognise in an attempt to recover the lost function
- surviving brain circuits chip in so that the same neurological actions can be achieved
- evidence from several documented cases of stroke patients is a strong argument against localisation
