Midterm 2: Brain areas related questions

Question 1

Where in the brain is the phonological loop?
(Working memory model)

Answer 1

Broca’s and Wernicke’s area

Question 2

Where in the brain is the visuospatial sketchpad?
(Working memory model)

Answer 2

Occipital lobe

Question 3

Where in the brain is the Episodic buffer?
(Working memory model)

Answer 3

Parietal lobe

Question 4

Where in the brain is the Central Executive?
(Working memory model)

Answer 4

Frontal lobe

Question 5

Define dissociative amnesia.
Which parts of the brain does it imply?

Answer 5

Response to trauma. Retrograde amnesia for episodic-autobiographical memories. Leads to shifts in lifestyle.
Hypo-metabolism of Lateral PFC. Matter of accessing information, not a storage issue.

Question 6

Describe Patient H.M condition & which parts of the brain are implied.

Answer 6

Episodic memory loss.
Had severe epilepsy -> hippocampus removed.

Question 7

Describe Patient K.C condition & which parts of the brain are implied.

Answer 7

Preserved STM, impaired LTM. Impaired episodic memory, not semantic.
Damage to hippocampus.

Question 8

Where in the brain is episodic memory?

Answer 8

occipital & temporal lobes.
reminder: episodic memory depends on reactivation of the sensory experience.

Question 9

In what lobe is the hippocampus?

Answer 9

Temporal lobe.

Question 10

Where in the brain is semantic memory?

Answer 10

frontal & parietal lobes.
reminder: these guide executive functions, decision making

Question 11

What is the function of the Medial PFC

Answer 11

Connect related memories to form generalized knowledge.
-> Integrate knowledge + episodic event (hippocampus).
Helps to make hypotheses and inferences.

Question 12

Parts of the brain implied in conditioning (broad)

Answer 12

Outside hippocampus but still in the limbic system (e.g. amygdala)

Question 13

Describe Patient S.M condition & which parts of the brain are implied.

Answer 13

No fear. Bilateral amygdala damage.

Question 14

Parts of the brain implied in procedural memory (broad)

Answer 14

Basal ganglia (motor sequence) and PFC (organization)

Question 15

Neural basis of habits. Are habits part of implicit or explicit memory?

Answer 15

Habits rely first on explicit and then on implicit memory (with time).
Striatum needed to develop habit.
PFC monitors habit (in experiment, you need to damage PFC to stop the habit).

Question 16

Dementia typically implies damage of which part of the brain?

Answer 16

Medial temporal lobe

Question 17

Semantic dementia implies which part of the brain (also very present in the hub-and-spoke theory)

Answer 17

Left anterior temporal lobe.

Question 18

As you get old, parts of the brain become atrophied. Which ones.

Answer 18

Frontal lobe atrophy.
-> Consequence: can’t inhabitant irrelevant information.
Hippocampal atrophy.
-> Consequence: problem encoding & retrieving, difficulty associating things together in episodic memory.

Question 19

Describe the brain of taxi drivers

Answer 19

Large posterior & reduced anterior hippocampus.
Posterior hippocampus -> years of experience.

Question 20

In the hub-and-spoke model, which areas in the brain are the spokes and which are the hubs?

Answer 20

Hub = ATL (anterior temporal lobe).
Spoke = different cortical brain areas (depends on the detail you want to access) -> IPL