Neuropsychology: The Electrophysiological Brain Flashcards
Where can signals come from?
-Space: picked up by machines
-Smallest particles: picked up by machines
-Inside your head: picked up by machines
What kind of representations are there in the head?
-Mental representation
-Neural representation
-Not straightforward to link these 2, but cool if we can!
What is mental representation?
Way in which properties of outside world (ex: colors, objects) are copied/stimulated by cognition
What is neural representation?
Way in which properties of outside world (or inner events) manifest themselves in neural signal (ex: different spiking rates for different stimuli (spike: action potential))
Which 2 main electrophysiological techniques are there?
-Single-cell recordings
-Electroencephalography (EEG)
What are single-cell recordings?
-Invasive electrophysiological technique to observe changes in voltage or current in neuron
-Measures amount of action potentials per second from individual neurons
-Electrode(s) placed in or near neuron
-Action potentials of single neurons: basis of neural communication
What is an electroencephalography (EEG)?
-Non-invasive electrophysiological technique to record electrical activity of brain
-Measures summed electrical potentials from millions of neurons together (sensitive to dendritic currents)
-Electrode(s) placed on skull
What are neural codes?
-Codes by which stimuli are represented
-Single-cell recordings can tell us something about that
-Rolls & Deo (2002) summarize 3 codes for stimuli
What did Rolls & Deo (2002) find about codes for stimuli?
3 codes for stimuli
-Local representation
-Fully distributed representation
-Sparse distributed representation
What is local representation, according to Rolls & Deo (2002)?
Grandmother cells: hypothetically responds to only 1 stimulus
-Stimuli represented by individual neurons that only code for that stimuli
-Gradual transition in hierarchical information processing system
What is fully distributed representation, according to Rolls & Deo (2002)?
-Stimuli relevant for certain brain region represented by all neurons in that region
-Neurons equally relevant for representation
What is sparse distributed representation, according to Rolls & Deo (2002)?
-Stimuli represented by subset of neurons
-Between local and fully distributed representation
-Evidence with faces consistent with this representation
What kinds of examples are there for research about representation in context of face perception?
-Research in monkeys
-Research in human epileptic patients
What did research in monkeys about representation in context of face perception tell us?
-4 individual neurons have been recorded in brain
–>Face selective neurons: respond strongly to at least 1 face and not to other objects
-Results: different neurons respond to different faces (at least 1)
-Mix between local and more distributed: some neurons only respond to one face, other neurons to more faces in different amounts
-Evidence for sparse distributed representation
What did research in human epileptic patients about representation in context of face perception tell us?
-Faces from celebrities presented
–>Invariance of responses investigated
–>Data of 1 neuron given
-Results
–>Neuron responds to all images that represent something about Halle Berry (face, name, etc.)
–>Action potentials between time when stimulus comes on screen (first dotted line) and goes off screen (second dotted line)
-Evidence for more local representation in medial temporal lobe in humans
What other distinction for codes can be made?
-Rate coding
-Temporal coding