Psychology Flashcards
Frontal Lobe Activities
Planning, execution, and regulation of behaviour, working memory, emotion
“Executive Functioning”
Last area of brain to develop
Positive Processes: Neuronal Proliferation
Negative Processes: Pruning
Temporal Lobe Activities
Audition, language, music, memory, emotion
Parietal Lobe Activities
Somatic & visuospatial representations
Occipital Lobe Activities
Vision
Luria’s Cortical Zones
Posterior
PRIMARY
- high modal specificity
- afferent layer IV
SECONDARY
- perception/’gnosis’
- layers II and III
TERTIARY
- integrate across modalities
- mature at 7 years of age
- upper cortical layers
Luria’s Cortical Zones
Anterior
PRIMARY
- Execution of Movement
- Motor Cortex
SECONDARY
- Organisation of Movement
- Premotor Cortex
TERTIARY
- Prefrontal Cortex
- Planning goal-directed activities
- intent and behaviour
- self monitoring and regulation
- alertness
- mature @ adolescence
Emotion
Inferred behaivoural state
Core: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, happiness, (surprise)
We experience emotion in response to physiological changes (smiling makes us happy)
Limbic System:
Hippocampus, Cingulate, Hypothalamus, Amygdala, Septum, Nucleus Accumbens, Orbitofrontal Cortex
Orbitofrontal cortex
Highly connected to limbic areas
Identification & Expression of Emotion
Inhibition
- Emotional (crying at random)
- Cognitive (failure to stop doing a task)
- Social (blurting out things they shouldnt)
Impulsivity (complete tasks fast but make many mistakes)
Supplied by Anterior Cerebral Artery and Middle Cerebral Artery
Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex
“Traditional” executive functions
- Working memory
- Response selection
- Planning and organising
- Hypothesis generation
- Flexibility maintaining or shifting set
- Insight (recognising own difficulties)
- Moral Judgement
Primarily supplied by Middle Cerebral Artery
Neurophsycological tests target this area, medial and orbitofrontal harder to assess (use clinical history)
Medial Prefrontal Cortex
Emotional - Apathy - Initiative (not mood - initiation of task) - Indifference Attribution of emotion to others Understanding ones own emotions
Supplied by Anterior Cerebral Artery
Executive Dysfunction vs Frontal Lobe Dysfunction
Frontal lobe is highly connected, if there is a lesion anywhere in the system you will get executive dysfunction (e.g. from thalamic lesions, cerebellar lesions, etc).
Prefrontal cortex ‘coordinates’ executive function
Executive Dysfunction
Positive vs Negative Symptoms
POSITIVE: Distractability Social dis-inhibition Emotional instability Perseveration (unable to stop tasks) Impulsivity Hypergraphia
NEGATIVE: Lack of concern Restricted emotion Deficient Empathy Failure to complete tasks Lack of initiation
Neuropsychological Tests
- Tower of London
- Stroop
- Rey Complex
Tower of London: test planning, impulsivity, learning from mistakes
Stroop: test inhibition
Rey Complex: Test planning, visiospatial
Hyperalgesia
An increased response to a normally painful stimulus
e.g. sunburn & hot water
Allodynia
A painful response to a normally innocuous stimulus
e.g. sunburn & touching with cotton wool
Aphasia
Disturbance in language
Dysarthria
Motor speech disorder