Questions on higher cognitive function Flashcards
What are the key points in the case of patient HM?
[He had intractable epilepsy. He underwent surgery to remove bilateral regions of the medial temporal lobes including hippocampus. Following surgery he had some characteristic neuropsychological deficits: seriously impaired declarative memory making it nearly impossible to learn new declarative information (e.g. what he ate for breakfast, the names and faces of his treatment team, shopping list). He maintained retrograde memories (could remember his past before the surgery) and maintained procedural memory as this is reliant on an intact striatum. He learned a motor-based task (mirror writing) and although he could not remember performing the task from one assessment session to the next, he became very good at the task (his motor memory for the task was working).]
What are the key points in the case of patient Phineas Gage?
[Mr. Gage was a normally functioning railroad worker when he was involved in an accident where a tamping iron shot through his eye and into his orbitofrontal cortices bilaterally. He experienced a significant change in his personality and temperament. He had the following deficits: an inability to plan, easily distracted, talkative with profanity, severe defect in personality, socially inappropriate behavior, no consistency of purpose, lacked goals, lack of ambition, no sense of responsibility.]
What are the two major heteromodal association areas?
[Temporal-occipital-parietal and prefrontal.]
Which area processes more complex information, heteromodal or unimodal association areas?
[Heteromodal. Unimodal sensory association cortices receive input from primary sensory cortex of a specific sensory modality to perform higher order sensory processing for that modality. They also send projections to primary motor cortex and are important for formulating motor programs for complex actions involving multiple joints. Heteromodal areas combine higher order information in the form of abstract sensory and motor information from unimodal association cortices and emotional and motivational influences coming from the limbic system.]
Unimodal sensory association cortices receive input from primary sensory cortex of a specific sensory modality and perform higher order sensory processing for that modality, true or false?
[True]
What is it called when a patient is aware of having severe deficits (e.g. a dense left hemiparesis), but shows no distress about it. They can’t move the left arm and leg, but that’s ok?
[Anosodiaphoria]
What is it called when a patient is unaware of the left side of the body, the patient actually denies that the left side of the body belongs to them?
[Hemiasomatognosia]
What dominant hemisphere association region is responsible for language expression?
[Broca’s area, BA 44,45]
What dominant hemisphere association region is responsible for language reception?
[Wernicke’s area, BA 22, 39, 40]
Which prefrontal association cortical region receives multi-sensory input via parietal, temporal, and occipital association cortex with outputs to supplemental motor areas and basal ganglia. It encodes behaviors related to spatial relationships, working memory, shifting cognitive sets?
[Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex]
Which prefrontal association cortical region receives temporal lobe visual association input and encodes behavior specific to object recognition tasks, relational (deductive) reasoning, ability to form analogies (“I am going to be a dinosaur if I don’t make this sale”) or generalize proverbs (“Shallow brooks are noisy”)?
[Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex]
Which prefrontal association cortical region is connected to medial temporal limbic areas related to affect and motivation and encodes behaviors that have emotional significance; requires restraint and delay in gratification?
[Orbitofrontal and Medial Cortex]
