Quiz 1

Question 1

Which of the following statements is correct?

a) Neurons are electrically excitable cells, microglia are the brain’s immune cells, oligodendrocytes form the myelin sheath that is wrapped around CNS axons and astrocytes act as intermediaries between the blood supply and neurons.

b) Neurons are electrically excitable cells, microglia are the brain’s immune cells, astrocytes form the myelin sheath that is wrapped around CNS axons and oligodendrocytes act as intermediaries between the blood supply and neurons.

c) Neurons are electrically excitable cells, astrocytes are the brain’s immune cells, oligodendrocytes form the myelin sheath that is wrapped around CNS axons and microglia act as intermediaries between the blood supply and neurons.

d) Oligodendrocytes are electrically excitable cells, microglia are the brain’s immune cells, neurons form the myelin sheath that is wrapped around CNS axons and microglia act as intermediaries between the blood supply and neurons.

Answer 1

a) Neurons are electrically excitable cells, microglia are the brain’s immune cells, oligodendrocytes form the myelin sheath that is wrapped around CNS axons and astrocytes act as intermediaries between the blood supply and neurons.

Question 2

Genes are sequences of DNA. This DNA can split into RNA, and this RNA can be translated to synthesise proteins. Thus, genes are ultimately responsible for the production of proteins in the body, such as receptors for specific neurotransmitters. However, whether a protein is produced or not is partially dependent on whether the parent gene is expressed, and gene expression can be influenced by a number of factors, such as patterns of neural activity during learning. These changes to gene expression do not alter the sequence of the DNA, but they can involve alterations to the accessibility of the DNA (or parts of it). Such mechanisms are examples of

a) Neuroplasticity
b) Adaptation
c) Epigenetics
d) DNA modification

Answer 2

c) Epigenetics

Question 3

If you wanted to study neural activity patterns within a deep brain structure such as the hypothalamus, without resorting to invasive surgery, which of the following techniques would be suitable?
a) DTI
b) Histology
c) EEG
d) This is a trick question. All these techniques are suitable.
e) This is a trick question. None of these techniques are suitable.

Answer 3

e) This is a trick question. None of these techniques are suitable.

Question 4

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Which of these techniques is expensive but has good spatial resolution of cortical and subcortical metabolic activity even in humans?
a) EEG
b) Multiphoton microscopy
c) fMRI
e) NIRS

Answer 4

c) fMRI

Question 5

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Which of these techniques has excellent spatial resolution and allows ‘live’ imaging of fine structures in the rodent brain
a) EEG
b) Multiphoton microscopy
c) fMRI
e) NIRS

Answer 5

b) Multiphoton microscopy

Question 6

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Which of these techniques has good temporal resolution of neural activity

a) EEG
b) Multiphoton microscopy
c) fMRI
e) NIRS

Answer 6

a) EEG

Question 7

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Which of these techniques is relatively cheap and easy to use to assess metabolic activity but only in superficial cortical tissue?
a) EEG
b) Multiphoton microscopy
c) fMRI
e) NIRS

Answer 7

e) NIRS

Question 8

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanism statements best pertains to ‘Long-Term Potentiation’?
a) The production of new neurons that may then become functionally integrated in existing networks
b) Alterations to the myelination of axons by oligodendrocytes
c) A mechanism triggered by NMDA receptors that can be expressed as a change in presynaptic transmitter release or postsynaptic receptor activity/number
d) A change in the level of output a neuron produces in response to a given level of input

Answer 8

c) A mechanism triggered by NMDA receptors that can be expressed as a change in presynaptic transmitter release or postsynaptic receptor activity/number

Question 9

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanism statements best pertains to ‘Plasticity of intrinsic excitability’?
a) The production of new neurons that may then become functionally integrated in existing networks
b) Alterations to the myelination of axons by oligodendrocytes
c) A mechanism triggered by NMDA receptors that can be expressed as a change in presynaptic transmitter release or postsynaptic receptor activity/number
d) A change in the level of output a neuron produces in response to a given level of input

Answer 9

d) A change in the level of output a neuron produces in response to a given level of input

Question 10

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanism statements best pertains to ‘Neurogenesis’?
a) The production of new neurons that may then become functionally integrated in existing networks
b) Alterations to the myelination of axons by oligodendrocytes
c) A mechanism triggered by NMDA receptors that can be expressed as a change in presynaptic transmitter release or postsynaptic receptor activity/number
d) A change in the level of output a neuron produces in response to a given level of input

Answer 10

a) The production of new neurons that may then become functionally integrated in existing networks

Question 11

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanism statements best pertains to ‘White matter plasticity’?

a) The production of new neurons that may then become functionally integrated in existing networks
b) Alterations to the myelination of axons by oligodendrocytes
c) A mechanism triggered by NMDA receptors that can be expressed as a change in presynaptic transmitter release or postsynaptic receptor activity/number
d) A change in the level of output a neuron produces in response to a given level of input

Answer 11

b) Alterations to the myelination of axons by oligodendrocytes

Question 12

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanisms best pertains the following statement: ‘The production of new neurons that may then become functionally integrated in existing networks’

a) Long-Term Potentiation
b) Plasticity of intrinsic excitability
c) Neurogenesis
d) White matter plasticity

Answer 12

c) Neurogenesis

Question 13

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanisms best pertains the following statement: ‘Alterations to the myelination of axons by oligodendrocytes’
a) Long-Term Potentiation
b) Plasticity of intrinsic excitability
c) Neurogenesis
d) White matter plasticity

Answer 13

d) White matter plasticity

Question 14

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanisms best pertains the following statement: ‘A mechanism triggered by NMDA receptors that can be expressed as a change in presynaptic transmitter release or postsynaptic receptor activity/number’
a) Long-Term Potentiation
b) Plasticity of intrinsic excitability
c) Neurogenesis
d) White matter plasticity

Answer 14

a) Long-Term Potentiation

Question 15

Which of these plasticity/learning mechanisms best pertains the following statement: ‘A change in the level of output a neuron produces in response to a given level of input’
a) Long-Term Potentiation
b) Plasticity of intrinsic excitability
c) Neurogenesis
d) White matter plasticity

Answer 15

b) Plasticity of intrinsic excitability

Question 16

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Match ‘EEG’ with the statement that best describes its advantages and/or disadvantages:
a) Expensive but good spatial resolution of cortical and subcortical metabolic activity even in humans
b) Excellent spatial resolution allows ‘live’ imaging of fine structures in the rodent brain
c) Good temporal resolution of neural activity
d) Relatively cheap and easy to use to assess metabolic activity but only in superficial cortical tissue

Answer 16

c) Good temporal resolution of neural activity

Question 17

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Match ‘Multiphoton microscopy’ with the statement that best describes its advantages and/or disadvantages:
a) Expensive but good spatial resolution of cortical and subcortical metabolic activity even in humans
b) Excellent spatial resolution allows ‘live’ imaging of fine structures in the rodent brain
c) Good temporal resolution of neural activity
d) Relatively cheap and easy to use to assess metabolic activity but only in superficial cortical tissue

Answer 17

b) Excellent spatial resolution allows ‘live’ imaging of fine structures in the rodent brain

Question 18

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Match ‘fMRI’ with the statement that best describes its advantages and/or disadvantages:

a) Expensive but good spatial resolution of cortical and subcortical metabolic activity even in humans
b) Excellent spatial resolution allows ‘live’ imaging of fine structures in the rodent brain
c) Good temporal resolution of neural activity
d) Relatively cheap and easy to use to assess metabolic activity but only in superficial cortical tissue

Answer 18

a) Expensive but good spatial resolution of cortical and subcortical metabolic activity even in humans

Question 19

There are many different techniques available for examining brain structure and function. Match ‘NIRS’ with the statement that best describes its advantages and/or disadvantages:
a) Expensive but good spatial resolution of cortical and subcortical metabolic activity even in humans
b) Excellent spatial resolution allows ‘live’ imaging of fine structures in the rodent brain
c) Good temporal resolution of neural activity
d) Relatively cheap and easy to use to assess metabolic activity but only in superficial cortical tissue

Answer 19

d) Relatively cheap and easy to use to assess metabolic activity but only in superficial cortical tissue

Question 20

Recall the case of Henry Molaison and information presented on memory circuits. Which of the following statements is correct?
a) Henry lost a significant amount of both hippocampi and also suffered the loss of some other temporal lobe structures. This resulted in profound implicit memory deficits.
b) Henry lost a significant amount of both hippocampi and also suffered the loss of some other temporal lobe structures. This resulted in profound episodic memory deficits and also deficits in semantic memory.
c) Henry lost a significant amount of both hippocampi. This resulted in severe episodic memory deficits, but semantic memory remained intact as the loss of this form of memory typically requires the loss of other temporal lobe structures, too.
d)Henry lost a significant amount of both hippocampi and suffered a lesion to his orbitofrontal cortex. These events manifested in profound deficits in implicit and explicit memory.
e) This is a trick question. None of these statements are correct.
f) This is a trick question. All of these statements are correct.

Answer 20

b) Henry lost a significant amount of both hippocampi and also suffered the loss of some other temporal lobe structures. This resulted in profound episodic memory deficits and also deficits in semantic memory.

Question 21

Recall the experiments of Schulz and colleagues in monkeys, then decide if the following is true or false:

Monkeys with electrodes implanted in dopaminergic areas can be used to investigate reward-related brain signals. Specifically, repeatedly pairing a sensory cue with a reward will drive dopamine neurons to change their firing behaviour, from initially firing before the reward is present to later firing after the reward is present. This is how dopamine can act as a reward signal.

Answer 21

False

Question 22

The Papez circuit comprises many structures associated with the limbic system, and is believed to be involved in both memory and emotion. Curiously, both mnemonic and emotional processing may require the hippocampus. Although mostly considered a “memory structure”, there is considerable evidence that suggests the hippocampus is not solely devoted to memory. For example, although HM had damage to his _______ hippocampus, Bannerman et al. (2003) showed that damage to the analogous portion of the rodent hippocampus, termed the ______ hippocampus, did not produce memory deficits. Rather, their lesions produced effects on emotion; specifically a decrease in anxiety-related behaviour. This mirrors case studies of people with frontotemporal dementia, who typically show early damage to the hippocampus reminiscent of HM’s lesion, but do not typically show memory deficits until the disease has progressed considerably further.

a) ventral, anterior
b) anterior, posterior
c) posterior, ventral
d) anterior, ventral

Answer 22

d) anterior, ventral

Question 23

Professor Hotzenplotz is a hopeless coffee addict. He is also feeling tired and sluggish. He knows he always feels much better after a coffee, and just the thought of drinking a cup makes him want to make one. He decides to put this plan into action and heads straight to the Staff Room to use the espresso machine.
Based on material covered in lectures, decide which of the following statements is correct.
a) Professor Hotzenplotz wanting a cup of coffee involves a surge of dopamine release in the Nucleus Accumbens, and deciding to make a cup involves dopamine release in the prefrontal cortex.
b) Professor Hotzenplotz wanting a cup of coffee involves a surge of activity in several ‘hedonic hotspots’ that form a ‘pleasure network’ in the brain. Deciding to make a cup involves dopamine release in the prefrontal cortex.
c) Professor Hotzenplotz wanting a cup of coffee involves a surge of activity in several ‘hedonic hotspots’ that form a ‘pleasure network’ in the brain. Deciding to make a cup involves dopamine release in the ventral tegmental area.
d) Professor Hotzenplotz wanting a cup of coffee involves a surge of dopamine release in the mesocortical pathway, and deciding to make a cup involves dopamine release in the mesolimbic pathway

Answer 23

b) Professor Hotzenplotz wanting a cup of coffee involves a surge of activity in several ‘hedonic hotspots’ that form a ‘pleasure network’ in the brain. Deciding to make a cup involves dopamine release in the prefrontal cortex.

Question 24

Recall your reading for Weeks 1 & 2. Which of the following statements is correct?
a) Mental arithmetic is more metabolically demanding than daydreaming.
b) The often-repeated statistic that we use only 10% of our brains has in fact been validated experimentally.
c) When participating in a given cognitive task, the neurons involved in that task will be more active. There will therefore be increased metabolism locally, but this will be offset by decreased metabolic demand in other brain regions. Yet, the amounts of energy involved are very small.
d) Over the course of the day, glutamate will slowly build up as you perform more and more cognitively demanding tasks. This can be offset by ATP, which is the breakdown product of adenosine. ATP has been shown to induce mental fatigue, possibly in order to restrict further glutamate buildup.

Answer 24

c) When participating in a given cognitive task, the neurons involved in that task will be more active. There will therefore be increased metabolism locally, but this will be offset by decreased metabolic demand in other brain regions. Yet, the amounts of energy involved are very small.

Question 25

Recall your reading for Weeks 1 & 2. Which of the following statements is correct?
a) One of the issues with brain scanning studies is that they need large sample sizes to produce reliable results. This has led us to cast doubt on some findings related to sex differences in brain volume. However, recent data based on much larger datasets suggests that large differences in brain volume do exist between men and women, and that these will account for differences in domains of cognition such as spatial awareness. Critically, many studies of transgender people’s brains back up these findings.
b) Men’s brains are somewhat larger than women’s. Early scanning studies suggested this might be due to sex differences in certain areas. While subsequent studies have largely failed to substantiate this claim, recent data based on large datasets suggests that certain brain regions are larger in men while others are larger in women. However, these differences are very small and may reflect neuroplastic changes rather than an innate sex difference.
c) An interesting question in brain scanning studies is whether sex differences in brain volume reflect biological sex or gender identity. For example, does a transgender male have a brain that better resembles the brain of a cisgender male or a cisgender female? There are relatively few studies that have looked at the brains of transgender people, and these often suffer from low sample sizes. However, it is clear from the available evidence that brain structure is influenced more by your biological sex, as assigned at birth, rather than your gender identity or traditional gender roles.
d) There are very few clear differences in brain volume that can distinguish a man’s brain from a woman’s brain. One suggestion that has often been repeated is that certain structures in women’s brains that control empathy might be larger than those same structures in the brains of males. However, the evidence to-date has found no structure in the female brain that is larger than that found in males. In fact, even studies with several tens of thousands of participants routinely find no sex differences at all in the volume of specific brain regions, even when taking total brain volume into account.
e) This is a trick question. None of these options are correct.
f) This is a trick question. All of these options are correct.

Answer 25

b) Men’s brains are somewhat larger than women’s. Early scanning studies suggested this might be due to sex differences in certain areas. While subsequent studies have largely failed to substantiate this claim, recent data based on large datasets suggests that certain brain regions are larger in men while others are larger in women. However, these differences are very small and may reflect neuroplastic changes rather than an innate sex difference.

Question 26

Recall your reading for Weeks 1 & 2. Choose which of the following options is correct.
a) The ventral striatum is one of the brain’s reward centres. Reward learning is particularly useful in adolescents and may guide their decision making to be optimally suited to certain situations, such as navigating a novel environment or when working socially/collaboratively. The adolescent brain may therefore be tuned to adaptation - both to novelty and to social situations.
b) The “gold coin test” requires participants to play a computer game in which they decide whether a gold coin is located in one box or another. The coin remains in one box for a number of trials, but then will randomly switch to the appearing mostly in the other box, but will then switch back to appearing in the original box. This task requires participants to update their guesses, even if they can’t be certain where the coin will appear. Adolescents actually outperform adults and children in this task. Similarly, adolescents do better in tasks in which they are made to choose between continuing to forage in a known plot of land or exploring other areas. Researchers have suggested that this relates to adolescents’ predisposition to try new options, which may be critical to learning how to optimise behaviour in future.
c) Human teenagers are a bit weird. Most other species don’t go through such a prolonged adolescent phase as we do, for a start. In fact, the human brain continues to develop after puberty - right through into our mid 20s. This isn’t true of all brain regions though; while the cortex is slow to develop, reward areas such as the ventral striatum are already fully functional by our mid-teen years.
d) Perhaps the pattern of brain development seen in teenagers makes them more susceptible to impulsive reward learning, without being able to exert the cognitive control to stop them making quick (and often poor) choices. Maybe, although some evidence suggest teenagers can outperform adults in certain decision-making tasks, specifically tasks which contain changing (i.e. uncertain) conditions. This may help teenagers to navigate novel situations and develop new skills. Indeed, exploring new environments also heavily engages the ventral striatum and other reward centres, and activity in such areas correlates with better learning during adolescence.
e) This is a trick question. All of these options are correct.
f) This is a trick question. None of these options are correct.

Answer 26

e) This is a trick question. All of these options are correct.

Question 27

Recall your reading for Weeks 1 & 2. Based on information presented in the reading, decide if the following is true or false:

We often think of forgetting as being a bad thing - a feature of pathological states such as Alzheimer’s disease, for example. But forgetting is actually an everyday event that allows us to adapt to our changing environment. We need, for example, to remember where our car keys are currently, not where we put them yesterday or this time last week. This kind of updating is usually thought of as involving the memory degrading over time, but recent evidence hints that even “forgotten” memories can actually be reactivated and retrieved, suggesting that the memory trace is still present in some form.
One of the reasons we need to forget things is that it is unhelpful to retain too much detail about objects or events. We need to recognise a given object because of the general trends in its appearance, not because of the fine details of one such object that we once saw. So, forgetting those minor details and instead having just a general representation of this object helps us recognise similar objects (with shared general features) in future.

Answer 27

True

Question 28

The Papez circuit comprises many structures associated with the limbic system, and is believed to be involved in both memory and emotion. Curiously, both mnemonic and emotional processing may require the hippocampus. Although mostly considered a “memory structure”, there is considerable evidence that suggests the hippocampus is not solely devoted to memory. For example, although HM had damage to his _____ hippocampus, Bannerman et al. (2003) showed that damage to the analogous portion of the rodent hippocampus, termed the ____ hippocampus, did not produce memory deficits. Rather, their lesions produced effects on emotion; specifically a decrease in anxiety-related behaviour. This mirrors case studies of people with frontotemporal dementia, who typically show early damage to the hippocampus reminiscent of HM’s lesion, but do not typically show memory deficits until the disease has progressed considerably further.

Answer 28

The Papez circuit comprises many structures associated with the limbic system, and is believed to be involved in both memory and emotion. Curiously, both mnemonic and emotional processing may require the hippocampus. Although mostly considered a “memory structure”, there is considerable evidence that suggests the hippocampus is not solely devoted to memory. For example, although HM had damage to his anterior hippocampus, Bannerman et al. (2003) showed that damage to the analogous portion of the rodent hippocampus, termed the ventral hippocampus, did not produce memory deficits. Rather, their lesions produced effects on emotion; specifically a decrease in anxiety-related behaviour. This mirrors case studies of people with frontotemporal dementia, who typically show early damage to the hippocampus reminiscent of HM’s lesion, but do not typically show memory deficits until the disease has progressed considerably further.