S2W11 - Frontal Lobe

Question 1

Organisation

Answer 1

1. Posterior cortex - provides sensory information
2. Prefrontal cortex - plans mvmt
3. Premotor cortex - orders motor sequence
4. Motor cortex - produces specific mvmts

i.e. posterior, prefrontal, premotor, motor - sends goals, plans, sequences, executes

Question 2

Frontal Lobe purpose

Answer 2

• working memory/ flexibility
• temporal ordering of memories
• planning and selection of goals
• social and emotional decision making

Question 3

Frontal Lobe damage

Answer 3

• hyperreactive to environmental stimuli
• poor planning, self direction
• poor spactial control, inappropriateness
• apathy, distractability
• irritability, aggression

Question 4

Prefrontal Area inputs

Answer 4

Inputs - dorsomedial thalamic nucleus

Question 5

Prefrontal Cortex parts

Answer 5

prefrontal dorsolateral
orbitofrontal (ventromedial)
medialfrontal (cingulate gyrus)

Question 6

Prefrontal Area purpose

Answer 6

• personality and behaviour
• supervisory functions: working memory, problem solving, inhibition, planning, reasoning, flexibility

Question 7

Phineas Cage

Answer 7

• dramatic personality change
• impatient, grossly profane, unstable
• began having seizures, died 3 mths later

Question 8

Orbitofrontal Area damage

Prefrontal Ventromedial Area

Answer 8

Personality
- disorders of “social intelligence”
- psudodepression
- irritability, aggression
- poor social control, inappropriateness
- inadequacy, indifference, apathy
- dishibition, distractability
- euphoria
- object manipulation and imitation are observed

Question 9

Prefrontal Area - cognitive difficulties

Answer 9

• poor abstraction, self direction, planning, reduced distractability, selection of appropriate responses, working memory
• hinders divergent thinking (multiple answers)
• behaviour “reflective” of environment, stimulus driven
• cannot interpret environment based on previous knowledge
• decreased behaviour spontaneity: verbal fluency, figual fluency, reduced behaviour overall

Question 10

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Area

Answer 10

• planning
• concept formation
• workine memory

Question 11

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Area - planning

Answer 11

Planning
- patients “stimulus-bound”
- reacted only to what was in front of them, didn’t respond to imaginary situations, rules, or future plans
- some gained significant weight/ became sexually promiscuous
- could not form or sustain goals, distracted by circumstances

Question 12

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Area - concept formation

Answer 12

• Milner 1963
• patients cannot shift tasks

Question 13

Dorsolateral Prefrontal Area - working memory

Answer 13

• McCarthy 1994
• activates in working memory task
• Baddely & Hitch 1974
• mental operations, performed on bits

Question 14

PFC - Memory

Answer 14

• temporal organisation
• lesion patients identified recipe ingredients, but not order of steps
• confabulation

Question 15

Frontotemporal dementia

Answer 15

• atrophy in frontal lobe
• swollen brain calls have abnormal tau inclusions
• early symptoms: orbitofrontal, dorsomedial and dorsolateral dysfunctin
• i.e. aggressive, social inappropriateness, lacks concern, less spontaneity
• clinical stage: nonfluent verbal output, akinesia, plastic rigidity, partonia, preservation

Question 16

Anterior Cingulate Cortex purpose

Answer 16

• attentional/ monitoring functions
• activates with divided attention
• evaluates goals and subgoals based on affective feedback

Question 17

Anterior Cingulate Cortex inputs and output

Answer 17

Input - limbic structures
Output - to prefrontal cortical areas

Question 18

Orbitofrontal Cortex

Answer 18

• social and emotional judgement and decisionmaking
• uses info about goals, values and curreent situation to make decisions
• lesions of OFC increase risk-taking behaviours
• somatic marker

Question 19

Somatic Marker Hypothesis

Answer 19

• we use emotional experience to guide behaviour
• [Amygdala, ACC] primary emotions are pre-established and innate
• [Prefrontal] secondary emotions are aquired and depend on individuals life experience
• confer physiological states to an image
• “gambling task”