the brain and neuropshychology

Question 1

what are receptors?

Answer 1

pars of neurons that bind to neurotransmitters.

Question 1

what are neurotransmitters?

Answer 1

chemicals fond within the nervous system that pass messages from one neuron to another.

Question 2

what is a terminal button?

Answer 2

a end of a neuron.

Question 3

what are vesicles?

Answer 3

small sacs containing neurotransmitters.

Question 4

what is a synapse?

Answer 4

the gap between two neurons.

Question 5

what is a synaptic transmission?

Answer 5

the process where neurotransmitters are released from neurons into the synaptic gap then received again.

Question 6

what is the central nervous system (CNS)?

Answer 6

the brain and spinal cord which relays messages from the brain to the rest of the body to give instructions.

Question 7

what is the peripheral nervous system (PNS)?

Answer 7

the system of nerves that connect to the central nervous system to the skin, muscles and organs.

Question 8

what is the role of dopamine?

Answer 8

plays the role in attention and concetration.

Question 9

whats is the role of serotonin?

Answer 9

plays a role in mood, not enough of this can make people depressed.

Question 10

what is the role of GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)?

Answer 10

plays a role in calming us down.

Question 11

what is the asymmetrical function?

Answer 11

the left and right hemisphere/ each participate in different aspects of the brain function.

Question 12

what does the right hemisphere control?

Answer 12

attention, memory, reasoning and problem solving.

Question 13

what does the left hemisphere control?

Answer 13

speech, comprehension, arithmetic and writing.

Question 14

what does the left hemisphere contain?

Answer 14

the broca’s area

Question 15

what is the broca’s area?

Answer 15

the region of the brain that contains neurons involved in speech and language formation.

Question 16

what is neurological damage?

Answer 16

the injury or impairment of any part of the nervous system.

Question 17

what is visual agnosia?

Answer 17

when people can’t recognize common objects e.g. damage to the frontal lobe.

Question 18

what is prosopagnosia?

Answer 18

when you don’t develop the ability to recognize faces e.g. brain damage.

Question 19

what is the pre-frontal cortex?

Answer 19

when patients tend to preform poorly on tasks that require the use of LT strategies and inhibition of impulses.

Question 20

what does the occipital lobe do?

Answer 20

process images from your eyes and link that information with images stored in your memory.

Question 21

what does the temporal lobe do?

Answer 21

it manages your mood/emotions.

Question 22

what does the parietal lobe do?

Answer 22

it interprets sensory information, such as taste, temperature and touch.

Question 23

what does the frontal lobe do?

Answer 23

it controls thinking, planning, organizing, problem solving, short term memory and memory.

Question 24

where was Phineas Gage working at the time of his accident?

Answer 24

a railway road.

Question 25

how did the tamping rod go through his head?

Answer 25

it entered through his left cheek, passed behind his left eye and came out his forehead.

Question 26

what were the aims of the Damsio et al’s (1994) study?

Answer 26

to identify if any other areas other than the frontal lobe have been damaged in the accident.

Question 27

what were some weaknesses of the Damsio et al’s study?

Answer 27

-lack generalisability
-low validity and reliability because they were guessing

Question 28

what were some strengths of the Damsio et al’s study?

Answer 28

-can be used to treat similar injurys
-has high validity and uses scientific techniques.

Question 29

how many different entry and exits points did they match of the rod?

Answer 29

-20 different entry points
-16 exit points

Question 30

what was the Damsio et al’s study procedure?

Answer 30

-pics and measurements of Gage’s skull
-3D replica model of Gage’s skull
-measured the rod and compared it to parts of the skull that were damaged
-matched 20 entry pints, 16 exit points
-used the replica model to map out which areas would have been damaged in each case

Question 31

what were the results of the Damsio et al’s study?

Answer 31

-iron bar past through left eye socket and upwards through the head. -all of the damage occurred in the frontal lobe.
-brocu’s area was undamaged
-motor cortices were undamaged
-ventronmedial region of both frontal lobes were damaged, whilst saving the dorsolateral region.

Question 32

what is the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex responsible for?

Answer 32

its responsible for the abilities that Gage has difficulties with.

Question 33

what is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex involved in?

Answer 33

its involved with the intact abilities.

Question 34

what is a post mortem?

Answer 34

an examination of a body after death, often to work out how or why the person died.

Question 35

what were the aims of Sperry’s (1968) study?

Answer 35

Sperry was interested to investigate how the ‘‘split brain’’ worked compared to a ‘‘normal brain’’.

Question 36

what were some weaknesses of Sperry’s study?

Answer 36

-lacks reliability and generalisability as only 11 patients did it.
-lacks mundane realism as the tasks were artificial.

Question 37

what were some strengths of Sperry’s study?

Answer 37

-high reliability as the data was rich and detailed across 6 procedures.
-the design of the study was consistent for every patient.
-clear comparisons.