Theory of the brain - Localisation Flashcards
What did Gall believe the brain was made up of?
Made up of different organs that control specific faculties eg. memory, emotion or intelligence.
What is phrenology with Franz Gall?
The more developed a particular organ was the more prominent it would be causing a bump on the skull in that area.
How did Pierre Flourens feel about Franz Galls phrenology?
Discredited it using animal studies demonstrating that different structured of the brain have different functions.
What happened with Broca’s Patient ‘Tan’?
He could only utter only a single syllable: Tan.
When he died a postmortem biopsy of his brain revealed that there was a large lesion in the frontal area, became named Broca’s Area
What did Carl Wernicke identify?
Similar problem to Broca’s pateint where patients were able to speak but not able to actually comprehend language.
Examining the patients brains it revealed lesions at a junction of the parietal, temporal and occipital lobes. This region of the brain is now called Wernicke’s Area.
What theory did Lashley (1929) come up with?
Equipotentiality Theory?
What does equipotentiality mean?
The capacity of any intact part of a functional brain to carry out functions which are lost by the destruction of other parts.
What does the extent of impairment depend on, equipotentiality?
The amount of brain tissue removed/damaged rather than the specific location.
What were Lashley’s experiments?
Experimented on rats, lesioned different parts of their cortex while they learned a maze.
Found that no single cortical area was solely responsible for memory.
Supports the idea that no single cortical area was solely responsible for memory.
What does equipotentiality theory suggest?
Opposes strict localisation of function and instead suggests that higher cognitive functions are more widely spread across the brain.
What did Sperry and Gazzaniga conclude throgh their split brain experiments?
That each cerebral hemisphere, rather than specific brain regions, have specialised functions.
