WAYS OF STUDYING THE BRAIN

Question 1

fMRI-

Answer 1

• uses magnetic fields and radio waves to detect changes in blood oxygenation and flow as a result of neuronal activity.
• It gives a moving picture of the brain; activity in regions of interest can be compared between a specific activity and a baseline task.

Question 2

ERP

Answer 2

• Event related potentials use electrodes fixed to a participant’s scalp to detect neuronal activity in response to a stimulus introduced by the researcher.

Question 3

Post-mortem examinations-

Answer 3

• a technique involving the analysis of a person’s brain after death-
• areas are examined to establish the likely cause of a deficit or disorder that the person suffered in life
• may involve comparison to a neurotypical brain

Question 4

EEG

Answer 4

• use electrodes fixed to a participant’s scalp which detect neuronal activity directly below where they are placed.

Question 5

• One strength of using fMRI is that it’s a safe and non-invasive method.

Answer 5

• For example, it doesn’t rely on the use of radiation and is virtually risk free and non-invasive. Also, it has high spatial resolution; produces
  clear images and provides detailed pictures of brain activity.
• This is an advantage as it’s an effective method at brain scanning.
• However, it only measures the change in blood flow in the brain, rather than measuring neural activity.
• The blood flow passing through a part of the brain does not always translate to a higher level of activity.
• So not a truly quantitative measure of neural activity in the brain

Question 6

One strength of EEG’s useful diagnostic tool compared to other methods.

Answer 6

• For example, it has helped vastly in the diagnosis of conditions such as epilepsy where random bursts of brain activity are being measured; so able to provide treatments to help manage the disability.
• Furthermore, compared to fMRI, it does not have a lag in reporting brain activity and can detect brain activity a single millisecond later. allows us to determine how processing is affected by a specific stimulus.
• However, EEG’s are only able to detect activity on the surface and so cannot reveal what is going on in the deeper regions such as the hippocampus.
• This means we are unable to get a complete picture of the brain’s functions; low temporal resolution

Question 7

One strength of post mortems is that we are able to study the brain physically.

Answer 7

• This is because we physically assess the brain instead of seeing them in a diagram format.
• Furthermore, Broca relied on post-mortem studies to establish the link between language and brain before neuroimaging was possible.
• This is an advantage as the use of post mortems increased scientific credibility of psychology as a whole
  before the use of scanning techniques and helped generate hypotheses for further study.
• However, research also lacks causation The observed damage in the brain may not always be the cause of deficits in the participants as they could be due to unrelated trauma or brain injuries