Week 4 - Neuroscience and law Flashcards
What is fee will?
Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action, to choose when to act and to do so in an unimpeded way.
What is readiness potential?
To investigate free will, we will first focus on pre-movement build-up of electrical potential in the front of the brain which is known as the Readiness Potential. The Readiness Potential is measured using scalp EEG and is of great interest to neuroscience, as its interpretation has resulted in much discussion about free will in the scientific community and beyond
Which part of the brain is studied when investigating free will?
The supplementary motor area, or SMA, is a part of the primary cerebral cortex that contributes to the control of movement. It is located on the midline surface of the hemisphere, just in front of – or anterior to – the primary motor cortex. Neurons in the SMA project directly to the spinal cord and play a role in direct control of movement. Functions especially attributed to the SMA include the control of movements that are internally generated – rather than triggered by external sensory events – and, also, the control of sequences of movements – though it should be noted that the precise role of the SMA is not yet know
How RP controls the body?
The RP occurs on the contralateral side of the scalp, reflecting the contralateral organisation of the motor cortex. So, for example, when a person voluntarily moves their right hand, the typical slow build-up of the EEG cortical potential that marks the RP will occur in the contralateral left hemisphere mortar cortex just prior to movement.
What was Libets discovery?
Libet’s results were surprising. Unexpectedly, he found that the unconscious brain activity of the Readiness Potential leading up to a subject’s movement began approximately half a second before the subject was aware of their own conscious intention to move. In other words, his results show that ‘your brain prepares the movement even before you have decided to move’. Although it was already known that the Readiness Potential reliably preceded physical movement, Libet controversially demonstrated that this neural build-up precedes the conscious intention to move.
What are the objections to Libets study?
On what key aspects D. Wegner agreed with Libet?
What are 3 disorders of free will?
What a more recent study by Soon et al. 2009 has found?
esults showed that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to ten seconds, a time considerably longer than the fraction of a second reported previously by Libet, before entering conscious awareness. Furthermore, this activity was observed in prefrontal and parietal regions – rather than the SMA, as in Libet’s study – which prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness. This data suggests that the SMA may not be the source where the conscious intention is first initiated. Also, this prior activity specifically encoded how a subject was going to decide – that is, the left or right response
What are the 3 types of memory?
Which brain areas sleep deprivation affects?
What are the techniques of white torture?
What is stress?
Stress consists of a state of heightened arousal in the body, and we can measure it in a variety of different ways, but it’s also combined with two other important things: it’s the perception that what’s about to happen to you, at present or in future, is going to be noxious in some way - it’s going to be very unpleasant- and it’s combined with a lack of control over what’s about to happen to you.
What is the effect of stress to hippocampus and long-term memory?
The hippocampal formation here has shrunk, the ventricle has enlarged compared to the group that have low levels of stress hormones and this group have a surprisingly compromised long-term memory. Their capacity to remember what happens to them on a daily basis is really surprisingly compromised.
How hydrocortisone impairs the memory?
In a very simple task, where you just have to learn word pairs, at 24 hours, people who’ve been exposed to the cortisone, compared to placebo, are performing at about 50 to 60 per cent of the normal controls. So, that’s the effect of an acute administration of stress hormones.
2 major cholinergic pathways.
