Week 4.2 Cog Neuro

Question 1

5 causes of brain damage (slective to diffuse)

Answer 1

surgery
tumour
stroke
traumatic brain injury
neurodegeneration

Question 2

classical neuropsychology approach

Answer 2

mapping brain areas to cog functions
performed at group level
answers clinical questions

Question 3

cognitive neuropsychology approach

Answer 3

determines whether functions dissociate under damage
single-case studies
focus on cog processes
damage not localised

Question 4

a single dissociation

Answer 4

patient impaired on task A but spared on task B

Question 5

a double dissociation

Answer 5

two single dissociations have a complementary profile of abilities

Question 6

associations

Answer 6

equally bad at reading nonwords and irregular words
- could have damaged a neural system necessary for both functions
- could have damaged two different systems close to each other in the brain

Question 7

fractionation assumption

Answer 7

brain damage can selectively affect different cog/neural systems

Question 8

transparency assumption

Answer 8

brain lesions can affect existing cog systems but do not create new systems

Question 9

universality assumption

Answer 9

all cog systems are basically the same

Question 10

connectionist triangle model of reading

Answer 10

to read irregular words correctly we have to activate their meanings (semantic)

Question 11

dual-route cascaded model

Answer 11

to read irregular words correctly we use lexical representations (not semantic)

Question 12

strong association between irregular reading and semantic knowledge

Answer 12

semantic dementia
impaired semantic knowledge of word meanings correlated with poor irregular word reading
suggest semantic knowledge = necessary to pronounce irregular words

Question 13

patient EM

Answer 13

single-case dissociation between irregular reading and semantic knowledge
impaired semantic
spared irregular word reading
suggests semantics is not necessary

Question 14

problem with single-case studies

Answer 14

lesions may affect different people in different ways if their cog systems are already different

Question 15

split-brain

Answer 15

a surgical procedure in which fibers of the corpus callosum are severed

Question 16

strokes

Answer 16

disruption in the blood supply to the brain
cerebrovascular accidents (CVA)

Question 17

aneurysm

Answer 17

over-elastic region of arterty prone to rupture

Question 18

task-resource artifact

Answer 18

if two tasks share same neural cognitive resource but one uses it more then damage to this resource will affect one task more than the other

Question 19

task-demand artifact

Answer 19

one task performed worse than another because it is performed sub-optimally (not because some aspect of the task is compromised)

Question 20

dysgraphia

Answer 20

difficulties spelling and writing

Question 21

syndrome

Answer 21

cluster of different symptoms that are believed to be related

Question 22

edema

Answer 22

swelling of brain following injury

Question 23

diaschisis

Answer 23

discrete brain lesion can disrupt functioning of distant regions that are structurally intact

Question 24

behavioural neuroscience

Answer 24

cog neuro in nonhuman animals

Question 25

cathodal tDCS

Answer 25

decreases cortical excitability and decreases performance

Question 26

anodal tDCS

Answer 26

increases cortical excitability and increases performance

Question 27

transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Answer 27

• stimulating region of cortex placed beneath current-carrying coil
• stimulation temporarily interferes with ongoing cognitive activity + provides info about necessity of region for performing task
• virtual lesion

Question 28

TMS vs tDCS

Answer 28

• transcranial direct current stimulation has poorer temporal + spatial resolution to TMS
• has advantage of being able to facilitate cog function (anodal tDCS)