Effects of brain damage and brain stimulation as a window into the mind

Question 1

What is the issue of causality?

Answer 1

Just because brain activity is associated with a task does not mean that the activity causes the observed behaviour

Question 2

What can we observe to determine causality?

Answer 2

neurosurgery,
stroke,
brain trauma or tumours,
neurodegeneration,
infection of brain tissue

Question 3

What is neurosurgery?

Answer 3

removal of brain tissue for treatment of neurological or psychiatric disorders (most often epilepsy)

Question 4

What is neurodegeneration?

Answer 4

Degeneration of brain tissue in dementia

Question 5

What is neuropsychology?

Answer 5

Examines the effects of brain damage on abilites and behaviour

Question 6

What did Broca determine that Tan had?

Answer 6

a lesion caused by syphillis in the left inferior frontal lobe

Question 7

What is the corpus callosum?

Answer 7

white matter tracts (numerous axons) connecting two hemispheres

Question 8

What is callosotomy?

Answer 8

cutting through the corpus callosum to limit spread of epileptic activity

Question 9

What is the WADA test?

Answer 9

reversible numbing of the left hemisphere via the sodium amytal injection

Question 10

Where is the localisation of language heavily based

Answer 10

the left hemisphere

Question 11

What is hemispatial neglect?

Answer 11

being able to see everything but stop paying attention to the left visual field

Question 12

How did HM have anterograde amnesia?

Answer 12

formed almost no new episodic memories

Question 13

How did HM have retregrade amnesia?

Answer 13

recall early childhood but not years immediatly before the surgery

Question 14

What in HM were close to normal?

Answer 14

Procedural memory and lexical memory

Question 15

What are the key approaches in neuroimaging?

Answer 15

To see where a task is localised or to see if a task has a different pattern of activation from another condition

Question 16

What are the key approaches in neuropsychology?

Answer 16

Classical neuropsychology and cognitive neuropsychology

Question 17

What is classical neuropsychology?

Answer 17

Research primary concerned with localisation

Question 18

What is cognitive neuropsychology?

Answer 18

Concerned with determining the cognitive architecture by identifyinf behavioural performance that relies on qualitatively similar or on qualitatively different processes (regardless of the exact location of damage).

Relies on the logic of dissociations

Question 19

What is an example of dissociation?

Answer 19

whether the recognition and writing of vowels (e.g. a, e) rely on different psychological process from the recognition and writing of consonants (e.g. t, r)

Question 20

What is single dissociation?

Answer 20

when a manipulation leaves one cognitive function (say, A) intact whilst severing another (say, B).

Question 21

What is double dissociation?

Answer 21

one type of item (here vowels or consonants) is generally more resilient to the effects of damage

Question 22

What is an example of single dissosiation?

Answer 22

Cubelli and spelling errors with vowles?

Question 23

What is an example of double dissociation?

Answer 23

Kay and Hanley- errors in vowels and constonants but worse in the latter

Question 24

Why is a group study better than a single case?

Answer 24

Reduces the contribution of irrelevant factors

Question 25

What is a limitation of neuropsychology?

Answer 25

lesions resulting from trauma or neurological degeneration are rarely anatomically selective

Question 26

How does TMS work?

Answer 26

• large current is discharged into a coil
• The current generates a rapidly changing (increasing) magnetic field around the coil
• In the cortex, the magnetic field generates electric (ionic) current through neurons’ membranes

Question 27

What is phosphenes?

Answer 27

perception of flashing aptterns

Question 28

What can we infer from the effects of TMS?

Answer 28

• functional-anatomical inference
• chronometric (temporal) inference
• process interaction inference

Question 29

What are advantages of TMS

Answer 29

• capacity to determine causation
• good spatial resolution
• extreme temporal resolution
• different conditions to be compared within the same group of subjects