bio psych-brain

Question 1

what is the localisation of function in the brain

Answer 1

this is the belief that different areas in the brain are responsible for certain behavioural and cognitive processes

Question 2

what is the visual cortex

Answer 2

responsible for vision,damage leads to blinding, found in occipital lobe

Question 3

what is the auditory cortex

Answer 3

responsible for hearing, found in the temporal lobe,damage leads to hearing loss

Question 4

what is the motor cortex

Answer 4

responsible for voluntary movement, found in the frontal lobe, damage leads to loss of fine movement

Question 5

what is the somatosensory cortex

Answer 5

responsible for sensing info, found in parietal lobe, damage leads to loss of ability of identifying subjects by touch

Question 6

what is the brocas area

Answer 6

associated with speech production, found in the left temporal lobe, damage leads to brocas aphasia

Question 7

what is the wernickes area

Answer 7

associated with language comprehension, found in the left frontal lobe, damage leads to wernickes aphasia

Question 8

what is the A03 for the localisation of function in the brain

Answer 8

supported by research- psychologist carried out tasks and was able to see the brocas area was active during these tasks

contradictory evidence- rat study, removed 10-50% of rats cortex, found all parts of the brain are important , no area is specifically designed for something

however this used animals

empirical evidence

case study of tan

Question 9

what is hemispheric lateralisation

Answer 9

this is the idea that hemispheres in the brain are functionally different and certain processes are carried out by one hemisphere rather than both

Question 10

what is an example of this

Answer 10

speech production is lateralised to the left side and facial recognition is lateralised to the right side- theyre connected by the corpus collasum

Question 11

what is split brain research

Answer 11

a series of studies which involve epileptic patients who have experienced a surgical seperation of hemispheres in the brain

Question 12

what happens in split brain research

Answer 12

it involves projecting a stimuli to each hemisphere separately, if an object is presented to the right visual field its processed by the left hemisphere, if presented to the left visual field its processed by the right hemisphere

Question 13

what was sperry and gazanigas split brain research study

Answer 13

conducted a lab experiment with 11 split brain patients that had undergone surgery for their epilepsy, compared them to people with no hemispheric disconnection and no history of epilepsy

Question 14

what were the patients asked to do

Answer 14

fixate on a dot on the centre of the screen whilst a word or image was presented to the right or left visual field for less than a 10th of a second, they were then asked to make a response with their left or right hand or verbally

Question 15

what were the results of the study

Answer 15

when an object was presented to the rvf they could describe what was there, when presented to the lvf they said they seen nothing. if two words were presented simutaneously on either side, they would write the word on the lvf and say it on the rvf- concluded right is for facial recognition, left is for language production

Question 16

what is the A03 for this study

Answer 16

high control, population validity,pioonering research- had a huge impact on how we understand the brain, supported by the case study of tan

Question 17

what are the ways of studying the brain

Answer 17

FMRI, EEG,ERP, POST MORTEM

Question 18

What does a FMRI do

Answer 18

measure the changes in brain activity when someone performs a task, it measures the changes in blood flow in specific areas that indicate increased neural activity in those areas.

Question 19

what is the A03 for FMRIs

Answer 19

theyre ethical as pps are in a good mental state to give consent
its risk free, uses no radioactive substance as it uses pet scans.
They’re expensive- costly and require specially trained operators

Biological reductionism- focused on localised brain activity and because of this the nature of the brain is overlooked. Ignores how a brain functions

Question 20

what is a post mortem

Answer 20

analysis of a persons brain after their death, people subject to post mortems are those who had a rare disorder, areas of damage are assessed so they can see the cause of affliction.

Question 21

what is the a03 for a post mortem

Answer 21

more detailed than the others,theyre invasive and allow researchers to examine deeper areas in the brain-increases our understanding of the brain

relies on retrospective data-since the person is dead you cant follow up on anything that arises from the post mortem. relies on assumptions.

Question 22

what is plasticity

Answer 22

this refers to the brains tendency to change and adapt due to new learning and experience.

as people gain new experiences, nerve pathways that are constantly used get stronger and those that are rarely used die

Question 23

what was maguires study for plasticity

Answer 23

he investigated whether changes in the brain could be detected because of extensive experience of spacial navigation.
the sample consisted of 16 male taxi drivers and 50 males, used an mri scanner to detect grey matter in the taxi and non taxi drivers

Question 24

what were the findings

Answer 24

the posterior hippocampus of the taxi drivers were larger than the non taxi drivers. this part of the brain is associated with spatial and navigational skills

the posterior hippocampus volume was positively correlated with time spent as a taxi driver.

Question 25

what is the A03 of this study

Answer 25

low population validity, findings were correlational, gender bias-beta bias,

Question 26

What is functional recovery of the brain

Answer 26

following damage to the brain, the brain can redistribute or transfer functions from damaged areas to non damaged areas

Question 27

what happens during axonal spouting

Answer 27

new nerve endings grow and connect with undamaged nerve areas to form new neuronal pathways

Question 28

what happens during denervation super sensitivity

Answer 28

axons that do a similar job to those lost become highly aroused in order to compensate for those lost

Question 29

what happens during the recruitment of homologous areas on opposite sides of the brain

Answer 29

this is where specific tasks can now be carried out by another area e.g. if the Broca's area is damaged the right side can carry it out

Question 30

what happened in the functional recovery study

Answer 30

EB was operated at the age of 2 to remove a large tumour on his left hemisphere. due to the size of the tumour, all of his left hemisphere was removed and he lost all of his linguistic skills and started going through classes

Question 31

what were the results of the study

Answer 31

By the age of 5, he was developing some linguistic skills back, by the age of 17 he had fully recovered as his right side had fully compensated for the left

Question 32

what is the a03 for the study

Answer 32

Case study-unrepresentative functional recovery and age- plasticity reduces in age but even things that can be modified in childhood can be fixed in adulthood practical application- led to the development of neurohabilitation, this prove that the theory is real.

Question 33

What is an EEG

Answer 33

Records electrical activity in the brain. Places electrodes on the scalp to detect small electrical charges resulting from the activity of brain cells

Question 34

What is an ERP

Answer 34

Electrodes are put on the scalp and detect neuronal activity in response to a stimulus introduced by the researcher

Question 35

What is the a03 for EEG and ERP

Answer 35

Cheaper than fmri- more widely available Practical application-it can pick up on brain activity associated with epileptic seizures which is helpful with diagnosing epilepsy