Biopsychology - Localisation of function in the brain Flashcards
what is localisation of function
- different areas of the brain are responsible for specific behaviours, processes or activities
what is lateralisation
- right side of the brain controls the left side of the body
- left side of the brain controls the right side of the body
what is the motor area
- region of the frontal lobe involved in regulating movement
what is the somatosensory area
- as area of parietal love that processes sensory information
what is the visual area
- part of the occipital lobe that receives and processes visual information
what is the auditory area
- located in the temporal lobe and concerned with the analysis of speech based information
what is Broca’s area
- area in frontal lobe of the left hemisphere
- responsible for speech production
- damage can cause Broca’s aphasia - slow speech
what is Wernicke’s area
- area of the temporal lobe in the left hemisphere
- responsible for language comprehension
- Wernicke’s aphasia when damaged - nonsense words
what are the parts of the brain
- temporal lobe
- parietal lobe
- occipital lobe
- frontal lobe
what is the case of Phineas Gage
- metre long pole went through his cheek passing through his skull
- most of his frontal lobe was missing
- his personality changed but could still carry out all other functions
- frontal lobe is involved in decision making, social, behaviour and impulse control
what are the strengths of localisation
Evidence from neurosurgery
- areas of the brain linked to mental disorders
- cingulotomy involves isolating cingulate gyrus implicated in OCD
- Dougherty reported on 44 people who had the surgery done
- after 32 weeks 30% met the criteria for successful response for the surgery
- behaviours associated with serious mental disorders may be localised
Evidence from brain scans
Petersen
- Wernicke’s area active during a listening task
- Broca’s area active in a reading task
Buckner and Peterson
- episodic and semantic memories in pre-frontal cortex
what are the limitations are localisation of function
Language localisation questioned
Dick and Trembley
- 2% modern researchers believe Wernicke’s are and Broca’s area control language
- language function distributed more holistically than we thought
- language centres also found in subcortical regions
- contradiction of localisation theory
