Chapter 2

Question 1

Cognitive neuroscience

Answer 1

the study of the physiological basis of cognition

Question 2

Levels of analysis

Answer 2

a topic can be studied in a number of different ways that each contribute to our understanding

Question 3

Neurons

Answer 3

small units in the brain that create and transmit information about what we experience and know

Question 4

Nerve net theory

Answer 4

continuous, interconnected pathways for conducting signals uninterrupted through the network in all directions

Question 5

Why was the nerve net described as continuous?

Answer 5

past staining techniques and microscopes couldn’t resolve small details due to the high density of the cells

Question 6

Staining techniques used to study the nerve net

Answer 6

immersing a thin slice of brain tissue in a solution of silver nitrate (Golgi); using a Golgi stain on only some cells in a slice of brain tissue from newborn animals (Ramon y Cajal)

Question 7

Neuron doctrine

Answer 7

individual cells called neurons, which are not continuous with other cells, transmit signals in the nervous system

Question 8

Cell body

Answer 8

metabolic center of the neuron that contains mechanisms to keep the cell alive

Question 9

Dendrites

Answer 9

branches out of the cell body to receive signals from other neurons

Question 10

Axons or nerve fibers

Answer 10

long processes that transmit signals to other neurons

Question 11

Synapse

Answer 11

small gap between the axon terminal or the end of a neuron’s axon and the dendrites or cell body of another neuron

Question 12

Neural circuits

Answer 12

groups of neurons that form specific connections with one another

Question 13

Receptors

Answer 13

neurons that are specialized to pick up information from the environment; also have axons

Question 14

Microelectrodes (Adrian)

Answer 14

small shafts of hollow glass filled with a conductive salt solution that can pick up electrical signals at the electrode tip and conduct these signals back to a recording device

Question 15

Resting potential

Answer 15

the inside of a neuron has a charge that’s 70 millivolts more negative than the outside; this difference continues as long as the neuron is at rest

Question 16

Action potential

Answer 16

when a neuron’s receptor is stimulated, the charge inside the axon increases to +40 mV as the nerve impulse passes the recording electrode for about 1 ms, then returns to resting potential

Question 17

What determines the intensity of a stimulus?

Answer 17

the rate of nerve firing or the number of action potentials travelling down an axon per second; the shape and height of an action potential remains constant

Question 18

Principle of neural representation

Answer 18

everything a person experiences is based on representations in the person’s nervous system

Question 19

Feature detectors

Answer 19

neurons that respond to specific stimulus features like orientation, movement, and length

Question 20

Experience-dependent plasticity

Answer 20

the structure of the brain is changed by experience e.g. neurons in visual cortex respond only to vertical lines

Question 21

Hierarchical processing

Answer 21

neurons in the visual cortex that respond to simple stimuli send their axons to higher levels of the visual system, where signals from many neurons combine and interact to respond to more complex stimuli

Question 22

Sensory code

Answer 22

how neurons represent various characteristics of the environment

Question 23

Specificity coding

Answer 23

an object can be represented by the firing of a specialized neuron that responds only to that object

Question 24

Population coding

Answer 24

the representation of a particular object by the pattern of firing of a large number of neurons; large number of stimuli can be represented

Question 25

Sparse coding

Answer 25

a particular object is represented by a pattern of firing of only a small group of neurons, with the majority of neurons remaining silent

Question 26

Localization of function

Answer 26

specific functions are served by specific areas of the brain

Question 27

Cerebral cortex

Answer 27

a layer of tissue ~3 mm thick that covers the brain

Question 28

Neuropsychology

Answer 28

study of the behavior of people with brain damage

Question 29

Cortical equipotentiality

Answer 29

idea that the brain operated as an indivisible whole as opposed to specialized areas

Question 30

Broca's area

Answer 30

area in the frontal lobe that is damaged in those who experience stroke; responsible for producing speech

Question 31

Broca's aphasia

Answer 31

slow, labored, ungrammatical speech caused by damage to Broca's area

Question 32

Wernicke's aphasia

Answer 32

speech is fluent and grammatically correct but tends to be incoherent due to damage in Wernicke's area located in the temporal lobe; unable to understand other's speech due to inability to match words with meanings

Question 33

Gyrus

Answer 33

ridge on the cerebral cortex

Question 34

Sulcus

Answer 34

groove or indentation on the cerebral cortex

Question 35

What happens when the occipital lobe is damaged?

Answer 35

blindness in the area of the visual space connected to the area of the occipital lobe that was damaged

Question 36

Auditory cortex

Answer 36

located in the upper temporal lobe; receives signals from the ears

Question 37

Somatosensory cortex

Answer 37

in the parietal lobe; receives signals from the skin for perceptions of touch, pressure, and pain

Question 38

Frontal lobe

Answer 38

receives signals from all senses and is responsible for coordination and higher cognitive functions like planning, short-term memory, strategic thinking, judgement, social cognition, and movement

Question 39

Prosopagnosia

Answer 39

caused by damage to the temporal lobe on the lower right side of the brain; inability to recognize faces but still able to recognize people through featural processing (e.g. voices, names, hair color, clothes)

Question 40

Double dissociation

Answer 40

damage to one area of the brain causes function A to be absent while function B is present, while damage to another area causes the opposite (e.g. object and face recognition)

Question 41

task-related fMRI

Answer 41

change in brain activity when a person engages in a specific cognitive task

Question 42

Corpus callosum

Answer 42

fiber bundle of axons or commissures that connect the right and left hemispheres

Question 43

Contralateral control

Answer 43

right hemisphere controls the left side of the body, and vice versa

Question 44

Lateralization

Answer 44

certain functions are dominant in on hemisphere (e.g. language production on the left)

Question 45

Brainstem

Answer 45

controls automatic processes that regulate basic life-support functions like breathing, heart rate, swallowing, sleep cycles; can result in coma or death if damaged; contains regions producing serotonin, norepinephrine, etc.

Question 46

Cerebellum

Answer 46

for balance and coordination of voluntary movements, and performing high-level cognitive tasks

Question 47

Layers in superior and inferior colliculus

Answer 47

shallow: relay centers for sensory information entering the brain; deep: motor activity like eye movement

Question 48

Result of damage to superior and inferior colliculus

Answer 48

problems in hearing, seeing, and motor control

Question 49

Forebrain

Answer 49

surrounds the midbrain and contains the cerebral; regulates higher mental processes and enables people to engage in complex learning, memory, thought, and language

Question 50

Diencephalon

Answer 50

subdivision of the forebrain consisting of the thalamus and the hypothalamus

Question 51

Thalamus vs. Hypothalamus

Answer 51

for salience and sensory relay; for body regulation (body temp, hunger, thirst, sexual behavior) and arousal

Question 52

Salience

Answer 52

the degree to which attention is captured by a stimulus in the environment

Question 53

Parts of the limbic system

Answer 53

basal ganglia, thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, hippocampus

Question 54

Amygdala(s)

Answer 54

for salience, perception, learning, memory, and fear responses

Question 55

Hippocampus

Answer 55

for spatial navigation, perception, memory: creating new memories, integration of new memories with existing memories

Question 56

Basal ganglia

Answer 56

in the base of forebrain, top of midbrain; for action-selection, skill, motivation, reward

Question 57

Temporal lobe

Answer 57

for hearing, language, and long-term memory

Question 58

Parietal lobe

Answer 58

for processing touch information and complex sensory integration

Question 59

Occipital lobe

Answer 59

for visual processing and visual pattern recognition

Question 60

Connectome

Answer 60

the wiring diagram of the structure of the brain

Question 61

Default mode network

Answer 61

responds when a person is not involved in specific tasks; implicated in mind wandering and creativity

Question 62

Fusiform face area

Answer 62

for facial recognition; damaged in prosopagnosia cases; in the fusiform gyrus on the underside of the temporal lobe

Question 63

Parahippocampal place area

Answer 63

activated when perceiving indoor and outdoor scenes through information on spatial layout

Question 64

Extrastriate body area

Answer 64

activated by pictures of bodies and parts of bodies (but not by faces)

Question 64

Distributed representation

Answer 64

many areas of the brain are involved in a particular type of cognition e.g. looking at faces

Question 65

Neural networks

Answer 65

interconnected areas of the brain that can communicate with each other; related to distributed processing

Question 66

Networks

Answer 66

structural pathways that form the brain's information highway containing functional pathways that operate dynamically

Question 67

Structural connectivity

Answer 67

how the brain is wired together; formed by nerve axons connecting different brain areas

Question 68

Functional connectivity

Answer 68

the extent to which neural activity in two brain regions is correlated by using resting state fMRI data; correlated = functionally connected

Question 69

Track-weighted imaging

Answer 69

technique for detecting brain pathways based on how water diffuses along the length of nerve fibers