investigating brain Flashcards
What are four brain investigation techniques?
fMRI
EEG
ERPs
Post mortem examinations
What does fMRI stand for?
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
What is fMRI?
Detects changes in blood oxygenation and flow as a result of brain activity
Active area consumes more oxygen (haemodynamic response)
Produces 3D images showing which areas are involved in certain mental process
What does EEG stand for?
Electroencephalogram
What is EEG?
Measures electrical activity via electrodes
Brainwave patterns generated from neurons
Overall account of brain activity
Diagnostic tool for unusual arrhythmic patterns
What does ERPs stand for?
Event related potentials
What is ERPs?
EEG is crude and overly general
Contains all neural responses associated with specific events
Extraneous activity from EEG filtered out
ERP remains - types of brainwave triggered by particular events
What are post mortem examinations?
Analysis of brain after death
Most likely to be those with rare disorders
Examine areas of damage - establish likely cause
Comparison with neurotypical brain
Strengths of fMRI
Does not rely on radiation like PET
Risk free and non invasive
High spatial resolution - very detailed
Weaknesses of fMRI
Expensive
Person must be completely still to be accurate
Poor temporal resolution - time lag of 5 seconds
Can only measure blood flow not individual neurons
Strengths of EEG
Valuable for diagnosing epilepsy
Contributed to understanding of stages of sleep
High temporal resolution - millisecond
Weaknesses of EEG
Generalised info
Can not pinpoint exact source of activity
Strengths of ERPs
Much more specific than raw EEG
High temporal resolution
Different types of ERP - P300 component involved in maintenance of working memory
Weaknesses of ERP
Lack of standardisation between research studies - can’t confirm findings
Hard to eliminate extraneous data
Strengths of post mortems
Foundation for early understanding of brain
Broca and Wernicke relied on it
Improve medical knowledge
Help generate hypotheses
