Lecture 9 - Neuropsychology Flashcards
(27 cards)
what is neuropsychology
- Study of behaviours with reference to their neurobiological bases
- Neuropsychology draws from many fields including anatomy, biology, ethology, pharmacology, physiology, and philosophy
- Focus is on the links between brain & behaviour
Cognitive neuropsychology
academic discipline: research into the biological bases of cognition, emotions, and/or actions.
clincial neuropsychology
an applied science: the behavioural expression of brain dysfunction.
Neurospychology vs clincial psychology
- Clinical Psychology
o Assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of “psychological and mental health problems”.
vs - Clinical Neuropsychology
o Assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of “psychological disorders associated with conditions affecting the brain”.
neurospychology models
Historical:
- gall and phrenology
- broca and tan
modern:
- modular organisation
- lesion studeis
-neuropsycholoigcal assessment
gall and phrenology
- Personality traits and characteristics can be localised
- If you use a part more, it gets bigger
- Bigger parts of the brain will cause bumps on the skull
broca and tan
- Neurophysiology of language
- Studied people with “ahasia”, performed autopsies and identified “Broca’s Area”
modular organisation
– Specific brain regions are necessary but not sufficient for complex mental tasks
– Mental processes are the result of many component processes (cognitive or sensory), specific brain regions are responsible for component processes.
– Complex mental processes are an “emergent property” of the co-ordinated activity of many brain regions
– A specific brain region can contribute to many mental processes
lesion studies
Behavioural consequences of brain changes
– Tumour
– Stroke
– Epilepsy
– Traumatic brain injury
– Transcranial magnetic stimulation
neuropsychological assessment
– Psychometric tests
– Medical history/tests
– Clinical interview
– Psychosocial history
“which brain region, or combination of regions is/are impaired?” (localisation of function)
mechanisms of brain dysfunction
cerebrovascular accidents
trumatic brain injury
neurodegenerative diseases
what is a cerebrovascualr accident
stroke
Loss of blood supply to parts of the brain
types of cerebrovascular accidents
cerebral ischemia
- hypoxia & infranction
- or transient ischemic attack
haemorrage
- intracranial bleeding
-compress surroudnign tissue
recovery of stroke depends on what
from Storke
- Severity and location of initial injury
- Quality and speed of medical intervention
- Health of remaining tissue
- Degree to which remaining nervous system can reorganise
trumatic brian injuries what is it
Caused by sudden impact to the brain.
trauma occurs because the brain floats in cerebrospinal fluid
- Following the impact, the brain shifts in the skull, bumping against bone and damaging nerve fibres
- The amount of damage depends on the amount of force involved in trauma
- Damage is often more widespread than with stroke and harder to pinpoint.
primary injuries
- skull fracture and shifting intracranial contents
- tearing, stretching, bruising, bleeding and swelling
- acceleration or deceleration forces result in a combination of
o Translation (linear, stretches the nerve fibres (axons)
o Rotation (greater strain on the nerve fibres (axons))
neurodegnerative diseases - dementia
DSM 5 “Major Neurocognitive Disorder”: “significant” decline in one or more of the domains of:
- Complex attention
- Executive function
- Learning and memory
- Language
- Perceptual motor ability
- Social cognition
Gradual cell death “atrophy”
Gradual cell death “atrophy”
Each neurodegenerative disease affects a particular type of brain cell or cells in a particular part of the brain; causing them to be the first to stop working:
- The symptoms can usually be identified by tests
- Clinical history can revel onset and progression
- Can lead to significant diagnoses
modular appraoach to neurodegenerative diseases
- Use tests and clinical interview to investigate mental processes and subprocesses to identify which are impaired
- Infer which brain regions or systems are implicated (“localisation of function”)
perceptial distrubances - nuerodegenerative diseoders
- Impairment in ability to organise, recognise, interpret and make sense of incoming sensory information
- Visual: eyes to the thalamus, then to particular areas do the occipital love of the cerebral cortex then along two separate pathways where specialised analyses occur that result in difference visual perceptions
“what” pathway
- Visual agnosia: Inability to identify objects by their appearance but can still see, describe and draw objects
- Prosopagnosia: inability to recognise faces
“where” pathway
- Hemineglect: difficulty seeing, responsible to or acting or information coming from one side of space (incl their own body)
- Appears to be an attentional disturbance rather than a purely sensory/perceptual disturbance
“apraxia”
movement disorders
movement disroders
- Impairment in the ability to perform or coordinate previously intact motor skills
- Ideational apraxia: individual movements needed to perform a task are all correctly executed but in the wrong order
- Ideomotor apraxia: difficulties in performing the skilled movements of a task
