module 5

Question 1

Who was Phineas Gage, and what happened to him?

Answer 1

A: A railroad worker who survived a tamping iron blasting through his frontal lobe, which changed his personality and behaviour.

Question 2

What part of Phineas Gage’s brain was damaged?

Answer 2

A: The left frontal lobe.

Question 3

What did Phineas Gage’s case teach us?

Answer 3

A: That the frontal lobe is involved in personality and emotional regulation.

Question 4

Who was “Tan” and what condition did he have?

Answer 4

A: A patient who could only say “Tan,” but understood language and followed commands; he had Broca’s aphasia.

Question 5

What brain area was damaged in Tan’s brain?

Answer 5

A: Broca’s Area in the left frontal lobe.

Question 6

What is Broca’s aphasia?

Answer 6

A: A condition where individuals can understand language but cannot produce speech.

Question 7

Who was Henry Molaison (H.M.)?

Answer 7

A: A patient who had both medial temporal lobes removed to treat epilepsy and could no longer form new long-term memories.

Question 8

What brain structures were removed from H.M.?

Answer 8

A: Hippocampus, amygdala, and part of the entorhinal cortex.

Question 9

What did H.M.’s case teach us about memory?

Answer 9

A: The hippocampus is crucial for forming new long-term memories, but not for procedural or working memory.

Question 10

What does a CT scan do?

Answer 10

A: Uses X-rays to produce medium-resolution images of brain structure and detect major abnormalities like tumors or strokes.

Question 11

What is MRI used for?

Answer 11

A: Produces high-resolution structural images of the brain using a strong magnetic field and radiofrequency energy.

Question 12

What is the basic principle behind MRI?

Answer 12

A: Aligns hydrogen protons with a magnetic field and measures radio waves emitted as they return to baseline.

Question 13

What is Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI)?

Answer 13

A: A type of MRI that tracks water diffusion to image bundles of myelinated axons in the brain.

Question 14

What are microelectrodes used for?

Answer 14

A: To record the electrical activity of single neurons (single-unit recording).

Question 15

What are macroelectrodes used for?

Answer 15

A: To record the summed electrical activity of many neurons (e.g., EEG)

Question 16

What does EEG measure?

Answer 16

A: Brain wave activity via electrodes on the scalp; good temporal but poor spatial resolution.

Question 17

What does MEG measure?

Answer 17

A: Magnetic fields created by electrical activity in the brain; uses SQUIDs to detect signals.

Question 18

True or False: Microelectrodes can record single-neuron activity.

Answer 18

A: ✅ True

Question 19

What are Event-Related Potentials (ERPs)?

Answer 19

A: Brain responses that are time-locked to specific events, recorded using EEG.

Question 20

What does functional imaging measure?

Answer 20

A: Metabolic or chemical changes in the brain related to neural activity.

Question 21

What is PET (Positron Emission Tomography)?

Answer 21

A: A scan that uses radioactive tracers (like 2-DG) to detect brain activity via gamma ray emissions.

Question 22

What is fMRI?

Answer 22

A: A functional imaging method that detects changes in blood oxygen levels to measure brain activity.

Question 23

What is the BOLD response in fMRI?

Answer 23

A: Blood Oxygen Level Dependent response — a measure of oxygenated vs. deoxygenated blood.

Question 24

True or False: PET has good temporal resolution.

Answer 24

A: ❌ False (PET has poor temporal resolution.)

Question 25

True or False: fMRI has excellent spatial resolution but poor temporal resolution.

Answer 25

A: ✅ True

Question 26

What is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)?

Answer 26

A: TMS is an experimental method of stimulating the brain using magnetic fields delivered through electrical pulses via a figure-8 coil placed over the head.

Question 27

What does TMS allow researchers to do?

Answer 27

A: It allows specific brain areas to be more or less activated to study brain-behaviour relationships.

Question 28

What is the best use of TMS in terms of brain structure?

Answer 28

A: TMS is most appropriate for studying the surface of the cortex, as deeper areas are harder to stimulate.

Question 29

What are clinical and research applications of TMS?

Answer 29

A: Clinically, TMS has been used to treat depression and anxiety. In research, it enables causal inferences about brain function.

Question 30

What did Harmer et al. (2001) investigate using TMS?

Answer 30

A: They studied neural processing of angry vs. happy faces. TMS to the medial-frontal cortex impaired angry face recognition but not happy faces.

Question 31

What do twin studies investigate?

Answer 31

A: The influence of heredity on traits by comparing monozygotic and dizygotic twins.

Question 32

What is the genetic similarity between monozygotic and dizygotic twins?

Answer 32

A: Monozygotic twins share 100% of genes; dizygotic twins share about 50%.

Question 33

What does concordance mean in twin studies?

Answer 33

A: Concordance means both twins have the same trait or diagnosis; discordance means only one does.

Question 34

What is implied if monozygotic twins have a higher concordance rate than dizygotic twins?

Answer 34

A: The trait or disorder likely has a strong genetic basis.

Question 35

What do adoption studies compare?

Answer 35

A: Individuals adopted early in life into their biological and adoptive families to assess genetic vs. environmental influences.

Question 36

What do similarities with biological parents suggest in adoption studies?

Answer 36

A: Genetic factors likely influence a trait.

Question 37

What is the human genome?

Answer 37

A: The complete set of genes (DNA) in a species.

Question 38

What are chromosomes and genes?

Answer 38

A: Chromosomes are long strands of DNA. Genes are functional units that direct protein synthesis.

Question 38

What is an allele?

Answer 38

A: A particular form of an individual gene.

Question 38

Q15: What do genomic studies aim to do?

Answer 38

A: Determine the genome locations of genes related to physical and behavioural traits.

Question 38

What are linkage studies?

Answer 38

A: They examine families with a trait and use known DNA markers to find associated gene regions.

Question 38

What are genome-wide association studies (GWAS)?

Answer 38

A: They compare genomes across individuals to find gene variants linked to traits or diseases.

Question 38

What are the advantages of GWAS?

Answer 38

A: Identify unknown variant-trait associations Discover new biological mechanisms Publicly shareable data for scientific progress

Question 38

What are the limitations of GWAS?

Answer 38

A: Often explain only a modest portion of heritability Correlation ≠ causation Limited clinical predictive value

Question 38

Who summarized the benefits and drawbacks of GWAS in 2019?

Answer 38

A: Tam et al. (2019), in Nature Reviews Genetics.

Question 38

true or flase: The human genome consists of DNA that encodes our genetic information.

Answer 38

A: ✅ True

Question 38

true or flashe: If a disorder has a strong genetic basis, monozygotic twins will show lower concordance than dizygotic twins.

Answer 38

A: ❌ False

Question 38

true or flase: The genome is the complete set of genes in the DNA of a species.

Answer 38

A: ✅ True