Neurophysiology of Higher Cognition Flashcards
(28 cards)
What do you need to have cognition?
Pyramidal neurons in different brain areas of the neocortex to talk to each other
What is the pathway of acquiring language?
Language conceptual system > language mediational system > implementation system > spoken language
What is the Implementation system?
Includes the Wernicke’s and broca’s areas and the arcuate fasciulus
Totem pole guy - only implements what the higher systems command
What is the mediational system?
The middle guy. Includes pretty much everything but the visual cortex
What is the conceptual system
The boss. Allows us to recognize the concepts behind our language.
(e.g. via the ventral visual pathway > can name things (noun association)
Describe language in babies younger than 6 months
Language universalists. Responds to every sound they hear and perceive it as potential language
Describe language in children between 6-9 months old - to about a year old
Children start to “dump” sounds/phenomes that aren’t in their language.
At 1 year, this process ends and babies will start to convert to true spoken language
How is a second language processed?
During language acquisition phase: same pathway as first language
Outside of the language acquisition phase: activates region adjacent to Broca’s
What are the components of social cognition?
Emotional comprehension
Theory of mind
What are two ways you can accomplish emotional recognition?
Facial expression
Prosody (intonation)
So how do we process facial expressions?
- Use superior temporal sulcus and fusiform gyrus to recognize the face
- Use the amygdala to recognize the emotion
What does the amygdala do in terms of recognizing emotion?
It will focus on the eyes, nose, mouth triangle and make your eyes spend more time on this
What happens to emotional recognition if you damage your amygdala?
Eyes aren’t focused on the triangle and you can miss the emotional context and not recognize the emotion
What type of cells are responsible for emotional comprehension?
Mirror neuron system (fire when you do something and when you see someone else do it)
What are the types of mirror neurons and what do they do? Where do they receive input?
Anterior Mirror Neurons - purpose of action (why are they doing that?)
Posterior Mirror Neurons - motor action (what are they doing?)
They receive visual input from posterior superior temporal sulcus
What is the importance of imitation in social cognition?
We imitate emotional state and motor behavior
Imitation circuit interacts with insula
What is the pathway for perceiving prosody?
Primary auditory (sound info) > right posterior superior temporal sulcus (piece together meaning of sounds) > frontal cortex (judge the emotion - how did that sound “sound”?)
What is the theory of mind?
Ability to recognize the intention of others (why does the person feel the way they do?)
What is the core pathway of processing the theory of mind?
Amygdala connects to the medial temporal lobe (sensory) and orbitofrontal areas (sensory and emotion)
What other pathways help in processing theory of mind?
Language - serves as scaffold to understand someone’s theory of mind
Executive functions using frontal lobe
To evaluate the info you have to make a decision what do you use?
Stimulus encoding system
What consists the stimulus encoding system?
Orbitofrontal cortex
Ventromedial prefrontal cortex
Striatum
To evaluate if the decision you made was good or not what do you use?
Action selection system (assigns a subjective value or error detection on the decision)
What consists the action selection system?
Anterior cingulate cortex
