Week 1: Principles Of Cognitive Neuroscience

Question 1

What is cognitive Neuroscience?

Answer 1

The research field that studies how our mental abilities are implemented in the brain.

Question 2

Between what two fields does cognitive neuroscience bridge the gap?

Answer 2

Neuroscience and psychology

Question 3

What discipline should cognitive neuroscience not be confused with?

Answer 3

Neuropsychology

Question 4

What is the subject of cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 4

• focuses mostly on healthy humans
• also uses insights from studies on patients, non-human animals and computer science / AI / robotics

Question 5

What is the goal of cognitive neuroscience ?

Answer 5

Aims to understand the entire neural realisation of a cognitive function (often not precisely characterizable at the level of a single neuron)

Question 6

What kind of properties does cognitive neuroscience study?

Answer 6

System properties of cognitive function (entire realisation vs single neurons)

Question 7

How relevant is cognitive Neuroscience?

Answer 7

• primarily a basic science
• but also considerable relevance for brain-related medical fields, such as neurology, psychiatry, neurosurgery

Question 8

How is cognitive Neuroscience different from animal neuroscience?

Answer 8

• different functions (e.g. language)
• different way that behaviour is brought about (conditioning vs instructions)

Question 9

How are Computational models being used in cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 9

In many cases only a few computational models are available (few exceptions, such as reinforcement learning)

Question 10

What are three different types of studying the link between mind and brain?

Answer 10

• Lesions
• Stimulation
• Recording

Question 11

What are the key challenges in cognitive neuroscience?

Answer 11

• brain data is limited in spatial and temporal resolution
• brain data is limited in number of sampling points → problem for modelling in high-dimensional spaces
• we don’t know the „ground truth“

Question 12

How much do brain and nervous system disorders cost per year?

Answer 12

492.200.000.000 USD

Question 13

What is the mind-body problem?

Answer 13

How does the mind relate to the body? are they one thing?

Question 14

What is Dualism?

Answer 14

• Descartes Theory of the Mind
• body (res extensa, the physical, mortal) and mind (res cogitans, non-physical, immortal) are separate
• but they interact (at „portal“ → pineal gland)

Question 15

How is it observable that dualism is still believed today?

Answer 15

• beliefs in afterlife
• „psychosomatic“ medicine
• opening of windows in hospitals (after someone has died)

Question 16

Who were defenders of dualism?

Answer 16

• René descartes
• Socrates
• Plato

Question 17

What was Descartes error according to damasio

Answer 17

• descartes ascribed reason to mind and emotion to the body
• our decision-making (reason) however cannot be separated from our emotions (body)

Question 18

What is the somatic marker hypothesis?

Answer 18

Our decision making (mind) is guided by emotional somatic mechanisms in PFC (body). (By Damasio)

Question 19

What is Damasio’s error?

Answer 19

He implies a distinction between somatic and cognitive

Question 20

What is the Cartesian Theater?

Answer 20

• way to critique Descartes Dualism
• according to Descartes there is a central place in the brain where all inputs come together (screen, stage) and are „viewed“ by an observer,
• according to Dennet, this would lead to an infinite regress → who views the observers screen?

Question 21

What is Holism?

Answer 21

• every part of the brain is responsible for every cognitive function
  → if you start losing parts of the brain, all cognitive abilities will start to gradually deteriorate

Question 22

Who was the „founder“ of Holism?

Answer 22

Marie-Jean-Pierre Flourens (1794 - 1867)

Other proponent: Karl Lashley

Question 23

What is Equipotientiality?

Answer 23

The Theory that all brain areas are responsible for all cognitive functions (Holism)

Question 24

What was Flourens method of studying the brain?

Answer 24

Ablation experiments (with animals)

= remove parts of the animals brain and see how it affects its function

Question 25

What is Phrenology?

Answer 25

- idea that differences in cognition can be mapped onto differences in skull shape - different brain regions perform different functions and are associated with different behaviours - size of those regions produces distortions of skull and correlate with individual differences in cognition and personality

Question 26

Who was the „founder“ of Phrenology?

Answer 26

Franz Joseph Gall

Question 27

What was Gall‘s method of studying the brain?

Answer 27

Cranioscopy → mapping of „innate faculties“ to bumps on the head

Question 28

according to Gall, intellectual faculties are…

Answer 28

… innate … controlled by the brain … each faculty has a dedicated „organ“ in the brain …development is reflected in the form of the skull

Question 29

What is Localization?

Answer 29

- a given part of the brain is responsible for only one cognitive function - one-to-one mapping - idea emerged from phrenology

Question 30

Who found the first clear evidence for localisation?

Answer 30

Paul Broca

Question 31

What did Paul Broca do?

Answer 31

- first demonstration of functional localisation in human brain - Patient with left prefrontal lesion with intact speech perception, but inability to speak anything but „tan“ - postmortem confirmed localised lesion - repeated with 12 other patients

Question 32

What where methods of localisation?

Answer 32

- Visual field maps (Gordon Holmes) → bullet holes in specific brain areas, lead to disturbed visual field representation - Direct Brain Stimulation (Wilder Penfield) → stimulation of specific sites induces spontaneous movement or perceptions → Motor Homunculus

Question 33

What’s wrong with strict localisation?

Answer 33

No sparseness → unclear whether this is inherent feature of the brain or due to the way in which we define cognitive processes

Question 34

What theory is accepted today? Holistic or Localisation?

Answer 34

- neither is entirely correct - there is no 1:1 mapping of cognitive functions and brain regions - brain performs analysis as functional networks rather than individual activation - modern localisation maps (with help of brain imaging) imply strong localisation if cognitive functions

Question 35

What are lesion studies useful for?

Answer 35

To study modularity of cognitive function and establish double dissociation

Question 36

What is a single dissociation?

Answer 36

- when a lesion to brain area X impairs the ability to do task A but not B → brain area X and A are associated → brain area X and B are dissociated

Question 37

What are double dissociations?

Answer 37

- identifies whether two cognitive functions are independent of each other - when damage to area X impairs task A but not B and damage to area Y impairs task B but not A