WEEK 6 LECTURE + TUTORIAL

Question 1

Neuropsychology definition

Answer 1

Development of behavioural principles

Question 2

Key Study
Auguste Deter + DR Alois Alzheimer

Answer 2

-51 year old woman from Frankfurt
-Progressive cognitive impairment, hallucinations, paranoia and psychosocial impairment
-Autopsy revealed arteriosclerotic changes, plaques and neurofibrillary tangles
-Condition named after her DR, Alois, Alzheimer, Alzheimer’s disease

Question 3

Key Study: Karl Lashley and ‘Mass Action’

Answer 3

• Biological Psychologist, found that rats trained to obtain food rewards in mazes retained memories even after progressive brain lesions
  -Concluded that memories were not localised but distributed throughout the brain
  -Developed the principle of mass action – amount of memory loss proportionate to the amount of brain tissue lost

Question 4

Key Study: Wilder Penfield and Montreal Procedure

Answer 4

-Pioneering neurosurgeon: used electrical brain stimulation in awake patients
-Produced vivid memories, smell, auditory and déjà vu experiences
-Results consistent with localisation of brain function

Question 5

Modern Methods

Answer 5

1. Histology: Visualise particular brain regions
2. Tracing Neural Connections via anterograde and retrograde labelling
3. Experimental Ablation (oldest neuroscience method), brain tissue is destroyed and alterations in behaviour are observed

Question 6

Measuring Electrical Activity

Answer 6

• Acute VS chronically implanted
  -Using microelectrodes: single unit recordings based on stereotaxic coordinates
  -Using macroelectrodes: scalp recordings, EEG

Question 7

Measuring metabolic activity

Answer 7

-PET: Positron Emission Technology, radioactive markers

-SPECT: Single Positron Emission Computerised Tomography, different radioactive markers

-FMRI: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, oxygen levels in blood vessels of the brain

-EEG: Electroencephalogram, measuring voltage fluctuations within neurons

-PSG: Polysomnography, measuring sleep when combined with EEG

Question 8

Sleep Stages

Answer 8

Stage N1: Drowsiness, not quite fully awake
-Theta waves

Stage N2: ‘True’ sleep, but light (spindles)
-Sleep spindles

Stage N3: Deep sleep
-Delta waves

REM: Rapid Eye Movement Sleep
-Fast, random, mimics that of awake

Question 9

PSG measures of sleep

Answer 9

-Sleep Latency: the time taken to get to sleep
-Total Sleep: N1 + N2 +N3 + R

*people often over-estimate sleep latency and underestimate total sleep time

Question 10

Key Study: Borkovec et al (1981)

Answer 10

-Compared to the sleep of 25 insomniacs and 10 good sleepers
-Each woken up in the 5th minute of the first episode of stage 2
Asked were you awake or asleep?
-Most good sleepers said asleep, most insomniacs said awake
Conclusions:
-Despite identical electrophysiology, people experience their sleep differently
-Sleep onset is an experiential as well as an electrophysiological phenomenon

Question 11

Issues with objective measurement

Answer 11

-Neuroscience founded an objective measurement
-Much of psych is concerned with experience: mental illness/ motivation
-Intelligence, motivation, mental illness, consciousness

Question 12

KEY Definitions: Dualism

Answer 12

Substance Dualism: A field that exists in its own parallel realm of existence outside reality so cannot be seen

Emergent Dualism: A sensation that grows inevitably out of complicated brain states

Property Dualism: A physical property of all matter, like electromagnetism, just not one scientists know about

Pan Psychism: All matter has a psychic part, consciousness is just the psychic part of our brain

Question 13

Key Theories

Answer 13

-Literally just behaviour, when we behave in a certain way, we appear conscious – Behaviourism

-The sensation of your most significant thoughts being highlighted
– cognitivism

-Simply, mental states are physical events that we can see in brain scans
– Identity Theory

-Consciousness and its states (belief, desire, pain) are simply functions the brain performs
– Functionalism

-The sensation of your most significant thoughts being highlighted
– Cognitivism

-Consciousness is just higher order thoughts (thoughts about other thoughts)
-Higher order theory

Question 14

Key Professors

Answer 14

Professor David Chalmers
-Australian Philosopher, born in 1966
-Prof of psychology and neural science at NYU
-Career spent on consciousness and related topics

Professor Guilio Tononi
-Psychiatrist with PhD in Neuroscience
-Two major contributions:
-Sleep: Synaptic Homeostasis Hypothesis
-Consciousness: Integrated Information Theory

Question 15

The Synaptic Homeostasis Hypothesis

Answer 15

-Proposes that sleep is the price the brain pays for plasticity. During a waking episode, learning statistical regularities about the current environment requires strengthening connections throughout the brain.

-This increases cellular needs for energy and supplies, decreases signal-to-noise ratios, and saturates learning. -During sleep, spontaneous activity renormalizes net synaptic strength and restores cellular homeostasis.

-Activity-dependent down-selection of synapses can also explain the benefits of sleep on memory acquisition, consolidation, and integration. This happens through the off-line, comprehensive sampling of statistical regularities incorporated in neuronal circuits over a lifetime.

-the more information that is shared and processed between many different components then the higher the level of consciousness – similar to a higher order