A01

• What are 4 ways of investigating the brain?

  1. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)

  2. Electroencephalogram (EEG)

  3. Event-related potentials (ERPs)

  4. Post-mortem examinations
• Which investigating technique is most likely to measure whole brain activity rather than specific areas of activity?

  EEG
• Which investigating technique detects changes in blood oxygenation and flow that occur as a result of neural activity?

  fMRI
• Which investigating technique uses a statistical averaging technique to remove extraneous scan data?

  ERP
• What is a post-mortem?

  Analysis of a person's brain after their death
• Which investigating technique is a useful diagnostic tool for epilepsy?

  EEGs
• What are fMRI?

  • Measures the changes in blood flow in particular areas which shows neural activity when a person performs a task
  • When a brain area is more active it consumes more oxygen so there is increased blood flow to this area delivering oxygen
  • Deoxygenated and oxygenated haemoglobin have different magnetic qualities and an fMRI scanner can detect this and create a moving 3D image showing which parts of the brain are involved in a particular mental process
• What are EEG?

  • Measures general electrical activity in the brain via electrodes that are fixed to the scalp
  • Small electrical charges are detected by the electrodes that are graphed over a period of time, indicating the level of activity in the brain.
• What are ERPs?

  • Are very small voltage changes in the brain that are triggered by specific events or stimuli
  • This is achieved by isolating EEG data through statistical analysis.
• What are post-mortems?

  • Analysis of the brain following a person’s death
  • Person is most likely to have had a rare disorder or experienced unusual deficits in mental processes or behaviour during their lifetime
  • e.g. Broca’s patient ‘Tan’