the brain and neuropsychology

• what 3 functions is the frontal lobe responsible for

  planning, thoughts and behaviours
• temporal lobe function 


  audiotory
• parietal lobe function

  bodily sensations, monitoring eye, head and body positions before passing onto repected lobes
• 3 cerebellum lobe function

  control of movements, balance and coordination
• 4 left hemisphere functions

  logic, maths, langauge, facts
• 5 right hemisphere functions

  creativity, intuition, art, feelings, daydreaming
• what connects the 2 hemispheres

  corpus callosum
• 3 gender differences in lateralisation

  female thicker corpus callosum

  females use both sides for tasks

  males more dominant for one side
• strengths of gender differences in lateralistion

  reliable --> lab experiments

  evidence to support
• harasty 1997 supports gender difference in lateralisation by finding parts of the brain responsible for language are bigger in females than males
• weaknesses for gender differences in lateralisation

  differences not generalisable to all --> Rilea 2005 studies shown that results for spatial tasks were not always favourable to men

  some tasks show no differences --> Sommer 2004 showed no strong evidence for females using both sides more than men
• steps of the CNS

  1. brain sends messages to body
  2. through spinal cord
  3. spinal cord then activates the periphery nervous system
• the peripheral nervous system

  • connects the CNS to the skin, muscles and organs
  • carries out the actions required by the messages from the brain
• 6 steps of synaptic transmission

  1. an electrical impules is triggered inside the cell body of a neuron
  2. a small impulse is passed along the axon towards the end of the nerve
  3. it then arrives at the terminal buttons which are filled with tiny sacs called vesicles
  4. these contain neurotransmitters
  5. when the impulse reaches here the vesicles release their chemical into the synaptic gap
  6. these chemicals are then grabbed by the receptors on the next nerve cell, which continues the process to pass the message on
• 3 types of neurotransmitters

  1. dopamine
  2. serotonine
  3. GABA
• what does dopamine do? what happens if there's an imbalance?

  plays a role in attention and learning, can be difficult to concentrate
• what does serotonin do? what happens if theres an imbalance?

  mood, little = depression
• what does GABA do? what if there's an imbalance?

  calms us down, not enough released to calm us down
• whats neurological damage? whats the results of it?

  damage to the bodys central and peripheral nervous system

  • messages can be interupted
  • neurons may not be working
  • normal functions not possible
  • behaviour affected
• whats visual agnosia? its symtoms and the area of brain affected

  inability to recognise things that are seen, like colours, objects or places

  affects parietal lobe
• prosopagnosia what is it? its symptoms and area of brain affected

  face blindess, cannot identify people of their faces. FFA (fusiform face area) part of temporal lobe
• whats the pre-frontal cortexs job? what happens when its damaged

  it controls aggression and impulse, murderes have less activity in pre frontal cortex
• what happened to phineas gage

  • 1848 railway line worker
  • explosion forced iron rod through his head
  • before he was calm and well likes
  • after he was irresponsible and rude
  • died 12 yrs later - epilepsy
• Damasio's study aim

  investigate phinea's gage brain damage using his skull to determine the functions of the frontal lobe
• Damasio study procedure

  • took pictures and measurements of his skull and made a 3d model
  • mapped 20 entry and 16 exit points
  • 5 most likely entry/exit points pound
  • damage was to both hemispheres
  • worst damage in ventromedial region which is shows its responsible for sensible decisions and is backed up by 12 similar patients
• Damasio's conclusion

  • ventromedial region of the frontal lobe is responsible for sensible decisions
• strengths of Damasio study

  • modern day technology makes it highly scientific and improves reliability
  • we can now make predictions about damage to frontal lobe and can therefore use this info to treat other patients which helps makes the study appliable
  • the study is reliable as phineas was a real life case
• weaknesses of Damasio

  • hard to generalise as the brain damage was unique to gage
  • the damage was over 150 years ago, which reduces the reliability
• aims of Sperry 1968

  find the cognitive functions linked to each hemisphere
• procedure of Sperry 1968

  • 11 ppts had undergone the surgery of cutting the corpus callosum
  • nine were recent, two had healed from surgery with good recovery
• Sperry 1968 tasks

  • ppts shown projected words/images for 1/10th of a second (to ensure info only reached one hemisphere) then patients had to blindly reach for and find the object that was projected
  • the information was shown the the opposite visual feild and therefore sent to the opposite hemisphere pptts had to say what theyd seen
• results of sperry 1968

  • words shown to left hemisphere could be repeated by ppts, however when shown to the right hemisphere the ppts couldn't say what they'd seen
  • when a picture or word was shown to right hemisphere the ppts could select the object with their left hand but when shown to the left hemisphere the object couldn't be selected
  • when objects felt by right hand (left hemisphere) the object could be named, when objects felt by left hand (right hemisphere) ppts struggled to say what they felt
• conclusion of sperry 1968

  • each hemisphere can work without being connected to the other
  • left = language abilities (saying picture or word)
  • right = spatial abilities (feeling object)
• strengths of Sperry

  reliability - gathered repetitive and consistent information and the procedure was the same for each ppt

  real-world application - shows about brain lateralisation and can help support those with damage to one side of the brain
• weaknesses of Sperry 1968

  not generalisable - small sample size, split brains may not represent normal brains in the same way

  lack of validity - lab experiment (ecological validity), difficult tasks not what we'd have to do in the real world