Unit 3: Neuropsychology

• Phineas Gage:

  • iron rod through frontal lobe
  • caused drastic behavior change: bad decisions, impulsivity
• Broca's Area:

  • part of brain responsible for speech EXPRESSION
• Wernicke's Area:

  • part of brain responsible for speech COMPREHENSION
• form of language in right side of brain:

  • emotional expression (melody, tone, prosody)
• aphasia: inability to express speech (damage in Broca's Area)
• dysphasia: difficulty in expressing speech (damage in Broca's Area)
• • despite damage in left side of brain (speech expression), you can still sing
• Right hemisphere of brain:

  • responsible for visual / spatial skills
• Sports and head injuries:

  • concussions are extremely common in football along with other brain damages
• Motor-vehicle injuries:

  • 20-40% patients have brain injuries but don't present with symptoms
• memory:

  • located in hippocampus but also found in temporal lobe & sometimes frontal lobe
• memory length:

  • short term - ~30 seconds
  • sensory memory - milliseconds
  • long term memories - minutes
• Amnesia: loss of memory
• dissociative amnesia: loss of memory caused by psychological problems (the process of disassociating).

  • caused by psychological trauma, not brain damage
• anterograde amnesia: inability to form new memories following an accident
• retrograde amnesia: inability to remember things from before the accident
• Expressive Aphasia (Broca's Aphasia/Non-Fluent Aphasia): inability to express speech
• Wernicke's Aphasia (Receptive/Fluent Aphasia): inability to comprehend speech
• Anomia: difficulty identifying objects

  • can identify purpose of the object but not the object itself
  • seeing chalk and identifying it as something that is used for writing
• Circumlocution: knowing what an object is but not being able to name it

  • "I forgot it"
• semantic errors: calling a piece of chalk a pen
• apraxia: disorder of voluntary movement

  • person is able to move body and understands the directions but cannot move their body at their will
• Dressing apraxia: inability to dress oneself

  • underwear on head, shirt on legs
• constructional apraxia: inability to copy simple movements
• ideational apraxia: inability to follow multiple steps
• agnosia: problems with visual recognition

  • caused by disruption in visual organization / abilities
• visual object agnosia: inability to recognize objects

  • seeing chalk and calling it a knife
  • cannot recall purpose of object either
• prosopagnosia: inability to recognize familiar faces

  • can recognize objects but not faces
• autopagnosia: inability to recognize own body parts
• stroke:

  on right side -> mania

  on left side -> depressive
• role of right side of brain:

  • control left hand
  • music and arts
  • space perception
  • imagination and fantasizing
  • body control and awareness
• role of left side of brain:

  • logical thinking
  • language abilities
  • writing
  • science and math
  • control of right hand
• frontal lobe roles:

  • smell
  • some movement
  • speech (Broca's)
  • emotion and behavior
  • awareness
  • memory
• occipital lobe:

  • vision
  • visual recognition
• temporal lobe:

  • hearing
• cerebellum:

  • balance
  • muscle coordination
• amusia:

  inability to recognize melody
• spatial neglect:

  • in right parietal: lack of attention to left side
  • leads to people getting hit by cars
  • patients can physically see but do not direct attention to affected side
• acquired dyslexia/alexia:

  • dyslexia or alexia developed or acquired through brain damage
• agraphia / dysgraphia: inability or difficulty to write or form words