STUDYING THE BRAIN

• What are the four ways of studying the brain?

  fMRI

  EEG

  ERP

  Post mortem examinations
• what does fMRI stand for?

  Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• what does EEG stand for?

  Electroencephalogram
• what does ERP stand for?

  Event related potentials
• What does fMRI do?

  detects changes in blood oxygenation and flow that occurs due to neural activities in specific brain areas
• what happens when a brain area is more active?

  consumes more oxygen and blood flow is directed towards the active area
• what does fMRI produce?

  a 3D image showing which parts of the brain are active and therefore involved in the mental process
• What does EEG do?

  measures electrical activity in the brain using a skull cap with electrodes. The scan represents the brainwave pattern. An electrical signal is detected when multiple neurons fire at the same time to the same area
• What does an ERP do?

  Uses averaging techniques to filter out the extra activity and just focus on the response to the specific stimulus From the EEG scanning
• what are ERPs?

  types of brainwave that are triggered by particular events
• What does a post mortem examination do?

  dissects and analyses the brain after death, checks for damages to establish the likely cause of a deficit or disorder
• What are the strengths of fMRI?

  Spatial resolution

  non-invasive - don’t harm the person

  improvement on earlier techniques with radiation
• What are the limitations of fMRI?

  Weak temporal resolution

  delay in oxygen rates which the fMRI picks up

  have to keep completely still

  expensive
• what are the strengths of EEG?

  non invasive

  improvement on earlier techniques with radiation

  good temporal resolution

  can be used whilst moving-good for children
• what are the weaknesses of EEG?

  lacks spatial resolution

  generalised signal
• what are the strengths of ERG?

  non-invasive

  able to pinpoint response to specific event
• what are the weaknesses of ERG?

  Difficult to average out the irrelevant activity

  different researchers use different averaging techniques
• what are the strengths of post mortem examinations?

  allows to see brain structures much more clearly

  provided foundation for studying the brain
• What are the weaknesses of post mortem examination?

  brain damage is rarely confined to one specific area, hard to pinpoint the connections between damage and symptoms
• what is spatial awareness?

  Refers to precision of measurement with respect to space. High means that imaging method can detect exactly where the brain activity occurred