Neuropsychology Lecture Series Practice Flashcards

This set covers the core terminology and theoretical models from the neuropsychology curriculum, including assessment procedures, sensory-perceptual streams, memory systems, language disorders, and emotional/executive processing.

Neuropsychological Assessment

A sensitive, broad-gauged and accurate determination of brain dysfunction used for differential diagnosis, treatment planning, following rehabilitation, and legal proceedings.

Premorbid Functioning

The level of functioning an individual exhibited before the onset of a particular neurological illness, injury, or condition; used as a baseline for comparison.

Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE)

A cognitive screening tool taking less than 10 minutes used for orientation, registration, and attention, where a score of $<10$ indicates severe/late dementia.

Z-score Formula

A norm-referenced test score calculated as: $Z = \frac{x_{patient} - x_{norm}}{Sd_{norm}}$

Broadbent Filter Model

An early selection model of attention used to explain dichotic listening experiments where a filter selects the attended message based on physical characteristics.

Vigilance (Sustained Attention)

The foundational capacity to maintain focus on a task for extended periods, typically 20 minutes or more.

Unilateral Hemispatial Neglect

A condition, typically following right-hemisphere damage, where a patient ignores the left side of space, often assessed via Line Bisection or Star Cancellation tasks.

Sensation

The physiological transition of physical energy, such as light waves or vibrations, into electrical signals.

Perception

The active organizational process where the brain interprets environmental signals provided by sensation.

Dorsal Stream ("Where")

A visual system pathway projecting toward the parietal lobe dedicated to analyzing motion, depth, and spatial relations.

Ventral Stream ("What")

A visual system pathway projecting toward the temporal lobe dedicated to the analysis of form, color, and identity.

Prosopagnosia

A specific failure in face recognition linked to the Fusiform Face Area (FFA) in the ventral stream.

Broca's Area

A hub in the left frontal area critical for language production.

Wernicke's Area

A hub in the posterior temporal area critical for language comprehension.

Arcuate Fasciculus

The vital white matter bridge that transmits encoded information from Wernicke’s Area to Broca’s Area.

Dysnomia

A word-retrieval deficit where the patient often uses circumlocution (talking around a word) to compensate.

Baddeley Working Memory Model

A model describing an active workspace consisting of the Visuospatial Sketchpad, Episodic Buffer, Phonological Loop, and Central Executive.

Declarative Memory (Explicit)

Conscious recollection of information, subdivided into Semantic (facts) and Episodic (temporal events) memory.

Patient Henry Molaison (HM)

A transformative case in medical history where bilateral removal of the hippocampus resulted in a total inability to encode new memories, isolating the Medial Temporal Lobe as the engine for consolidation.

Prospective Memory (PM)

The ability to remember to perform an intended action at a specific future time, such as taking medication or turning off a cooker.

Anterograde Amnesia

Pathological memory loss involving difficulties in encoding and learning new information after a causative event.

Retrograde Amnesia

The inability to retrieve information that was stored prior to the onset of a brain injury or condition.

Vascular Dementia

A progressive cognitive decline caused by injury to blood vessels, often featuring a "bounce back and bad days" trajectory and spotty losses.

Lewy Body Dementia (LBD)

A dementia profile defined by protein deposits, characterized by visual hallucinations, fluctuating cognition, and Parkinsonian symptoms like rigidity or syncope.

Executive Functioning (EF)

A suite of high-level cognitive processes serving as the strategic engine for adaptive behavior, particularly in novel or non-routine situations.

Salience Network (SAN)

A brain network that detects important internal or external stimuli and helps switch resources toward relevant tasks, particularly in reward- or stress-related (Hot EF) contexts.

Dysexecutive Syndrome (DES)

A multifaceted collection of deficits in attention control, inhibition, planning, and abstract thinking.

Anosognosia

A clinical sign of executive or emotional dysfunction characterized by a lack of insight or awareness of one's own deficits.

Pyramidal System

The motor system pathway from the cortex to the spine (corticospinal tract) responsible for voluntary, intentional movement.

Extrapyramidal System

The motor system pathway from the brainstem to the spine responsible for autonomic and learned motor processes.

Apraxia

A motor impairment where the complex intentional planning of a movement is affected despite the physical ability to move.

Ataxia

A failure of coordination involving balance issues and difficulty with unintentional or simple movements, often linked to the cerebellum.

James-Lange Theory

A theory of emotion stating that emotional experience results from perceiving physiological changes ($\text{Arousal} \rightarrow \text{Physiological Change} \rightarrow \text{Emotion}$).

Cannon-Bard Theory

A theory of emotion stating that physiological arousal and emotional experience occur simultaneously and independently ($\text{Arousal} \rightarrow [\text{Physiological Change} + \text{Emotion}]$).

Cognitive Appraisal Theory (Lazarus)

A theory where the interpretation of an event is the primary mediator that determines both the physiological response and the emotion.

Papez Circuit

The foundational neuroanatomical pathway for emotional processing: Emotional Stimulus $\rightarrow$ Thalamus $\rightarrow$ Sensory Cortex $\rightarrow$ Cingulate Cortex $\rightarrow$ Hippocampus $\rightarrow$ Hypothalamus $\rightarrow$ Anterior Thalamus $\rightarrow$ Cingulate.

Mood-Congruent Memory

A cognitive bias where patients tend to recall information that matches their current mood, such as a depressed patient failing to recall positive life events.

Tinker Toy Test

A measure of executive constructional ability where a subject has at least 5 minutes to build a creation and then name it.