Lecture Notes Flashcards

Flashcards containing vocabulary terms and definitions.

Agnosia

Loss of ability to recognize objects, people, sounds, shapes, or smells.

Aphasia

A general term relating to a loss of language ability.

Apraxia

A general term for disorders of action.

Amnesia

Lack of mnemonic abilities.

Ataxia

Poor coordination and unsteadiness.

Visual Agnosia

Associated with lesions of the left occipital and temporal lobes.

Form Agnosia

Patients perceive only parts of details, not the whole object.

Finger Agnosia

Inability to distinguish the fingers on the hand, present following lesions of the parietal lobe.

Simultanagnosia

Patients can recognize objects or details in their visual field, but only one at a time.

Associative Agnosia

Patients can describe visual scenes and classes of objects but still fail to recognize them. (e.g., knows a fork is for eating but mistakes it for a spoon).

Apperceptive Agnosia

Patients are unable to distinguish visual shapes and have trouble recognizing, copying, or discriminating between different visual stimuli.

Prosopagnosia

Also known as faceblindness or facial agnosia.

Single Dissociation

Demonstrates that a patient group performs poorly on one task compared to a control group, while performance on another task is relatively spared.

Double Dissociation

Involves two patient groups with complementary deficits, providing stronger evidence for the separation of cognitive functions.

Brain Plasticity

The brain's ability to reorganize itself quickly after damage, where intact regions change their behavior.

Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) Response

Relative levels of de/oxyhaemoglobin change from regional cortical activity, forming the basis of fMRI.

Cognitive Subtraction

Measure the time for a process to occur by comparing two reaction times, one which has the same components as the other + the process of interest.

Modularity of Function

Assumption that mental processes occur with a high degree of isolation from other mental processes and when one area is damaged other regions do not adapt their function

Von Helmholtz

Measured the speed of axon potentials at 90 ft/sec, refuted vitalism.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal

Used Golgi’s method to create detailed neural assembly drawings and discovered the synapse and functional neuron polarity.

Camillo Golgi

Invented the silver nitrate staining method for neurons (Golgi method).

Donald Hebb

Pioneered a comprehensive theory on how brain activity produces complex psychological phenomena and proposed that active cells form ‘assemblies’ as cognition elements.

Neuroglia

Glial cells making up half of the brain’s volume in the central nervous system (CNS).

Astrocytes

Provide nutrients, structural support, clean-up, and chemical protection for neurons.

Oligodendrocytes

Form processes that produce the myelin sheath in the CNS.

Schwann Cells

Wrap neurons and support the regeneration of damaged axons in the PNS.

Resting Potential

Charge across the neural membrane at rest (polarized at -70mV).

Action Potential

Triggered when depolarization reaches a threshold, opening voltage-dependent Na+ channels.

Synaptic Cleft

Space separating pre- and post-synaptic membranes.

Excitatory Post-Synaptic Potential (EPSP)

Depolarization caused by opening Na+ channels.

Inhibitory Post-Synaptic Potential (IPSP)

Hyperpolarization caused by opening K+ channels.

Glutamate

The brain’s most common excitatory transmitter.

GABA (Gamma-Aminobutyric Acid)

The brain’s most common inhibitory transmitter.

Long Term Potentiation (LTP)

Producing a change to AMPA receptors, which can be induced through strong and weak inputs acting simultaneously.

Drugs

Typically affect processes in the synapses, acting as agonists or antagonists.

Agonists

Facilitate post-synaptic effects.

Antagonists

Inhibit post-synaptic effects.

Learning

Acquisition of information.

Memory

Retention of information.

Classical Conditioning

Involves associating two stimuli and an automatic response.

Instrumental / Operant Conditioning

Involves associating a learned response and a stimulus.

Hebb’s Rule

A synapse repeatedly active when the postsynaptic neuron is firing will be strengthened.

Anterograde Amnesia

Inability to form new long-term memories following insult/injury.

Retrograde Amnesia

Inability to recall memories preceding insult.

Attention

Preferential treatment / selection of a subset of that information. Involves both voluntary/controlled processes and involuntary/reflexive processes.

Executive Functions

Provide organization and order to our actions and behavior. Govern cognitive, linguistic, and motor domains. Involve prefrontal and subcortical loops.

The Left-hemisphere Interpreter

Confabulates and looks for patterns

Cartesian Dualism

Mind and body are separate realms