cogni psy q2

Cognitive Neuroscience

1. the field of study focusing on the neural substrates of mental processes. It is at the intersection of psychology and neuroscience, but also overlaps with physiological psychology, cognitive psychology and neuropsychology.

2. field of study linking the brain and other aspects of the nervous system to cognitive processing and, ultimately, to behavior.

   
   

brain

the organ in our bodies that most directly controls our thoughts, emotions, and motivation

Localization of function

specific areas of the brain that control specific skills or behaviors.

1. forebrain

2. midbrain

3. hindbrain

make up the 3 major parts of the brain

forebrain

• basal ganglia

• limbic system

• thalamus

• hypothalamus

• cerebral cortex

basal ganglia

(basal nuclei) - collections of neurons crucial to motor function

dysfunction in basal ganglia

motor deficits: involuntary movements, changes in posture and muscle tone, slowness of movement

parkinson disease and huntington disease

cerebral cortex

decides on body movement

limbic system

• emotion, motivation, memory, and learning

• adapt to environment

1. septum

2. amygdala

3. hippocampus

central interconnect structures of limbic system

septum

anger and fear

stucture responsible for the regulation of emotional states including anxiety, fear, and depression.

amygdala

• various ways, such as through palpitations, fearful hallucinations, or frightening flashbacks in memory.

• a small, almond-shaped structure inside of your brain

• Lesion: maladaptive fear Visual Agnosia, Hypersexuality

• Research: Autism -limited activation

HIPPOCAMPUS

essential role in memory formation "seahorse"

essential for flexible learning and for seeing the relations among items learned as well as for spatial memory

Lesion : unable to form new memories, deficit w/ declarative memory but it does not result in procedural memory

Korsakoff syndrome

Korsakoff syndrome -Detoriating Hippocampuse & Lack of Vitamin B-1 (Thiamine)

THALAMUS

• egg-shaped structure in the middle of your brain

• relay station of all incoming motor (movement) and sensory information — hearing, taste, sight and touch (but not smell) — from your body to your brain

• thalamus is divided into a number of nuclei

• sleep and waking

Problem : pain, tremor, amnesia, impairment of language, and disruptions in waking and sleeping Schizophrenia ( hallucinations)

hypothalamus

• regulate behavior for survival: 4F's fighting, feeding, fleeing, and mating

• regulate emotions and reactions to stress

• interact with the limbic system Sleep

Narcolepsy

sleep often en- person fall adocrine system

Pituitary Glands-

Hormones ( growth and oxytocin)

CEREBRAL CORTEX

The cerebral cortex is the brain's

outermost layer that lies on top of the cerebrum and is associated with our highest mental capabilities.

3 elements of cerebral cortex

• sulci (small grooves)

• fissures (large grooves)

• gyri (bulges between sulci and fissures)

cerebral hemisphere

• Two halves of the brain function differently

• Transmission of information

  • Contralateral

  • Ipsilateral

left hemisphere

controls speech, comprehension, arithmetic, and writing

right hemisphere

controls creativity, spatial ability, artistic, and musical skills

CORPUS CALLOSUM

• a large bundle of more than 200 million myelinated nerve fibers that connect the two brain hemispheres, permitting communication between the right and left sides of the brain.

• Agnesis of CC: Delays in attaining developmental milestones such as walking, talking, or reading.

MARC DAX

• France

• 1835

  
  

• 40 patients - Aphasia- loss of speech

• Left Hemisphere

  
  
  

PAUL BROCA

• France

• 1861 - Autopsy

• 1864 - critical in speech, a view that has held up over time ( Broca's Area)

CARL WERNICKE

• Language-deficient patients who could speak but whose speech made no sense.

  "World salad"

  
  
  

KARL SPENCER LASHLEY

• Father of Neuropsychology

• Studying localization in 1915

• Different locations sometimes paradoxically yielded the same results.

roger sperry

that each hemisphere behaves in many respects like a separate brain. In a classic experiment that supports this contention

SPLIT-BRAIN PATIENTS

90% population - Left Hemisphere (Language)

Right Hemispere (Mute) - Self Recognition

FRONTAL LOBE

• Associated with motor processing and

  higher thought processes, such as abstract reasoning, problem-solving, planning, and judgment.

  
  

• Critical in producing speech

  
  
  

prefrontal cortex

• the region toward the front of the frontal lobe, is involved in complex motor control and tasks that require integration of information over time

• Decision-making.

Parietal lobe

somatosensory processing

• Regarding touch, pain, temperature sense, and limb position when you are perceiving space.

• consciousness and paying attention

  Reading : activated

  
  
  

visuo-spatial deficits

Right Damage to parietal lobe can cause _____ (e.g., the patient may have

difficulty finding their way around new, or even familiar, places).

left parietal lobe

Damage to this area of parietal lobe may

disrupt a person's ability to understand spoken and/or written language.

Temporal lobe

• They are most commonly associated with processing auditory information and with the encoding of memory.

  
  

• The temporal lobes are also believed to play an important role in processing

  affect/emotions, language, and certain

  aspects of visual perception

  
  
  

Occipital lobe

Visual Processing

contains numerous visual areas, each specialized to analyze specific aspects of a scene, including color, motion, location,and form.

Frontal Lobe

Visual Processing

contains numerous visual areas, each specialized to analyze specific aspects of a scene, including color, motion, location,and form.

MIDBRAIN

The midbrain functions as a relay system, transmitting information necessary for vision and hearing

• Reticular activating system , a network of neurons essential to the regulation of consciousness (sleep; wakefulness; arousal; attention to some extent; and vital functions such as heartbeat and breathing;

  
  
  

• 
  
  

brain stem

It comprises the hypothalamus, the thalamus, the midbrain, and the hindbrain.

periaqueductal gray (PAG)

A structure called the _____ is in the brainstem. This region seems to be essential for certain kinds of adaptive behavior.

• medulla oblongata

• pons

• cerebellum

hindbrain

Medulla Oblongata

• heart activity and largely controls breathing, swallowing, and digestion.

• Contains part of RAS that keeps us alive

  
  
  

pons

• bridge -Briding function

  
  

• The pons also contains a portion of the RAS and nerves serving parts of the head and face.

  
  
  

Cerebellum

Little brain

controls bodily coordination, balance, and muscle tone, as well as some aspects of memory involving

procedure-related movements.

neurons

are nerve cells that send messages all over your body to allow you to

do everything from breathing to talking, eating, walking, and

thinking.

Soma

• contains the nucleus of the cell (the cell body is the core section of the neuron)

• contains genetic information, maintains the neuron's structure, and provides energy to drive activities.

• connects the dendrites to the axon

  
  
  

Dendrites

• branch-like structures that receive information from other neurons, and the soma integrates the information

• This fibre increases the surface area available for receiving incoming information. Dendrites are the receiving or input portions of a neuron

Axon

where electrical impulses from the neuron travel away to be received by other neurons.

Myelin

• Myelin is a white, fatty substance that surrounds some of the axons of the nervous system, which accounts for some of the whiteness of the white matter of the brain. myelin sheaths insulate

• axons to increase the speed of electrical signal conduction.

Nodes of Ranvier

small gaps in the myelin coating along the axon, which serve to increase conduction speed even more by helping to create electrical signals, also called action potentials

• The degeneration of myelin sheaths along axons in certain nerves is associated with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disease

  
  
  

Terminal Buttons

the small knobs at the end of an axon that release chemicals called neurotransmitters

Synapse

• serves as a juncture between the terminal buttons of one or more neurons and the dendrites.

  
  

• The places where neurons connect and communicate with each other

• important in cognition

Increase in both the size and number associated with learning.

• Decrease : Alzheimer's

Neurotransmitters

1. neurotransmitters are chemical messengers for transmission of informa tion across the synaptic gap to the receiving dendrites of the next neuron

   • chemical messengers that your body can't function without.

     
     

   • Carry chemical signals (“messages”) from one neuron (nerve cell) to the next target cell.

     
     

   • The next target cell can be another nerve cell, a muscle cell or a gland.

     
     
     

mONOAMINE NEUROTRANSMITTERS

synthesized by the nervous system through enzymatic actions on one of the amino acids (constituents  of  proteins,  such  as  choline, tyrosine,  and  tryptophan)  in  our  diet  (e.g., acetylcholine,   dopamine,   and   serotonin); Emotions

MINO-ACID NEUROTRANSMITTERS

obtained directly from the amino acids in our diet without further synthesis (e.g., gamma-aminobutyric acid, or GABA)

NEUROPEPTIDES

e peptide chains (molecules made from the parts of two or more amino acids)

ACETYLCHOLINE (ACH)

• Excitatory in brain and either excitatory (at skeletal muscles) or inhibitory (at heart muscles) elsewhere in the body

most commonly associated with memory, cognition, and sleep

• Believed to be involved in memory because of high concentration found in the hippocampus.

• Late onset Alzeimhers

DOPAMINE (DA)

• Influences movement, attention, and learning; mostly in hibitory but some excitatory effect

• Dopamine is an important brain chemical that influences your mood and feelings of reward and motivation

• Parkinson’s disease, characterized by tremors and limb rigidity, results from too little DA;

• some schizophrenia symptoms are associated with too much Dopamine

EPINEPHRINE AND NOREPINEPHRINE

• Hormones (also known as adrenaline and noradrena line) involved in regulation of alertness While

• epinephrine has slightly more of an effect on your heart, norepinephrine has more of an effect on your blood vessels

• Involved in diverse effects on body related to fight-or-flight reactions, anger, and fear

SEROTONIN

• Involved in arousal, sleep and dreaming, and mood; usually inhibitory but some excitatory effects

• Normally inhibits dreaming; defects in serotonin system are linked to severe depression

GABA (GAMMA AMINOBUTYRIC ACID)

• General neuromodulatory effects resulting from inhibitory influences on presynaptic axons

  
  

• Currently believed to influence certain mechanisms for learning and memory

  
  

• Providing calming effects

  
  
  

GLUTAMATE

General neuromodulatory effects resulting from excit atory influences on presyn aptic axon

Excess glutamate in the brain is believed to cause the following symptoms: Hyperalgesia (pain amplification) Anxiety. Restlessness

Currently believed to influence certain mechanisms for learning and memory.

NEUROPEPTIDES

• General neuromodulatory effects resulting from influences on postsynaptic membranes

• Endorphins play a role in pain relief.

  
  

• Neuromodulating neuropeptides sometimes are released to enhance the effects of Ach.

  
  
  

Jean Piaget

_____ proposed after painstakingly observing and testing children of different age

_____t’s curiosity and desire to fi gure out precisely what children were thinking and why their responses changed with age

____, who traced growth in cognitive capacities during infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and then asked what becomes of these capacities during adulthood

Cognitive-stage theory

• was the forerunner oof today’s emphasis on mental processes

• organismic

• discontinuous

• jean piaget

• 
  

constructivism

children actively construct new understandings of the world based on their experiences

Three Process (Interrelated)

• organization

• adaptation

• equilibration

organization

the tendency to create categories

• schemes

schemes

organized patters of thought and behavior used in particular situations

adaptation

adjustment to new information into an existing cognitive structure

• accomodation

accomodation

adjusting one’s coognitive structures to fit the new information

Equilibration

tendency  to  seek  a  stable balance among cognitive elements; achieved through a balance between assimilation and accommodation

Disequilibrium

can  be  thought  of  as  an uncomfortable motivational state

jean piaget’s four stages of cognitive development

1. sensorimotor

2. preoperational

3. concrete operations

4. formal operations

sensorimotor stage

birth to 2 yrs

• infants use their senses and motor actions to explore he world

• at the sart they have innat reflexes, but develop increasningly intelligent actions

• by the end, capable of symbolic thought using images//words = plan solutions mentally

preoperational stage

2-7 yrs old

• symbolic thought to develop language

• pretend play + solve problems

• no logical thinking yet, egocentric

concrete operations stage

7-11 yrs old

• concrete logical operations

• solve problems

• difficulty with hypothetical or abstract problems

formal operations stage

11-12 yrs old

• can think abt abstract concepts + purely hypothetical situations

• trace long-range consequences of actions

• w/ age and experience, they can form hypotheses and systematically test them using scientific method

Sociocultural theory

• Lev Vygotsky’s theory of how contextual factors affect children’s development

• collaborative process.

• emphasis on language

Zone of proximal development

between what they are already able to do by themselves and what they can accmplish

• Mind has the potential for unlimited growth.

• Development consists of moving toward the upper range of the zone using the tools of society such as the language and the inventions it has created.

  
  

scaffolding

temporary support to help a child master a task