Human Neuropsychology - Exam 2

Principle areas of temporal lobe

Inferior, medial, superior

What type of deficit would you see if primary auditory cortex were damaged?

Sensation and perception damaged, difficultly detecting different auditory threshold on opposite ear

What type of deficit would you see if secondary auditory cortex were damaged?

Perception and recognition of sound damaged

Describe Wernicke’s Aphasia

Person cannot understand meaning from others and patient may speak nonsense. Common side effect is paraphasia, where person mixes up similar sounding words

Temporal lobes and visual functioning

Visual processing and object recognition. Damage leads to patient being unable to recognize or name object when visually presented

Temporal lobe and attentional difficulties

Selective attention impairment. Patients will struggle with picking out anomaly in McGill Picture Anomalies test

Describe the deficits that a patient may exhibit if they have medial temporal damage

An amnesic syndrome characterized by deficits in the long-term and spatial memory

Rey-Osterrieth task

Patient must draw design, then redraw design. Injured patients will struggle recalling pattern during the remake step

Temporal epilepsy symptoms:

Changes in sexual activity, feelings of depersonalization, hallucinations

What do tests of frontal lobe function measure?

Sequencing, abstract reasoning, spontaneous behavior

Describe a task used to measure frontal lobe function

Wisconsin Card Sorting test, tests persons ability to sort cards based on specific characteristics, requiring abstract thought

What are the precentral/motor symptoms of a frontal lobe injury?

Inability to participate in organized voluntary movements

What are the sensory/perceptual symptoms of a frontal lobe injury?

Senses like taste, smell, flavor aren’t properly processed

What are the memory symptoms of a frontal lobe injury?

Use of both hippocampus and prefrontal to remember environment

What are the cognitive symptoms of a frontal lobe injury?

Lethargic and little speech, very vague verbalization. Long-term plans turn fanciful

What are the Broca’s symptoms of a frontal lobe injury?

Damage leads to Broca’s aphasia, nonfluent telegraphic speech

What are the personality symptoms of a frontal lobe injury?

Think Phineas Gage

What are the principle divisions of the parietal lobe?

Anterior and posterior

Anterior Parietal Lobe

Somatosensory, tactile, body sense

Posterior Parietal Lobe

Language, memory, cross-modal matching, spatial awareness

What type of deficit would you see if the primary and/or secondary somatosensory cortex were damaged?

Loss of sensation, such as touch or temperature

What is asterognosis?

Inability to recognize objects by touch, patients cant complete a wood puzzle

What is asomatognosia?

Loss of knowledge or sensor awareness of one’s own body

What is asnognosia?

Severe forms will result in patient removing body part, does not view specific body part as their own or as a body part

What is autotopagnosia?

Failure to name or select specific body part

What is visual object agnosia?

Inability to recognize object by looking at it

How to test for visual object agnosia?

Unconventional views of objects test

What is visuospatial agnosia?

Inability to recognize spatial awareness

How to test for visuospatial awareness

Benton Visual Retention, which measures patient’s ability to find matching shape

What is spatial neglect?

Usually a result of a stroke. Neglect of left-half of space. Failure to report to stimuli or events in the left hemifield

What are symbolic syntheses?

Parietal responsible for spatial abstract aspect of language and math

Example of symbolic syntheses

Acalculia, loss of math ability due to spatial confusion

What is apraxia?

Loss of intentional movement

Ideomotor apraxia

Cannot follow commands

Ideational apraxia

Cannot demonstrate how to make cup of coffee

Dressing apraxia

Cannot localize body in relation to clothes/holes

Constructional apraxia

Cannot build objects due to spatial unawareness

What is Gerstmann Syndrome?

Proven false. Condition cannot exist without all four symptoms: agraphia, acalculia, right-left confusion, finger agnosia

Three areas of occipital lobe

Striate, parastriate, peristriate

Describe functions of primary visual cortex and possible deficits

Takes in visual information. Damage leads to loss of vision and visual sensation

Describe functions of secondary visual cortex and possible deficits

Interprets assembled visual sensations from primary into meaningful percepts, passes information to tertiary cortex. Damage results in perceptual function, will experience fun-house effect

What is a scatoma?

Minimal damage in primary visual cortex resulting in brain filling in lost visual information, acting as a patch

What is blindsight?

Patient shows visual responseveness despite reporting they are blind

Example of blindsight

Helen the monkey was able to respond to visual stimulus like going around large blocks, despite not actually seeing them