neuroplasticity & tools of discovery

• biological psychology

  • the science that deals w/ the biological basis of behavior, thoughts & emotions & reciprocal relations btwn biological & psychological processes

    • addresses topics such as behavior-changing brain lesions, chem responses in the brain, & brain-related genetics

• plasticity

  • capacity of brain to change as a function of experience

  • brain activity associated w/ a certain function can be transferred to a diff location, particularly if the original area becomes damaged

brain scans & research tools

• eeg (electroencephalography)

  • amplified recording of electrical waves sweeping across brain’s surface

  • measured by electrodes placed on the scalp

• fMRI

  • measures brain activity by detecting changes associated w/ blood flow

  • patient interacts w/ info during scan to show activity

• lesion

  • damaged part of the brain

  • experimentally destroys brain tissue to study behaviors after such destruction

  • usually lesions are done for scientific or medicinal purposes

brain structures & functions

lobes

• frontal lobe

  • aka prefrontal cortex

  • linguistic processing

  • higher-order thinking

  • executive functioning

  • judgement

  • planning

  • producing speech sounds

  • controlling emotions

  • personality

  • temperament

  • motor cortex mvmnt

  • gage railroad accident example

  • motor cortex

    • located at back of frontal lobe (headband spot)

    • voluntary actions

• parietal lobe

  • touch

  • pressure

  • temp

  • pain

  • sensory cortex

    • front of parietal lobe

• temporal lobe

  • hearing (primary auditory cortex)

  • storing long term mems

  • speech & language understanding

• occipital lobe

  • vision (primary visual cortex)

• association areas

  • wernicke’s area = comprehension & expression

  • broca’s area = speech

  • aphasia if damaged

hemispheres

• two hemispheres are roughly mirror images of each other

• corpus callosum connects

• contralateral hemispheric organization

• right hemisphere

  • spatial ability

  • nonverbal memory

  • non-language sounds & music

  • geometric patterns

• left hemisphere

  • language (Language Lives in the Left except emotional tone of speech)

  • verbal memory

  • language sounds

  • words & letters

• brain plasticity

  • aka neuroplasticity

  • brain’s ability to continuously change throughout one’s life due to use

  • if you don’t use it, you lose it

• split-brain procedure

  • two hemispheres split from each other by cutting corpus callosum

  • subjects behaved normally w/ no major loss of brain function

  • side effects