the brain and neuropsychology

decision making, Impulse control, Problem solving skills
Concentration, Paying attention
Motor cortex is found here, in front of the central sulcus. Plays a key role in voluntary responses
Motor cortex controls movement

Hearing and understanding sounds, Creating Speech, producing and processing sound, based information
Contains auditory cortex which controls the hearing, Also controls memory

Ability to understand the world around us, Ability to recognise faces, A large section behind the central sulcus that is responsible for our sense of touch (somatosensory cortex)

Ability to see
Helps to process visual information
Also known as Visual cortex

movement, coordination and balance (motor skills)
Takes information from all senses and our spinal cord to coordinate behaviour

Lateralisation of function in the brain means that each hemisphere of the brain has different jobs. Some behaviours are controlled more from the left than the right and vice versa. Asymmetrical: Two hemispheres are not exactly the same. Right side controls the left body and the left side of the brain controls the right body

LH: processing language - called Broca's area, write and to understand language, Logical thinking
RH: spatial awareness,facial recognition,music, creativity

a part of the left hemisphere of the brain that controls speech production. in frontal lobe, if it is damaged, people might find it difficult to talk - Boraca's aphasia

thick band of nerve fibres that connects the two h. allows messages to be passed from the left to right h and vice versa. primary function: integrate motor, sensory and cognitive performances between the cerebral cortex on one side of the brain to the same region in the other hemisphere

Men were better at spatial skills - dominant RH
Females were better at language skills - dominant LH
Females may have a thicker corpus callosum meaning they may use both sides of their brain for some tasks

PNS: the system of nerves that connect the central nervous system (mainly the spinal cord) to the skin, muscles and organs in the body

CNS: The brain and spinal cord which relays messages from the brain to the rest of the body to instruct it what to do

chemicals found within the nervous system that pass messages from one neuron to another across a synapse. Neurotransmitters are released when a nerve impulse reaches the end of a nerve fibre. The neurotransmitter is then picked up by another neuron to receive the msg

Dopamine: attention and learning. Not enough dopamine can make it difficult to concentrate on tasks.
Serotonin: role in mood. Too little serotonin can make people feel depressed
GABA: role in calming us down. When we feel stressed we produce GABA to relax us

1. An electrical impulse is triggered inside the cell body of a neuron
2. The neuron then passes a small impulse along the axon towards the end of the nerve fibre.
3. At the end of the nerve fibre is a structure called the terminal button, which is filled with tiny sacs called vesicles containing the neurotransmitters

4. When the nerve impulse reaches the terminal button, the vesicles release the neurotransmitter molecules into the synapse.
5. These molecules are then 'grabbed' by the receptors on the next neuron to pass the message impulse on

Damage to the body's central and peripheral nervous system

An inability to interpret sensations and thus recognise things effect how you see and identify objects , faces, voices or places

Inability to recognise things that can be seen
- not be able to recognise the colour of an object
- not be able to recognise objects and name them
- not be able to recognise places they are familiar with

Inability to recognise faces
- difficulty in identifying people from their faces
- They may see all faces as the same
- not recognise faces of people they know really well

A part of the temporal lobe that helps in face recognition, When people look at faces the fusiform gyrus are activated. Prosopagnosia can be caused by damage the FFA (near the back of the temporal lobe)

control our impulses, keep our emotions balanced
If this part of the brain is damaged, people can become impulsive and aggressive can lead to difficulty with controlling emotions can result in changes to their personality

The aim was to discover if the penetration of an iron rod impacted areas other than the frontal lobe using a 3D computer representation of the skull which included the holes from the rod

Pictures and measurements of the skull taken, Built a 3D computer replica, Took measurements of the iron rod - 3 cm in diameter and 109 cm long, work out the path the rod took through his head, 20 different entry points and 16 exit points were tested to try to find the most likely path, mapped out which parts had been harmed of the brain

Damage to both the right and left hemisphere, The iron rod went through his left eye socket and up through the head, Damage to white matter and neurons meant Gage was unable to pass neural messages in this part of his brain, affected the frontal lobe

Changes in personality, Ventromedial area of the frontal lobe- sensible decisions, emotions, impulses.
Gage had trouble controlled emotions.
Damasio had evidence of 12 other patients with similar frontal lobe damage who all showed the same issue with emotional control

low validity- case study. - held by professionals. - Damasio et al carried out an in depth investigation of "Phineas Gage" - iron rod "damaged both the right and the left hemisphere of his brain and impacted the frontal lobe". - case studies are specific to the individual being studied and can't be generalized to the whole population

temporal validity - "150 years old" - 1848, during this time, technology and science was not as advanced. - Gage's frontal lobe was damaged- frontal lobe contains the Broca's area, speech and sentence formation. secondary resources - could speak. results are questionable because if the broca's area is damaged how was Gage able to speak. The lack of technology at that time decreases the validity of the results.

high ecological validity - a case study- studied the brain of Phineas Gage after an iron rod penetrated his brain - case study conducted overtime -allowed Damasio to see the changes in his brain overtime - see if the penetration of the rod caused any damage to the other parts of the brain after the accident. - based on real life situations they can be used to predict future accidents and what impact it can have on the brain.

high validity - 3D computer replica, took measurements of the iron rod, 3 cm/109 cm- used to map out where the damage would be implicated in his brain after his accident - find the path the iron rod took -advanced technology not available but Damasio used advanced methods to create an accurate representation which made his results valid. This also contributes to the scientific method.

to show the independence and conscious awareness possessed by each hemisphere

11 epiliptic Ps who had their corpus callosum cut 5 yrs prior the study
Given various tasks to test how they processed different types of information in the split brain
Two visual fields.

Two different words or pictures were presented on each VF
Information on the right visual field will be passed to the left hemisphere and vice versa
Ps would then be asked to say the word/picture they had seen on the screen

rather than say the word/pictures, the participants would be asked to point to an item or picture
shown a variety of objects or pictures
They would then identify what they had seen

putting unseen objects into one of the hands and asking them to identify them from touch alone

When words were shown to the right visual field, the patients had no problem repeating the word back to the researcher - using LH
when words were shown the left visual field patients had trouble saying what they had seen - using RH

If a word or picture was shown to the left visual field (right hemisphere), the Ps had little trouble selecting an object that matched what they had seen.
When the word or picture was shown to the right visual field (left hemisphere) they participants struggled to point to the correct object

When objects were felt by the right hand (processed in the left hemisphere), they could name the object. When objects were felt by the left hand (processed in the right hemisphere) they found it difficult to name the object

Each H is capable of working well without being connected to the other side. Each hemisphere has its own memories and without the corpus callosum these cannot be shared between sides
Left hemisphere - naming items - broca's area
Right hemisphere - identifying objects by feeling for them - motor movement centres here.

low ecological validity - lab experiment - less life-like - unnatural response - demand characteristics - investigator's effect - cannot be used to generalise situations in real life.

high reliability and high validity - lab experiment -researcher asked to say - highly controlled environment - no extraneous variables - standardised procedure - same conditions - repeat - high reliability

provides evidence for the lateralization of the functions of the two hemispheres - rich amount of data - When words shown to RVF -no problem repeating the word back to the researcher - LH dominant for language - BRoca's area - practical implications.

small sample size. - 11 participants - cannot generalize the results to the whole target population - not everyone suffers from epilepsy