Lobes of the brain – Flashcards
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FRONTAL LOBE
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- Largest of the four lobes - Responsible for higher mental thinking --> Logical thinking, planning, reasoning --> receiving and coordinating messages from other lobes --> Motor control: planning, initiating and performing voluntary movements
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FRONTAL LOBE- Primary motor cortex
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- controls voluntary muscle movements through control of skeletal muscles - parts of body with more precise movements take up more space
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FRONTAL LOBE- Brocas area
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- LEFT hemisphere only - language and speech - responsible for production of articulate speech (clear and fluent) - If damaged = brocas aphasia - Symptoms = cannot speak in a clear and fluent manner - Verbs and nouns only - slow and unclear - However Can understand language
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FRONTAL LOBE- Association area
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- responsible for integration of sensory, motor and other neural info between lobes responsible for higher mental abilities (reasoning, planning, and problem solving) - personality and displaying emotions
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PARIETAL LOBE
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- registers sensory information (touch, pressure, pain, temp, bodily movement) - RIGHT parietal lobe plays key role in spacial orientation and 3D shapes and designs - LEFT parietal lobe plays a role in reading, writing and performing mental arithmetic
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PARIETAL LOBE- somatosensory cortex
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- Receives and processes messages from the sensory receptors in the skin (touch, temp) - parts of the body with greater sensitivity and sensation take up more space - processes messages about muscle movements and position
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PARIETAL LOBE- association area
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- reading, writing and solving mathematical problems.
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TEMPORAL LOBE
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- Primarily associated with auditory perception, language comprehension and facial recognition - second largest lobe and bilateral
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TEMPORAL LOBE- primary auditory cortex
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- involved in processing auditory information - front responds to low frequency and back to high frequency.
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TEMPORAL LOBE- Wernickes area
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- responsible for interpreting the meaning of language - interpreting sounds and giving these sounds meaning (human speech especially) - also important for locating memory - DAMAGE = Wernickes aphasia- an inability to produce meaningful sentences = speech sounds like it flows but is actually word salad
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TEMPORAL LOBE- Association area
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- Responsible for remembering and perceiving features of an environment - important role in processing memory and is directly connected to hippocampus (structure involved in formation of long term memories)
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OCCIPITAL LOBE
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- positioned at base of cerebral cortex - visual information is received and processed.
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OCCIPITAL LOBE- primary visual cortex
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- receives and processes visual information that is transmitted by the eyes.
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OCCIPITAL LOBE- visual association area
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- integrates and organises visual information with information from other areas of the cerebral cortex - information from left visual field is processed in right hemisphere, and information from right visual field is processed in left hemisphere.
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the cerebral cortex
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- the outer layer of the forebrain which contains 3/4 of the brains neurons. - folded to increase cortical surface area - divided into two hemispheres (left and right) - left and right hemispheres are connected by a bundle of nerve fibres called the corpus Callosum
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Hemispheric specialisation
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- each hemisphere is responsible for movement and sensation in the opposite sides of the body - approaches to studying hemispheric specialisation: --> studying people with brain damage vs intact undamaged brains. --> studying people who have had a split brain operation.
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LEFT HEMISPHERE
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- Linear thinking mode - Sensations and voluntary movements from the right side of the body Verbal Functions: - recognising and using words - reading, writing, speaking, and understanding speech Analytical functions: - Breaking a task down into parts - applying mathematical formula - developing an argument
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RIGHT HEMISPHERE
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- Holistic thinking mode - Sensations and voluntary movement from the left side of the body. - Non verbal functions - Creativity, fantasy, spacial and visual thinking, facial recognition, appreciating music and art, recognising emotions, spacial awareness.
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Spacial neglect
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- Damage to the RIGHT parietal lobe - problem of attention not blindness - ignores stimuli on one side of body. Example: wash right side of body
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Brain Vs Heart debate
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Argument through history as to where the mind and soul live
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Brain Vs Heart debate - BRAIN SIDE
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Believed that the brain was the physical location of the soul - Plato and Galen
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Brain Vs Heart debate - HEART SIDE
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Believed that the heart was the key to the soul - Aristotle and Ancient Egyptians
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Mind- Body debate
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The argument whether the mind has a physical basis or spiritual basis and how the mind and body interact
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Mind- Body debate DUALISM
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- Mind and body are separate but work together (descartes)
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Mind- Body debate MATERIALISM
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- belief that nothing exists apart from the world
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Mind- Body debate BEHAVIOURISTS
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- belief that psychology should only be concerned with observable actions - all behaviour comes from consequence
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Phrenology
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- Francis Joseph Gall - different brain areas are responsible for different functions and personality traits - Brain shape effects skull shape, so personality can be read from bumps on the skull.
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Phrenology Critique
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- Relied heavily on anecdotal rather than scientific evidence, Hence could not be generalised.
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Early experiments = PAUL BROCA
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- Brain structures in left side responsible for language - studied patients with language impairment as a result of brain damage (aphasia) - Left frontal lobe damage: --> cannot produce articulate speech --> However, can comprehend language - Case studies so cannot be generalised
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Early experiments = CARL WERNICKE
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- Damage to the rear temporal lobe (left hemisphere) - Wernickes aphasia = no idea what saying, unable to comprehend spoken or written word, think you can - Speed normal, words and sentences don't make sense (word salad)
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Early experiments = ROGER SPERRY
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- splitting brain in half by cutting the corpus callosum in half - Stops electrical signals connecting right and left visual field, therefore epilepsy not spread. - If words presented to LVF (goes to RH) word cannot be spoken- language is in the left hemisphere.
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Split brain operation- Roger Sperry
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- Visual recognition is primarily right hemisphere, Verbal language is primarily left hemisphere - Screen with black dot, word flashed to left and right side - LVF goes to RH and RVF goes to LH
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Early experiments = PHINEAS CAGE
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- case study- difficult to generalise results - pole pierced through frontal cortex - Causing personality to change - FIRST evidence that different areas of the brain control specific behaviour or function.
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Early experiments = WILDER PENFIELD
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- Montreal procedure (removing scar tissue that cause epilepsy) - Understanding of brain function and contralateral nature of the brain. - Found Homunculus- certain parts of the brain have a larger representation on the body. - Used ESB- pulses of electric current to the brain.
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Electrical stimulation of the brain
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- tiny pulses of electric current to different areas of the brain to observe what behaviours occur Provided: - Information on the Homunculus - Which areas are associated with language - Contralateral Ethics: invasive and harmful
