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Localisation of Brain:
Broca + Wernicke –specific areas of the brain are associated with particular physical and psychological
functions
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Hemispheres and cerebral cortex:
Two symmetrical halves of the brain
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LDS activity is controlled by right hemisphere
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Cerebral cortex- outer layer of the brain that is 3mm thick and is what separates us from
animals as human cortex is much more developed
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Motor area-voluntary movements in the opposite side of the body-frontal lobe
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Visual area- eye sent information, from RVF to the left visual cortex and from LVF to the right visual cortexoccipital lobe
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Language is dominated within left hemisphere- Broca’s area responsible for producing language (frontal
lobe) and Wernicke’s area for understanding language (temporal lobe)
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+Tulving sematic and episodic memory resides in different parts of the prefrontal cortex
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Freeman and lobotomy, brutal and imprecise and involved severing connections in
the frontal lobe and attempt to control aggressive behaviour
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Dougherty – 44 OCD patients who had cingulotomy-lesioning of the cingulate
gyrus
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Split brain:
Hemispheric lateralisation: language is controlled within left hemisphere
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Procedure: general procedure- image or word would be shown to the patient’s RVF and the same, or different, image
could be shown to the LVF
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However, presenting the image to one
hemisphere of split-brain patient meant that the information could not be conveyed from one hemisphere to other
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Object-> LVF, the
patient could describe what was seen, said there was nothing there
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Recognition by touch: couldn’t verbally express – were able to select a matching object from a grab-bag using their
left hand
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Composite words: if two words were presented simultaneously, one on either side of the visual field the patient
would write with their left hand ‘key’ and say the word ‘ring’
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Matching faces: RH appeared dominant in terms of recognising faces
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Composite picture- made from two different halves of a face was presented, the LH
dominated in terms of verbal description whereas the RH dominated in terms of selecting a matching picture
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RH can only produce rudimentary words and phrases but contributes emotional and holistic content to
language
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Strengths of the methodology: Researches made use of highly specialised and standardised procedures
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Ps would be asked to stare at a given point, whilst one eye was blindfolded
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Allowed Sperry to vary aspects
of the procedure and ensured that only one hemisphere was receiving information at a time
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Theoretical basis: his work prompted a theoretical and philosophical debate about the degree of communication
between 2 hemispheres in everyday functioning and the nature of consciousness
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Other had argued
that far from working in isolation the 2H form a highly integrated system and are both involved in most everyday
tasks
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Area more active-> more oxygen->increased demand for blood flow ->
directed to active area
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Electroencephalogram (EEG): electrical activity with the brain via electrodes-> fixed to the ps scalp using a skull cap
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Used by clinicians as a diagnostic tool as unusual arrhythmic patterns of activity may indicate
neurological abnormalities such as epilepsy, tumours or disorders of sleep
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Within
EEG data are contained all the neural responses associated with specific sensory, cognitive and motor events that
may be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists
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Using
statistical averaging technique, all extraneous brain activity from the original EEG recoding is filtered out leaving only
those responses that relate to, say, the presentation of the specific stimulus or performance of a specific task
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Post-mortem examinations: Analysis of brain after its death
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Might involve comparison with a
neurotypical brain
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Images with high spatial resolution, clear picture of how
brain activity is localised
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5s lagpoor temporal resolution
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EEG: +: invaluable in the diagnosis of conditions such as epilepsy, random bursts of activity in the brain can be easily
detected on screen
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High temporal resolution
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Not useful for pinpointing the exact source of neural
activity, doesn’t allow to distinguish between activities originating in different but adjacent locations
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-: Lack of standardisation in ERP methodology between different research studies which makes it difficult to confirm
findings
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Post-mortems: +: vital in providing a foundation for early understanding of key processes in the brain
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Improve medical knowledge and help generate hypothesis for further study
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Ethical issues: consent from the patient before death
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All biological
rhythms are governed by: internal biological ‘clocks’ (endogenous pacemakers) and external changes in the
environment (exogenous zeitgebers)
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The sleep/wake cycle: we feel drowsy when its night-time and alert during the day-> effect of the daylight
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After
2 months in the caves of the Southern Alps believing it to be mid-August
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His ‘free-running’ biological rhythm settled down to one that was just beyond
24h (around 25h) - he did continue to fall asleep and wake up on a regular schedule
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All but
one ps displayed a circadian rhythm between 24 and 25 hours
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However,
Folkard-12 people live in dark cave for 3 weeks retiring and waking up on set times
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It showed that all but ps weren’t able to fall asleep comfortably
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Practical application to drug treatments: Co-ordinate heart rate, digestion and hormone levels->has an effect on
pharmacokinetics, the effect depending on how well it is absorbed
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Use of case studies and small samples: tend to involve small samples of ps, may not be representing the whole
population, difficult to generalise
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Infradian and Ultradian rhythms:
Infradian-The menstrual cycle: Governed by monthly changes in hormone levels which regulate ovulation
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During each cycle rising level of hormone oestrogen cause the ovary to develop an egg and release
it
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If the pregnancy does not occur
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Research study: Stern and McClintock- 29 women with irregular periods
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Worn for at least
8h
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Day 1- pads from the start of the
menstrual cycle applied to all 20 women
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They found
that 68% of women experienced changes to their cycle
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Low mood, general lack of
activity
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Melatonin cause SAD, during the night
the pineal gland secretes melatonin until dawn when there is an increase of light
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This is thought to have a knock-on effect on the
production of serotonin in the brain
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At the beginning brainwave patterns
start to slow down and become more rhythmic (alpha waves) becoming even slower as sleep becomes deeper (theta
waves)
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This is deep sleep or slow
wave sleep it is difficult to rouse someone at this point
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Highly correlated with dreaming
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Questioned by Schank argued that if there were too
many females cycling together within a social group, this would produce competition for the highest quality males
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Other studies failed to find any
synchronisation
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EEG recorded brainwave activity, other researchers found the same results
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Nerve fibres connected to the eyes
cross in an area called the optic chiasm
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Continues even
when our eyes are closed, enabling the biological clock to adjust to changing patterns of daylight whilst we are
asleep
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Sleep/wake cycle disappeared and by the end of study significant
proportion of chipmunks had been killed by predators
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When SCN cells from mutant hamsters were then transferred to normal hamsters the sleep/wake cycle also reduced
to 20 hours
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Exogenous zeitgebers and the sleep/wake cycle
Light: it can reset the body’s main endogenous pacemaker and therefore plays a role in the maintenance of the
sleep/wake cycle
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Campbell and Murphy
showed that light can be detected by skin receptors
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Managed to produce a deviation in ps usual sleep/wake cycle of up to 3 h in some cases
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Parents schedule, feeling of hunger or fatigue
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They can cat independently
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Ethics in animal studies: animals suffered
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9 hours
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Artic
regions- show normal sleep patterns despite the prolonged exposure to light

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