Discussion Questions
one eye contributing more strongly than the other to visual processing is known as:
ocular dominance
The left hemisphere is connected to skin receptors mainly on the ____ half of the body, and controls muscles mainly on the ____ side of the body.
right, right
A person with visual agnosia is unable to ____.
recognize visual objects
The motor cortex produces a kind of activity called a(n) ____ before any voluntary movement.
readiness potential
Which method relies on injecting a radioactive chemical into the blood?
PET
which brain structure is most closely linked to imagining familiar faces?
anterior temporal lobe
Which brain structure enables a zombie (with a functional brainstem but a nonfunctional forebrain and cerebellum) to orient to flashes of light while being unable to consciously see anything?
superior colliculus
What is a simple way to determine whether a cell in the primary visual cortex is a simple cell or a complex cell?
Test whether it responds to a stimulus in one place or in several locations.
Most of the axons of the medial tract go to which side of the body?
bilateral
What is responsible for sharpening contrast at visual borders?
lateral inhibition
Catatonia is associated with increased blood flow to which brain area?
Supplementary Motor Area
Damage to the basal ganglia would most likely result in ____.
a movement disorder
Why do humans perceive faint light better in the periphery of the eye?
more receptors in the periphery than in the fovea funnel input to each ganglion cell
Which pathway in the brain inhibits inappropriate movements?
indirect pathway
In the phenomenon of binocular rivalry, when one eye sees one pattern and the other eye sees another, what do you perceive?
temporary alternation between one pattern and the other
Dopaminergic neurons in which structure is damaged when Parkinson’s Disease occurs?
substantia nigra
The precentral gyrus is essential for the ____.
control of movements
In the back of each of your eyes, the axons of your ganglion cells all leave in one large bundle called the ______. As a result, this causes her to experience a _____.
optic nerve, blind spot
After an entire limb is amputated, what usually happens to the cortical region that once represented that limb?
The representation is taken over by nearby body parts in the cortical map.
The ability of the brain to change its anatomy over time, within limits, is known as ____.
plasticity
What is the neuropathological process that causes the development of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE)?
Abnormal accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau protein in certain regions of the brain
Damage to which part of the brain is most likely to cause a deficit in perceiving and remembering visual shapes?
early ventral stream
A person consciously experiences “seeing” something when the information reaches _____.
V1
The motor symptoms of Parkinson’s disease are most closely tied to damage in which dopamine pathway?
nigrostriatal pathway
The “binding problem” is the issue of how we ____.
perceive visual, auditory, and other aspects of a stimulus as a single object