Frontal Lobe
What are the frontal lobe's 3 main categories of functioning?
Cognition, language and motor Fxs
What structures may be affected due to a lesion to the parietal lobe?
Postcentral gyrus (somatosensory cortex), superior and inferior parietal lobes
What are some of the Fxs of the temporal lobe?
Auditory processing (Wernicke's), perception, and spoken language comprehension, memory, and facial recognition
What are the main functions of the occipital lobe?
Visual perception, processing, visual recognition, mental imagery, memory recall, visualization
How many neurons are in our cerebral cortex?
100 billion+
What is this disorder? Lesion in the premotor/ supplementary motor areas that can cause difficulties performing learned, sequential movements (e.g., motor speech), despite normal strength.
Apraxia
What Fxs does the parietal lobe perform?
Somatosensation, language, reading, naming, left and right orientation, integration of visual, auditory, and tactile modalities, proprioception, nociception, etc.
What are some of the structures involved with the temporal lobe?
Auditory cortex (superior temporal gyrus, Wernicke's area), fusiform gyrus, limbic part of the hippocampus
What are some symptoms associated with an occipital lobe lesion?
Hemianopsia, visual agnosia, cortical blindness, visual confabulation
Higher mental functions are ______ organized, while sensorimotor functions are ______ organized. (symmetrically/ asymmetrically)
Asymmetrically, symmetrically
What are some behavioral symptoms of a lesion to the frontal lobe?
Behavioral and emotional changes: impulsivity, socially inappropriate behaviors (disinhibition), loss of consequence awareness, reduced self-monitoring, irritability, emotional lability, emotional blunting, etc.
What are some symptoms of a lesion to the parietal lobe?
What are symptoms of a lesion to the temporal lobe?
Acute confused state (delirium), impaired musical processing, profound memory deficits, aphasia (dominant hemisphere, usually left), loss of new learning
T/F: Visual processing supports language expression and reading
False; language comprehension
T/F: Most left and right-handers are left-hemisphere dominant.
True; 99% of right-handers, most of left-handers
What are some cognitive functions that could be affected by a frontal lobe lesion?
Planning, organization, decision-making, attention, working memory, perseveration of words, etc.
How does a deficit in pragmatics affect communication with others?
Issues with understanding how one's behavior affects others, theory of mind, perspective-taking, neglect, or egocentric bias, attuning to subtle social feedback, etc.
T/F: People with temporal lesions will not be able to retain intelligence (IQ) and motor learning
False
What is episodic memory?
The ability to remember personal experiences and specific events; mentally revisiting one's past
What are the two broad categories of brain divisions? Hint: types of cortices
Primary and association cortices
What is this disorder? Weakness/ poor coordination of speech muscles that may occur due to damage in the motor cortex of the frontal lobe.
Dysarthria
Why can a lesion to the parietal lobe cause difficulties with emotions and pragmatics, as opposed to the frontal lobe?
Because pragmatic communication depends on the ability to interpret social cues in context (e.g., facial expressions, gestures, inflection, physical spacing)
What is global amnesia?
A severe, widespread memory loss that affects both retrograde and anterograde memories
What is the region of the brain involved with letter/ written symbol recognition?
Occipitotemporal areas (visual word-form area in the L-Hemisphere)
What are 3 types of imaging techniques used to study the cerebral cortex?
CT, MRI, PET (also: CAT scan)