Question 1
The main causes of brain injury are:
1. Vascular disorders (stroke) operates through either ischemia (loss of blood
supply) or hemorrhage (bleeding)
2. Epilepsy, which is abnormally high brain activity that can cause seizures and
loss of consciousness
3. Traumatic brain injury either open or close-head injuries
4. Tumor is an abnormal mass of cells that grows in the human body
5. Neurogenerative disorders
Alzheimer’s: disorder of neural degeneration
Huntington’s: involves atrophy of the basal ganglia (caudate, putamen)
Korsakoff’s: lack of B1 vitamin due to chronic alcoholism that results
in neuronal damage in the diencephalon
Parkinson’s: disruption of Nigrostriatal pathway
Question 2
Three of the standard imaging techniques used in neuropsychology are:
1. fMRI ( functional magnetic resonance ): during this test they measure energy
releases from oxygen molecules they stimulate magnetically as indicators of
the defected location. fMRI has high spatial resolution (can locate the damage
properly) but low temporal resolution (takes seconds whereas brain changes
happen within milliseconds)
2. PET (positron emission tomography): in this technique they make use of
photons in order to detect the defected side. PET can easily detect the
damaged location however, it is a highly invasive procedure.
3. EEG (Electro-engephalogram): electrodes are placed in a cup which patients
wear and through brain wave activity (mostly beta-waves) examiners try to
locate the source of the problem. EEG has good temporal resolution but poor
spatial resolution because many signals are produced at the same time
Question 3
The neuronal correlates of empathy are mirror neurons located in the premotor areas.
Monkey experiments have proven that the activation of these neurons is present when
you perform a task but also when you observe someone performing the same task.
Question 4
The homunculus is a classification proposed by Penfield about how body parts are
represented within the motor cortex. The homunculus is presented as a drawing of
body parts distributed in the cortex. Broader regions have smaller representations e.g.
the legs or the arms appear at a relative small size compared to their real size. On the
contrary the tongue or the lips appear to be highly represented in the cortex. That
indicates that smaller regions of the body that require finer movements need higher
, motor control. Additionally, the way the homunculus is arranged is different to the
real body image.
Question 5
The patient is unable to complete voluntary movements with her right hand after a
stroke; thus, we could speculate she suffers from apraxia. Since, the damage appears
to be unilateral (located on the left side) and involves control of a performed
movement but an imaginary movement as well we can argue that the patient could
suffer from limb-kinetic apraxia. Additionally, her difficulties with speech are
indicative of a post-stoke non-fluent aphasia. Since she has difficulties in answering
questions Broca’s aphasia which is also called expressive aphasia is a possible
disorder. However, it is not unlikely she experiences difficulties in comprehending
and answering the questions which would be indicative of a non-fluent aphasia where
spontaneous speech suffers.
Question 6
Token-Test is a language comprehension task, used to assess language problems and
potentially locate any lesions the patients are suffering from (e.g. parietal lobe, frontal
lobe). During the token test participants are presented with different shape-color
figures and they are asked to point to the correct ones based on the description
provided by the examiner (e.g. Can you point the green triangle?). It can be used to
assess people with comprehension and production problems.
Question 7
The middle cerebral artery is a core location for language function and its blockage
(e.g. due to a stroke) can result in aphasias. Since it supplies many areas of the cortex
the damage of the artery can lead to fluent aphasias (Wernicke’s, transcortical,
conduction and anomic), non-fluent aphasias (Broca’s transcortical motor and global
aphasia) and specific aphasias like alexia, agraphia and or word deafness.
Question 8
The language disorder the patient is suffering from is transcortical aphasia since he
cannot express himself as he used (e.g. talk to his wife and say that he loves her) to
but still his repetition ability is intact and these symptoms presented after a stroke. He
also shows signs of anterograde amnesia since he keeps forgetting where he placed
his book. Anterograde amnesia is the inability form new memories following a brain
injury in this case the stroke.
Question 9
Short term memory: the information (sensory or cognitive) is shortly held and
manipulated here by the phonological loop, the executive function and visuospatial
sketchpad. On the other hand, long-term memory (LTM) is a more permanent
memory storage and entails factual, semantic, emotional and priming memories. They
also involve different brain regions e.g. LTM entails temporal, cortex, hippocampus,
basal ganglia whereas STM is mostly relying on PFC
Question 10
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