Class notes
Lecture Notes - B&C2: Clinical Neuropsychology
- Course
- Institution
Here are my lecture notes of all lectures of the course B&C2. The notes include the pictures used in the slides. I completed this course with a 7.5 :)
[Show more]
Seller
Follow
smaasbach
Reviews received
Content preview
College 1 – Introduction to clinical neuropsychologyClinical neuropsychology: Applied science that studies the relationship between brain (dis)function and
behaviour in patients and the application in assessment and treatment
Has become highly relevant in modern-day (mental) health care
- Increase in people with brain damage or dysfunction
- Decrease in morality rates because of improvements in medical care
- Aging
- More interest in quality of life
A clinical neuropsychologist is a scientist practitioner whose focus lies on behavioural and
cognition
A clinical neuropsychologist is not a brain researcher
ICF is useful in clinical neuropsychology
- Description of consequences of brain disease / disorder at 3
different levels: impairment, limitation, and restriction
(handicap)
- Identifying moderating factors
- Relevant for understanding subjective complaints and
problems in daily life (school – work – social functioning)
- Identify target for treatment or optimalisation
Diagnostic cycle
College 2 - Korsakoff’s syndrome and alcohol-related cognitive disorders
Memory: the ability to encode information, store it and
retrieve it
Atkinson-Shiffrin memory model
, Explicit: consciously access
- Episodic: memory for experiences of
personal past (what, where, when)
- Semantic: general knowledge
Implicit: unconscious, automatic
Neuroanatomical structures involved in memory processes
Bradley’s model of working memory
- Limited (but no fixed) duration (seconds)
- Limited capacity (visuospatial sketchpad and
phonological look) approx. 7 units
- Active processing (CE) of information in STM
- Linked to long-term memory (two-way
communication)
The dorsolateral prefrontal lobe
- Working memory: maintenance of information (short-term
memory) plus
- Central executive: active processing of information
Characteristics of working memory:
- Temporary
- Limited capacity (7+/-2 chunks)
Transition from work memory to long-term memory
- Information must be permanently stored → episode information
- Binding: associative working memory: binding together different information streams into
one episode
- Episodic buffer: involved in long-term encoding
- Also involved in the retrieval of previously encoded knowledge
,Transition from WM to long-term memory
Diencephalon and medial temporal lobe (MTL) – mammillary bodies and hippocampus
Consolidation: long-term storage
- Standard consolidation model\
- After encoding, information retained in hippocampus and neocortex
- Information recall strengthens the cortico-cortical connection
- Making the memory hippocampus independent → permanently stored in neocortex
- Multiple trace theory
- Based on distinction semantic and episodic memory
- Hippocampus always involved in retrieval and storage of episodic memories (even for
very old autobiographical memories
- Semantic memories stored in neocortex
Medial temporal lobe including the hippocampus
- Encoding new knowledge: long-term encoding (which can already take place during short-
term tasks)
- Contextual information → formation of ‘episodes’ in the memory (place, time, etc.)
- ‘Binding device’: linking item memory (the content) to source memory (the source): what,
where and when
- Consolidation: long-term storage
- Disorder: anterograde amnesia / amnesic syndrome
Amnestic syndrome: no formation of long-term memories
- Hippocampal temporal variant → e.g., H.M., Dory (forget what of why she is doing something
when she gets distracted)
- Diencephalic variant → e.g., Korsakoff’s syndrome
, Hippocampal temporal amnesia
- Impaired encoding/consolidation of facts
- No confabulation or memory-monitoring problems
- Intact working/short-term memory
- Content gets lost rather than the context
- Can arise after encephalitis, hippocampectomy or
traumatic brain injury
Korsakoff’s syndrome
- Sudden onset after Wernicke-Korsakoff psychosis (gait
ataxia, eye movement disorder and confusional state)
- Frontal and diencephalic damage (mammillary bodies and thalamus) as a result
of chronic thiamine deficiency (vitamin B1)
- Often caused by chronic alcohol abuse in combination with poor nutrition
- (Vitamin deficiency can result by other means, such as anorexia, pregnancy)
Characteristics:
- Personality changes with irritability or apathy
- Confabulation and lack of insight
- Executive dysfunction
Amnestic syndrome characterised by:
- Anterograde amnesia
- Retrograde amnesia with temporal gradient in
autobiographical memory
- Retrieval problems (information can be there but can be
difficult to retrieve)
- Contextual memory: problems with placing memories in
time
- Increased sensitivity to interference (proactive and
retroactive)
Temporal gradient in memory
Korsakoff’s patient’s (K) and healthy control group (NC): famous faces
test
The more recent a face is, the more poorly a memory is recalled
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller smaasbach. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for CA$4.55. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
79202 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now