Neurocognition Literature
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Lecture 1: The brain and cognition over the lifespan ............................................................................. 2
Chapter 5: The brain ............................................................................................................................ 2
Chapter 15: Development ................................................................................................................... 7
The aging mind: neuroplasticity in response to cognitive training ................................................... 15
Week 2: Genes and Pharmacology........................................................................................................ 18
Chapter 16: The genes and molecules of cognition .......................................................................... 18
Genetics and Neuropsychology: A Merger Whose Time Has Come ................................................. 30
Lecture 3: Memory ................................................................................................................................ 33
From short-term store to multicomponent working memory: The role of the modal model .......... 33
Context Memory in Korsakoff's syndrome ........................................................................................ 37
Lecture 4: Attention .............................................................................................................................. 42
Chapter 12: Disorders of attention ................................................................................................... 42
Chapter 8.3 Attention Enhances Perception, Cognition, and Learning............................................. 51
Top-down versus Bottom-up attentional control: a failed theoretical dichotomy........................... 53
Lecture 5: Emotion and Motivation ...................................................................................................... 56
Chapter 13: Emotion ......................................................................................................................... 56
Neuropsychological Theories of Emotion ......................................................................................... 64
Lecture 6: Executive Functioning .......................................................................................................... 68
The Elusive Nature of Executive Functions: A Review of our Current Understanding...................... 68
Advancing Understanding of Executive function impairments and psychopathology: bridging the
gap between clinical and cognitive approaches................................................................................ 75
Looking under the hood of executive function impairments in psychopathology: A commentary on
‘Advancing understanding of executive function impairments and psychopathology: bridging the
gap between clinical and cognitive approaches’............................................................................... 82
Neuro-cognitive architecture of executive functions: A latent variable analysis ............................. 83
Lecture 7: Motor Control....................................................................................................................... 87
The Neuropsychology of Movement and Movement Disorders: Neuroanatomical and Cognitive
Considerations ................................................................................................................................... 87
Chapter 14: Brain Control of Movement........................................................................................... 93
Lecture 8: Interpretation of Test results ............................................................................................. 102
Ten common statistical mistakes to watch out for when writing or reviewing a manuscript ........ 102
The statistical crisis in science: how is it relevant to clinical neuropsychology? ............................ 108
Chapter 31: Psychometric Foundations for the Interpretation of Neuropsychological Results ..... 112
,Lecture 1: The brain and cognition over the lifespan
Chapter 5: The brain
Introduction
Cognitive neuroscience focuses on the cortex, which involves the highest level of processing.
- Cortex is only the outer and visible portion of the brain
- Interacts constantly with major organs: thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum, hippocampus
and limbic regions
- Thalamo-cortical system: closest connections between cortex and thalamus
Gray matter: contains cell bodies
White matter: contains myelinated axons
The nervous system
Main parts of the nervous system
- Central nervous system (CNS): brain and spinal cord
- Peripheral nervous system (PNS): autonomic and peripheral sensory and motor system
The geography of the brain
The brain consists of two hemispheres, separated by the corpus callosum. Both hemispheres can be
separated into four lobes
- Frontal lobe
- Parietal lobe
- Temporal lobe
- Occipital lobe
To describe specific parts of the brain, multiple systems can be used.
- Broadman areas: Broadman discovered subtle differences in the appearance of cells in the
layers and their connections. He gave each part their own number.
o Now, there are about 100 Broadman areas, so location is still a rough estimate
o These areas correspond well to different specialized functions of the cortex
- Talairach coordinates: a bit more specified and used for functional brain imaging
o Allows different brains to be compared in a single framework
The cortex consists of a large thin sheet of six cellular layers thick.
- This sheet is the grey matter
- Not all parts of the cortex consist out of six cellular layers, only the neocortex
o Neocortex: ‘new’ cortex, emerged just 200 million years ago
o Paleocortex: older regions of the cortex, also found in reptiles (such as the limbic
cortex)
➔ The six horizontal layers of the cortex are organized in cortical columns
o Shown in roman numerals, I is the top layer, VI is the lower layer
o Contain closely related neurons
▪ Example: visual cells responding to different orientations
o Columns may be clustered into hyper columns which may be part of an even larger
cluster
o Horizontal organization: six layers
o Vertical organization: columns, hyper columns and entire specialized regions
Growing a brain from the bottom up
Evolution and personal history are expressed in the brain
,The brain grew and evolved from the inside out, this applies for:
- Phylogenesis: how species evolved
- Ontogenesis: how the human brain grows from the foetus onward
➔ Lower regions are more ancient than higher regions
o Basic survival functions (breathing) are controlled by neural centres in the lower
brainstem
o Prefrontal cortex is a late addition to the basic mammalian brain
▪ Damage on the prefrontal cortex hasn’t a lot of impact on basic survival
functions, but does impar decision-making, self-control and personality
Building a brain from bottom to top
Neuroaxis (spinal cord + brain): grows from tiny cellular clumps into a slender cylindrical shoot, then
thickening centrifugally to form the spinal cord into a mushroom like shape
- In the womb, the embryonic brain develops into an S shape, the neocortex covers the older
regions
Humans are standing mammals so the direction terms in the brain differ from the rest of the body
- Upper direction of the human brain is called dorsal (toward the back), but also superior
(upward)
- Other directions:
o Ventral: towards the belly
o Inferior: downward
The brainstem and the pons are the oldest regions of our brain.
The brainstem is continuous with the spinal cord with the pons on top. The pons has nerve fibres to
connect the two halves of the cerebellum
- Brainstem and pons form a major route from the spinal cord to the brain
- Basic functions such as heartbeat and breathing are controlled here
Thalamus (there are two: thalami) form the upper end of the brainstem
- Traffic hubs of the brain and intimately connected with each great hemisphere
Below and in front of each thalamus lays a cluster of nuclei called the hypothalamus
- Connected with the pituitary gland
- Hypothalamus and pituitary gland are an important neurohormonal complex
- Types of physiological homeostasis are monitored by the hypothalamus
o When hypothalamic neurons detect a deviation from the proper blood level of
oxygen, they trigger increased breathing!
- The hypothalamus also has crucial emotional functions
On top of the thalamus are the two hippocampi (one hippocampus on each side), nestled inside of a
temporal lobe
- Hippocampus plays a major role in transferring experiential information to longer-term
memory and retrieving episodic memories
- Involved in spatial navigation
Near the tip of each hippocampal loop is an amygdala
- Plays a role in emotions and emotional association
Four ventricles: small cavities, containing a circulating fluid that is separate from the bloodstream
- Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) descends into the spinal cord through a tiny tube (aqueduct)
, - The walls of the ventricles are sites for neural stem cells, and are believed to be a source of
the new neurons
Basal ganglia are clumps at the bottom of the brain (one outside each thalamus)
The shield-like structure is the putamen, surrounded by the caudate nucleus
- Caudate nucleus and putamen are important for control of movement and cognition
From ‘where’ to ‘what’: the functional roles of brain regions
The cerebral hemispheres: the left-right division
The corpus callosum
The hemispheres are completely separate, dived by the longitudinal fissure between the two
hemispheres from anterior to the posterior part of the brain
- The link between the hemispheres is provided by the corpus callosum, a large arch of white
matter. There are more than 100 million axons travelling between the two hemispheres
o Corpus callosum has fibres that project between the hemispheres in an orderly way
▪ Regions in the anterior portion connecting similar brain areas in the frontal
lobes
▪ Regions in the posterior portion connecting similar brain areas in the
occipital lobe
Many aspects of sensory and motor processing entail the crossing over of input (sensory) or output
(motor) information from the left side to the right and vice versa.
- Crosses over: vision, control of hands
- Stays on the same side: olfactory
➔ The time between two hemispheres working together can be around 10ms
o The differences are not very obvious when the corpus callosum is intact
o If the corpus callosum is cut, major hemispheric differences become observable.
▪ Callosectomy = the partial separation of the two hemispheres by cutting the
corpus callosum, used to treat severe epilepsy
▪ Callosotomy = complete slicing of the corpus callosum
Output and input: the font-back division
The cortex is folded into hills (gyri) and valleys (sulci)
- Central sulcus: runs vertically between the frontal lobe and the parietal lobe
- Sylvian fissure: horizontally from the frontal lobe posterior, separating the temporal lobe
from the parietal and frontal lobes
Sensory regions are located posterior to the central sulcus and the sylvian fissure, in the parietal,
temporal and occipital lobes
- Visual cortex begins in the occipital lobe and extends to the parietal and temporal lobes
- Auditory cortex is located in the temporal lobe and extends to the parietal lobe
- Somatosensory areas are located in the parietal lobe
- Taste and smell regions are located at the bottom of the temporal lobes
➔ In the back of the brain, the information from various senses is bound together for higher
order processing
Motor regions are located in the frontal lobe, anterior to the central sulcus and the sylvian fissure
➔ The close physical connection between the somatosensory cortex and the motor cortex
allows for a tight coupling between the senses of touch, pressure and pain and the action or
motor system
The intricate mapping of the body that is reflected in similar ways in the somatosensory region is
located posterior to the central sulcus and its corresponding motor region located just anterior
