Neuropsychology

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California The study of how damage to the brain affects cognitive functioning has historically been one of the most important tools for cognitive neuroscience. While the brain is one of the most well protected parts of the body, there are many events that can affect the functioning of the brain. Vascular issues, tumors, degenerative diseases, infections, blunt force traumas, and neurosurgery are just some of the...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California One principle of brain organization is the topographic mapping of information. Especially in sensory and motor cortices, adjacent regions of the brain tend to represent information from adjacent parts of the body, resulting in maps of the body expressed on the surface of the brain. The primary sensory and motor maps in the brain surround a prominent sulcus known as the central sulcus. The cortex...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel— University of Southern California Neuropsychology is a complex field, as it investigates how mental processes are executed in the brain—events that integrate concepts from biochemistry, biology, psychology, and neuroscience. Although the multidisciplinary nature of neuropsychology prepares young learners for a variety of careers, it also poses a challenge in that it forces students to study concepts outside of their comfort zone. For...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Decision-making is an important component of human executive function, in which a choice about a course of action or cognition is made from many possibilities. Damage to the inferior parts of the frontal lobes can affect a person's ability to make good decisions. However, while decision-making deficits can have a large impact on one's life, these deficits can be difficult to quantify in the laboratory.

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Attention, working-memory, planning, impulse control, inhibition, and mental flexibility are important components of human cognition that are often referred to as executive functions. Autism spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder that is characterized by impairments in social interaction, communication, and repetitive behaviors. It is a disorder that lasts a lifetime, and is thought to affect...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Anterograde amnesia is the loss of the ability to form new memories. This can be distinguished from retrograde amnesia, which is the loss of old memories. Anterograde amnesia can result from damage to structures in the brain that are involved in the formation of new memories. Patients who have damage to the structures of the medial temporal lobe, including the hippocampus, amygdala, and the surrounding...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California The autonomic nervous system (ANS) controls the activity of the body's internal organs and regulates changes in their activity depending on the current environment. The vagus nerve, which innervates many of the internal organs, is an important part of the system. When our brain senses danger, vagal tone is inhibited, leading to a set of changes in the body designed to make us more prepared to fight or...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Given the overwhelming amount of information captured by the sensory organs, it is crucial that the brain is able to prioritize the processing of certain stimuli, to spend less effort on what might not be currently important and to attend to what is. One heuristic the brain uses is to ignore stimuli that are frequent or constant in favor of stimuli that are unexpected or unique. Therefore, rare events...

Source: Laboratories of Sarah I. Gimbel and Jonas T. Kaplan— University of Southern California Understanding language is one of the most complex cognitive tasks that humans are capable of. Given the incredible amount of possible choices when combining individual words to form meaning in sentences, it is crucial that the brain is able to identify when words form coherent combinations and when an anomaly appears that undermines meaning. Extensive research has shown that certain scalp-recorded...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Our experience of memory is varied and complex. Sometimes we remember events in vivid detail, while other times we may only have a vague sense of familiarity. Memory researchers have made a distinction between memories that are recollected versus those that are familiar. A recollected item is one that is not only remembered, but carries with it details of the time at which it was learned or encoded.

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Experience shapes the brain. It is well understood that our brains are different as a result of learning. While many experience-related changes manifest themselves at the microscopic level, for example by neurochemical adjustments in the behavior of individual neurons, we may also examine anatomical changes to the structure of the brain at a macroscopic level. One famous example of this kind of change...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Imagine the sound of a bell ringing. What is happening in the brain when we conjure up a sound like this in the "mind's ear?" There is growing evidence that the brain uses the same mechanisms for imagination that it uses for perception.1 For example, when imagining visual images, the visual cortex becomes activated, and when imagining sounds, the auditory cortex is engaged. However, to what extent are...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel— University of Southern California The human visual system is incredibly sophisticated and capable of processing large amounts of information very quickly. However, the brain's capacity to process information is not an unlimited resource. Attention, the ability to selectively process information that is relevant to current goals and to ignore information that is not, is therefore an essential part of visual perception. Some aspects of...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Traditional brain imaging techniques using MRI are very good at visualizing the gross structures of the brain. A structural brain image made with MRI provides high contrast of the borders between gray and white matter, and information about the size and shape of brain structures. However, these images do not detail the underlying structure and integrity of white matter networks in the brain, which...

Source: Laboratories of Jonas T. Kaplan and Sarah I. Gimbel—University of Southern California Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) is a non-invasive brain stimulation technique that involves passing current through an insulated coil placed against the scalp. A brief magnetic field is created by current in the coil, and because of the physical process of induction, this leads to a current in the nearby neural tissue. Depending on the duration, frequency, and magnitude of these magnetic...