Examtests with the 5th edition of Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind by Gazzaniga et al.

How have neurosciences evolved over the years? - ExamTests 1

Questions with chapter 1

Question 1

What does phrenology mean?

Question 2

Explain what rationalism and empiricism entails.

Question 3

What are the things cognitive neuroscience is a combination of?

Question 4

Why is there a major progress in cognitive neuroscience in the second half of the twentieth century?

Answer suggestions with chapter 1

Question 1

Phrenologists believed that specific brain areas were specialized for special functions. If a function were to be used more often, the related brain area would grow and cause a lump on the skull. By reading the lumps on the skull, phrenologists believed they could investigate someone's skills and personality traits.

Question 2

Rationalism states that knowledge comes from reasoning. From empirism came the idea of ​​associationism: the opinion that all knowledge comes from sensory experience.

Question 3

The term cognitive neuroscience was introduced in the 1970s when ideas of neurology and psychology were brought together. Cognition means the process of understanding and neuroscience studies the organization and function of the nervous system.

Question 4

Through the emergence of non-invasive methods to investigate brain structure, metabolism and brain function, such as ECG, CAT, PET, MRI and fMRI.

What is the structure and function of the nervous system? - ExamTests 2

Questions with chapter 2

Question 1

What is the difference between dendrites and axons?

Question 2

What is myelin and what does it take care of?

Question 3

What is the difference between depolarization and hyperpolarization?

Question 4

There are four criteria that a substance must meet to get the name neurotransmitter. Name these criteria.

Question 5

When neurotransmitters have done their job, they must be removed from the synaptic cleft. In what ways does this happen?

Question 6

What is the role of the glial cells?

Question 7

What does the central nervous system consist of? What does the peripheral nervous system consist of?

Question 8

What structures does the brainstem consist of?

Question 9

What does the gray matter consist of and what does the white matter consist of?

Question 10

What are the functions of the thalamus and the hypothalamus?

Question 11

What are the different lobes that make up the brain? What are the main functions of these brain lobes?

Question 12

What is synaptogenesis and what is neurogenesis?

Answer suggestions with chapter 2

Question 1

Dendrites and axons are both parts of a neuron and extend from the cell body. Dendrites receive input from the synapses of other neurons. Dendrites are therefore postsynaptic. This input is eventually produced via the dendrites along the axon, from where it is transferred to the synapse, where the input is again transferred to the dendrites of another neuron. Axons are therefore presynaptic.

Question 2

Myelin is a fatty substance that covers the axons of many neurons. It ensures that action potentials are passed on quickly and therefore has a sort of insulating effect.

Question 3

Depolarization ensures that the inside of the cell becomes more positive and is more likely to generate an action potential. Hyperpolarization ensures that the inside of a cell becomes less positive and therefore less likely to generate an action potential.

Question 4

The four criteria are:

1. A neurotransmitter must be synthesized and located in a presynaptic neuron and stored in the terminal.
2. A neurotransmitter must be released, with the help of Ca 2+, when an action potential arises and the cell is depolarized.
3. A postsynaptic cell must contain receptors that are specific to the substance.
4. When the neurotransmitter is artificially applied to the post-synaptic cell, the neurotransmitter must evoke the same response as when the presynaptic cell is stimulated.

Question 5

This can be done in the following three ways:

1. Active re-recording. Hereby the neurotransmitter is readmitted by the presynaptic cell.
2. Neurotransmitters can be broken down by enzymes in the synaptic cleft.
3. Neurotransmitters can spread to other areas.

Question 6

Glial cells help in the rapid transfer of information between cells by forming myelin around the axons of neurons. They also play a role in providing structural support for the nervous system and by forming the blood-brain barrier. They also modulate neural activity.

Question 7

The central nervous system consists of the brain and spinal cord. The peripheral nervous system consists of all nerve cells outside the central nervous system.

Question 8

The middle brain (mesencefalon), the punch and the cerebellum (metencefalon) and the medulla (myelencefalon).

Question 9

The gray matter consists of cell bodies and the white matter is formed by axons.

Question 10

The thalamus receives all sensory signals, with the exception of smell, but also receives input from the basal ganglia, cerebellum, neocortex and medial temporal lobe and also directs projections to it. In addition, the thalamus receives motor information from the spinal cord. The pulvary nucleus of the thalamus is important in attention and integration of information from cortical areas. The hypothalamus plays an important role in the endocrine system, circadian rhythms, homeostasis and hormone production.

Question 11

The four lobes and their most important function are:

• The frontal lobe is responsible for planning, executive functioning and the execution of movements.
• The parietal lobe receives sensory information about touch, pain, temperature and the position of limbs and integrates this information.
• The temporal lobe contains areas that process auditory information.
• The occipital lobe processes visual information.

Question 12

Synaptogenesis is the emergence of new synapses and neurogenesis is the emergence of new neurons.

What is the role of methods in cognitive neuroscience? - ExamTests 3

Questions with chapter 3

Question 1

What are two important concepts in information processing?

Question 2

What can result in neurological disorders?

Question 3

What is the coup and countercoup side in a neurological trauma?

Question 4

What is deep brain stimulation?

Question 5

What happens when using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS)?

Question 6

What is a disadvantage of computed tomography (CT) compared to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)?

Question 7

What is measured with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)?

Question 8

What is an event-related potential? And how is an ERP measured?

Question 9

How does positron emission tomography (PET) work?

Question 10

Explain the BOLD response in fMRI scanning.

Question 11

Why are there computer models made of the brain?

Answer suggestions with chapter 3

Question 1

The two important concepts are:

• Information processing depends on internal representations
• Mental representations are subjected to transformations

Question 2

Vascular problems - such as a cerebral vascular accident (CVA) - tumors, degeneration, infection disorders, trauma and epilepsy.

Question 3

The coup side is the side of the head that has been hit by a blow. The countercoup is the opposite side where damage can occur due to reactive forces.

Question 4

With deep brain stimulation, electrodes are implanted in the brain, which emit electrical signals. This stimulates certain cells, but also influences the interactions between cells.

Question 5

TMS uses magnetic pulses to briefly stimulate local brain areas. It can also temporarily interrupt the neural functions of the cortex. With tDCS, the brain is stimulated by a current that is emitted between two small electrodes, anode and cathode. The neurons under the anode are depolarized, while the neurons under the cathode are hyperpolarized.

Question 6

CT scans use X-ray to display the structure of the brain. MRI uses the magnetic properties of organic tissue in the brain to depict the structures. The spatial resolution of MRI is better than that of CT, so that brain structures can be better mapped and the distinction between gray and white matter is better.

Question 7

With DTI, for which MRI scanners are used, the white dust paths in the brain are depicted, or the anatomical connections between brain regions.

Question 8

An event-related potential is a change in electrical brain activity, measured by an EEG, that is specific at a certain time for a certain event, such as the presentation of a stimulus. When these events are often repeated, the ERP is measured by averaging the activity for all of these different events. The event-related signal has a high temporal accuracy.

Question 9

PET measures the metabolic activity in the brain by using a radioactive tracer. These elements lose positrons in the blood stream, which then collide with electrons. This creates gamma radiation. A PET scanner can determine the collision site of the particles.

Question 10

The BOLD response is the ratio of hemoglobin with and without oxygen. It is a way to link blood flow to neural activity.

Question 11

With computer models, cognitive processes are simulated, so that human behavior can be studied when a certain stimulation takes place. With the models we can form hypotheses, which are later tested on real brains.

What is hemispheric specialization? - ExamTests 4

Questions with chapter 4

Question 1

What is the corpus callosum?

Question 2

Why do you need to distinguish between grammatical and lexical functions?

Question 3

What is the difference regarding visuospatial processing between the left and right hemisphere?

Question 4

How is the unique specialized ability of the left hemisphere called and where does it stand for?

Question 5

What are limitations of brain studies with healthy participants to test differential processing?

Answer suggestions with chapter 4

Question 1

The corpus callosum is a white matter structure in the brain that connects the left and right hemispheres. It is devided on a macroscopic level into the genu, the body and the splenium.

Question 2

When you want to understand the neural bases of language, it is useful to distinguish between grammatical and lexical functions. Grammar is the rule-based system that humands have for ordering words to facilitate communication. The lexicon is the dictionairy of the mind, where words are associated with specific meanings.

Question 3

The right hemisphere is specialized for efficiently detecting upright faces and discriminating among similar faces. The left hemisphere is not good at distinguishing among similar faces, but is able to distinguish among dissimilar ones when it can tag the feature differences with words.

Question 4

The left hemisphere appears to have a specialized ability to make causal inferences and form hypotheses. This unique specialization of the left hemisphere is also called the interpreter. An example: when a patient is asked (right-hemispheric) to stand up, and when the patient then was asked (left-hemispheric) why he stood up, he made a rational explanation 'I felt like getting a coke'.

Question 5

The limitations are:

1. The effects are small and inconsistent, perhaps because healthy people have two functioning hemispheres connected by an intact corpus callosum that transfers information quite rapidly.
2. There is an bias in scientific review process towards publishing papers that find significant differences over papers that report no differences. It is much more exciting to report asymmertries in the way we remember lateralized pictures of faces than to report that effects are similar.
3. Interpretation is problematic. What can be inferred form an observed asymmetry in performance with lateralized stimuli?

How do sensation and perception relate to each other? - ExamTests 5

Questions with chapter 5

Question 1

What holds perception and sensation?

Question 2

Briefly describe the path of sound waves that starts in the eardrum and ends in the primary auditory cortex.

Question 3

Which two senses are known as the chemical senses?

Question 4

Explain what the homunculus is in the primary somatosensory cortex.

Question 5

How does visual information reach the primary visual cortex?

Question 6

What is achromatopsia?

Question 7

What is akinetopsia?

Question 8

Which areas of the brain are involved in multi-sensory integration?

Answer suggestions with chapter 5

Question 1

Perception starts with a stimulus from the environment, such as a sound or light. This stimulates one of our sensory organs, such as the eye. The input is then converted to neural activity, processed by the brain. Sensatie refers to the early processing of this. A perception is the mental representation of an original stimulus.

Question 2

Auditory perception proceeds from the eardrum, via the cochlea to the cochlear nucleus in the medulla. Then to the olivary nuclei, the inferior colliculus and the nucleus of the lateral lemniscus to the medial geniculate nucleus in the thalamus. From here the information goes to the primary auditory cortex (A1).

Question 3

Taste and smell, because they both initially react to chemicals in the environment.

Question 4

In the primary somatosensory cortex there is a topographical representation of the body; called the homunculus. More sensitive areas of the body are represented by a relatively larger area in the cortex.

Question 5

The visual signals from the photoreceptors go through the bipolar cells to the ganglion cells. The axons of the ganglion cells form the optic nerve that transports the information to the central nervous system. The information goes to the primary visual cortex (V1) via the lateral geniculate nucleus of the thalamus.

Question 6

Achromatopsia is the inability to perceive color due to damage in and around area V4.

Question 7

Akinetopsia is the inability to process movement due to damage in and around area V5.

Question 8

Superior colliculus and superior temporal sulcus.

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