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| Neuropsychology
is
the study of the relationship between brain and behavior. |
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| Alzheimer's
dementia
is a progressive neuropsychological disorder characterized
by a severe loss of factual and personal memories and
a general decline in cognitive ability. Day-to-day memory
is dramatically impaired, and patients often feel disoriented
with respect to time and place. The cognitive deficit
associated with Alzheimer's dementia is much more extensive
than that associated with semantic dementia. Moreover,
the pattern of brain damage associated with Alzheimer's
dementia is one of widespread, patchy damage to many areas,
including the medial temporal lobe structures and areas
throughout the neocortex. |
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| Amnesia
is a general term used to describe instances of memory
loss. There are numerous types of amnesia, however medial
temporal lobe (MTL) amnesia (often called "classic amnesia")
has received the most research attention. MTL amnesia
results from focal damage to a set of structures deep
in the centre of the brain: the hippocampal complex. Patients
suffering from this dirorder show severe anterograde amnesia
(i.e. they are unable to store any new long-term memories
after the onset of brain damage) and comparatively mild
loss of memory acquired prior to brain damage (i.e. retrograde
amnesia). Despite this profound deficit in memory, patients
with MTL amnesia show no decline in general cognitive
or perceptual ability. |
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| The
basal ganglia is
a group of large nuclei in the forebrain. |
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| A
cognitive map is
the mental representation of a set of spatial relationships. |
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| Elaborative
encoding
refers to our conscious and effortful cognitive interaction
with information being put into memory. Information that
is elaborated upon has a greater chance of being remembered. |
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| Explicit
memory
refers to the conscious recollection of information. |
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| FMRI
stands for "functional magnetic resonance imaging". It
is a neuroimaging technique used to study activity in
the brain. It shows which structures are active during
particular mental operations. |
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| The
frontal lobes are
the outermost lobes at the front of the brain. They lie
just beneath your forehead. They are involved in planning,
thinking, and reasoning. |
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| The
hippocampus a structure
deep within the medial temporal lobes. It is implicated
in the storage and retrieval of memories for personally
experienced events. The "hippocampal
complex"is a set of structures deep in the
centre of the brain (in the medial temporal lobe region)
that includes the hippocampus proper, the subiculum, the
fornix, the entorhinal cortex and the perirhinal cortex.
These structures are thought to play a critical role in
the storage of new memories and in their integration with
previously acquire |
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| H.M.
is a man who, in the 1950's, had a large portion of his
medial temporal lobes removed to lessen his epileptic
seizures. As a result, he got amnesia. He was unable to
remember events that happened to him before the surgery.
H.M. is still alive and continues to be studied. |
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| Implicit
memory
refers to remembering information but not being consciously
aware of "remembering". For example, many motor skills
(ie. riding a bike, playing the piano) are forms of implicit
memory. |
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| The
medial temporal lobes
are located on either side of the brain. Cup your hands
around your ears. This is approximately where they lie.
They are involved in memory and language. |
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| The
neocortex is part
of the outermost layer of our brains. It is responsible
for our highest mental functions (e.g. planning and strategy
formation/execution). |
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| Nonelaborative
encoding
refers to our very superficial cognitive interaction with
new information that is effortlessly put into memory,
if at all. Information that is not elaborated upon has
a small chance of being remembered. |
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| Parietal
Cortex
The parietal lobe is a lobe in the brain. It is positioned
above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe.
The parietal lobe integrates sensory information from
different modalities, particularly determining spatial
sense and navigation. The parietal lobe plays important
roles in integrating sensory information from various
parts of the body, knowledge of numbers and their relations,
and in the manipulation of objects. Portions of the parietal
lobe are involved with visuospatial processing. |
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| PET
stands for "positron emission tomography". It is a neuroimaging
technique used to study parts of the brain as they function.
The colourful computer images you see of working brains
are actually PET scans. They show the brain's metabolic
processes. |
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| Semantic
dementia
is a progressive neuropsychological disorder characterized
by a multi-modal deficit in semantics (or meaning) that
typically develops following damage to regions of the
temporal neocortex. This disorder results in a loss of
lexical (language) knowledge and of general factual knowledge;
language production and comprehension are severely impaired.
In contrast, day-to-day memory abilities are largely preserved. |
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| The
temporal neocortex
is part of the outermost layer of the brain (neocortex).
The temporal neocortex is located on either side of the
brain. Cup your hands around your ears. This is approximately
where they lie. They play a critical role in high level
visual processing and in the long-term storage of language,
general knowledge, and autobiographical memories. |
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