PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Inferior Frontal Gyrus, Aphasia, Central Nervous System

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

A big topic in early brain studies was if the brain consisted of discrete areas of specialized function or was a single general processor (equipotential) (like a liver). This question was tested by seeing if people with damage to particular parts of their brain showed particular patterns of abnormality, and also seeing if a certain part of the brain activates while doing a certain task. Evidence for specialized areas of the brain (localization of function): Aphasia: loss of the ability to speak, characterized by two types: Broca"s aphasia (damage to left inferior frontal gyrus (part of the left cerebral hemisphere) - ability to understand language but not speak) Wernicke"s aphasia (ability to speak but just in random words that make no sense and difficulty understanding what is said to you) Brain imaging studies: allow us to measure and compare highlighted regions where activity is increased during different activities.