PSY 430 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Frontal Lobe, Lesion, Phineas Gage
Document Summary
What are the methods that we can use to study the brain (functions): brain lesion method, stimulation, recordings. Deficit lesion method for studying brain function: human lesion studies. Studying the behavior or task performance of brain damaged points. Determining the site of the damage in post-mortem analysis. Acquired brain damage such as stroke, drugs or alcohol damage, surgery, or head injury. Had an accident in which an iron rod was driven through his head. Destroyed most of his left frontal lobe. Friends said that he was no longer gage . Then test rats in tank such as learning, perception,feeding, drinking, etc. The assumption is that lesioned part of brain is necessary for that task. Controls put through same surgery, but without electricity passed through electrode. If lesioned group performs differently from controls: the, assumption is the lesion affected them. Limitations of lesion methods: variability in patients.
