Brain Lobes and Their Functions

Brain Lobes and Areas

• The brain is divided into four lobes: frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal.
• Broca's area, located in the left frontal lobe, is responsible for speech production.
• Wernicke's area, situated in the left temporal lobe, is crucial for language comprehension.

Functions of Brain Lobes

• Frontal lobe: Involved in decision-making, problem-solving, control of behaviors, emotions, and language.
• Parietal lobe: Processes sensory information like touch, temperature, and pain.
• Occipital lobe: Responsible for visual processing.
• Temporal lobe: Processes auditory information and is involved in memory and emotions.

Aphasia

• Broca's aphasia: Difficulty producing speech, but patients generally understand language.
• Wernicke's aphasia: Fluent speech production, but often lacking meaning and comprehension.

Phineas Gage

• Phineas Gage suffered a traumatic brain injury to his frontal lobe.
• The case highlighted the role of the frontal lobe in personality, decision-making, and social behaviour.

Neuron Structure

• Parts of a neuron: soma (cell body), dendrites, axon, myelin sheath, and axon terminals.

Functions of Neuron Components

• Soma: Processes information and contains the nucleus.
• Dendrites: Receive signals from other neurons.
• Axon: Carries signals away from the soma.
• Myelin sheath: Insulates the axon and speeds up signal transmission.
• Axon terminals: Release neurotransmitters for communication with other neurons.

Significance of P-Values

• P-values indicate the statistical significance of results.
• A p-value of 0.01 or less is generally considered significant.
• A p-value above 0.05 typically indicates results are not statistically significant.

Classical Conditioning

• A learning process where a neutral stimulus is associated with an unconditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response.
• Key terms: Neutral stimulus, Unconditioned Response, Unconditioned Stimulus, Conditioned Stimulus, Conditioned Response.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor (0-2 years): Learning through sensory experiences.
• Preoperational (2-7 years): Symbolic thinking, egocentrism, and imagination.
• Concrete Operational (7-11 years): Logical thinking about concrete events.
• Formal Operational (12+ years): Abstract and moral reasoning.

Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

• A theory describing eight stages of development across the lifespan, each with a unique psychosocial conflict.

DSM

• Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, used for diagnosis of mental disorders.

Anxiety Disorders

• The DSM outlines various anxiety disorders (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, specific phobias).
• Key symptoms commonly include excessive worry, avoidance, and physical symptoms.

Depressive Disorders

• The DSM categorizes depressive disorders (Major Depressive Disorder, Persistent Depressive Disorder, Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder).
• Key symptoms comprise depressed mood, diminished interest, and potentially suicidal thoughts.

DSM-5 New Additions

• Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD): temper outbursts in children
• Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD): severe mood disturbances linked to the menstrual cycle

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

• Obsessions: Recurrent unwanted thoughts
• Compulsions: Repetitive behaviours to reduce distress from obsessions.

Schizophrenia

• Hallucinations: Sensory experiences without external stimuli (e.g., hearing voices).
• Delusions: False beliefs despite evidence to the contrary.

Dissociative Disorders

• Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID): Presence of multiple distinct personalities.
• Dissociative disorders typically arise from trauma or extreme stress.

Critical and Sensitive Periods

• Periods during development that are optimal for certain developmental skills to be learnt.

Attachment

• Ainsworth's Strange Situation experiment: Observed attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) of babies separated from their mothers.
• Harlow's monkey experiment: Demonstrated that comfort is more important than feeding for attachment.

John Bowlby's Attachment Theory

• Attachment theory suggests early relationships with caregivers establish later emotional and social development.

Language Development

• Genie's case: Limited language development due to lack of early exposure.

Classical Conditioning Example

• Jeremy: Loud noise (UCS) is associated with PlayStation (CS) causing fear (CR).