Sunday, September 26, 2010

How Our Brains Work

1. What does the word "hemisphere" refer to when talking about the brain?

 When talking about the brain, the brain contains cerebral hemispheres. The brain is divided exactly through the middle, creating the left and right cerebral hemispheres.




2. What are the major differences between the left and right sides of the brain?

The left hemisphere focuses in the logical thought. It manages: concepts, structure, obedience, regulations, time sequences, mathematics, categorizing, logic, rationality, and deductive reasoning, information, fine points, meanings, scheduling and objectives, terms, output and efficiency, science and technology, constancy, extraversion, physical aptitude, and the right side of the body.
On the other hand, the right hemisphere concentrates on insight, sentiments and sympathy, sensations, distraction, envisages, originality, color, spatial consciousness, first impressions, rhythm, naturalness and impetuosity, physical sanity, risk taking, flexibility and assortment, education by practice, interactions, spirituality, cooperation and sports, timidity, humor, motor skills, and the left side of the body.



3. What is the corpus callosum?

The corpus callosum is a thick band of 200 through 250 million nerve fibers that facilitate the communication between the left and right hemispheres.



4. Explain the study performed by Paul Broca in which he discovered "Broca's Area."

In the 1860’s, Paul Broca, a neurologist, discerned that people with damage on their left hemisphere contained language and speech tribulations. He completed studies on the brains of aphasic patients, people who cannot speak. He performed surgeries on the brain of a patient called Tan, and subsequently realized he had an injury in his left frontal lobe, and therefore could not talk. This theory was named “Broca’s Area” because of Paul Broca.

5. Explain the study conducted by Roger Sperry in regard to "split brain."

Roger Sperry was an eminent neuropsychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine with his “split-brain” studies. He analyzed patients who had a split brain with the corpus callosum cut off. The patients would face a screen, which contained various objects behind it. The patient would observe the middle of the screen. Afterwards, on the left side of the person’s image field, a statement would emerge. The non-verbal right hemisphere would receive the information, and therefore the patient could not identify what they saw. Then, Sperry would tell his patient to grab an object, using his left hand, which corresponded with the previous statement that had appeared in the screen. Indeed, the left hand of the patient could grab the matching object for the reason that the right hemisphere manages all of the movement of the left side of the body. With this valid information, Sperry recognized that the right side of the brain cannot process verbal stimuli, while the left side does control the reading and speech.



6. Explain the study conducted by Carl Wernicke which led to the discovery of Wernicke's Area."

Carl Wernicke studied a patient who had suffered a stroke in 1873. The man who suffered the stroke was capable of speaking and was unimpaired in his hearing, but he could hardly comprehend what was said to him or written. After his death, Wernicke discovered a lesion in the parietal region of his patient’s left hemisphere. He came to the conclusion that the left hemisphere was involved in speech comprehension because this region is near the auditory region of the brain. Therefore, he named this syndrome as “Wernicke’s Area”.





7. Which lobe is most responsible for vision?

   The occipital lobe is responsible for the vision in a person.



8. Which lobe is most responsible for hearing and language?

   The lobe responsible for the hearing and language of a person is the temporal lobe.



9. Which lobe is most responsible for performing math calculations?

   The frontal lobe is most responsible for performing math calculations.



10. Which lobe is most responsible for judgment, reasoning and impulse
control?

   In addition, the frontal lobe is also responsible for judgment, reasoning, and impulse control.

 

Works Cited
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html
http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/split-brain/background.html
http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/652/Carl-Wernicke.html

No comments:

Post a Comment