PSYCH 1XX3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Radioactive Tracer, Wilder Penfield, Phineas Gage
9 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Case of phineas gage: metal road blasted through head in accident: left him completely changed: sedih, erratic, unreliable. Lesion studies: target the function of specific brain region. Advantages: a direct measure of the brain structures function. Disadvantage: hard to selectively target particular regions and draw conclusions. Solution: specific brain lesions can be studied in animals. Stimulation and single cell recording : electrically stimulate an area of the brain and observe the result in behaviour to build an anatomical map related to function and build an anatomical map related to function. Wilder penfield: developed montreal procedure to treat patients with epilepsy: used single cell stimulation to develop procedure. Single cell recording reveals the function of individual neurons : electrode inserted into live animal module and voltage in neuron is recorded while animal performs specific task. Ct scans produce structural slices of the brain- often helpful to diagnose brain injury , relatively low resolution.
