Psychology 3325 Lecture Notes - Ct Scan, Positron, Photon
Document Summary
Brain exhibits plasticity structural change resulting from experience: New synapses form, old ones disappear, dentrites grow and shrink and oxons of neurons become myelinated. Physiopsychs can trace effects of physical maturation and plasticity by using techniques that mark or stain neruons chemically. Can part percentage of neurons, making their dentrites prominent so that they an estimate the growth of dentrites and infer possible changes in number of synapses. Other stains could highlight axonal growth, showing how axons grow to connect with specific areas of brain. Also used to examine large portions of brain when human patient dies from brain injury can use dye to locate injury. Until recently most useful technique of brain imaging was ct scanner (compurized tomography) device that uses special x-ray machine and computer to produce images of brain that appear as slices taken parallel to top of skull.
