PSY 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 30: Fusiform Face Area, Fusiform Gyrus, Occipital Lobe
Document Summary
Brain region in right occipital cortex whose activity is relatively selective for faces relative to other objects. This area is super active when looking at faces and not objects, therefore its specialty is faces. End up with prosopagnosia - inability to recognize faces. Results from lesions to the right fusiform gyrus. Inability to recognize faces that results from lesions to the right fusiform gyrus. Prosopagnosics can describe faces, they just can"t identify people based on their faces. Cells in the brain that receive information and transmit it to other cells. They communicate information via action potentials (electrical pulses) and neurotransmitters (chemicals like dopamine). Peptide neurotransmitters are synthesized in the cell body. Then it gets transported through the axon terminal. The action potential causes calcium to enter, and releases the neurotransmitter which then binds to the receptor. Detaches, then goes through reuptake due to the transporter protein. Branching fibers responsible for bringing in information from other neurons.
