Brain Damage

Essay cover sheet Essay Title What does the study of promontory wound and unhealthiness tell us about shape pass functioning? Word count (Excluding title and references section) 829 What does the study of wittiness injury and disease tell us about normal brain functioning? To understand a exemplary brain function, it is important to appropriate the expectations for a typical brain function. It is true that many diseases or injuries result in impairments in perception as different atomic number 18as of the brain is designed to control unique(predicate) cognition and workes.For example the hemispheres are known to control different functions such(prenominal) as language, spatial judgements, reasoning and knock off nonions (Martin, 2003). Whilst, the window dressing lobe is famous for touch on memory, attention, personality, and behaviour (Martin, 2003). Parietal lobe tends to control spatial and sensory information whereas occipital lobe processes visual stimulus. Lan guage, retrieval of memory and behaviour is administrated through impermanent lobe (Martin, 2003). Finally, the limbic system tends to control emotion as well as ill-judged term memory (Martin, 2003).Brain handicap is the degeneration or abnormal issue of brain cells, which can be the result of outer (injury) or home(a) (disease) influences. then, in cases of brain disease there are biological and mental impairment that causes abnormality in the brain such as Alzheimers disease, Dementia, Amnesia and Aphasia which some may be genetically inherited. Brain disease such as Alzheimers help us to understand the processes of the cardinal administrator function, which assists in producing controlled and flexible responses (Groome, 2006).In Alzheimers Disease (AD), this process is replaced by automatic and stereotyped responses thus, it results in a dysexecutive syndrome (Groome, 2006 Baddely & Wilson, 1988). Conditions such as AD, symptoms comparable amnesia and dementia are know n to involve damage to frontage lobes (Groome, 2006) therefore, there are impairments in abstract and conceptual thinking, attention, behaviour and memory. For example, lesions to frontlet lobes result in difficulty in retrieving contextual information (Parkin, Walter & Hunkin. 1995) thus, when presented with serial publication of items, the head-on lobe patients are likely to remember the item shortly after, however, are not able to specify the enact in which they were presented in (Swain, Polkey, bullock & Morris. , 1998). Additionally, patient H. M had part of his medial temporal lobes removed payable to his epilepsy however most of his hippocampus were also removed to reduce seizures (Groome, 2006). Although his curb improved, he developed amnesia, which affected his short term memory (Groome, 2006).This meant he was no longer able to form new memories due to the lesion do to his hippocampus. Schizophrenia is a psychiatric disorder that results in several cognition impair ments such as deficit in memory and learning, poor abstract thinking and problem solving, difficulty in sustaining attention. Studies suggest that such patients are likely to suffer from dysfunction in sphere of influences such as frontal lobe, temporal lobe, left(a) or right hemisphere and basal ganglia (Blanchard & Neale, 1994). Heinrichs & Zakzanis (1998) illustrated how schizoid patients tend to have impaired verbal memory.Furthermore, injuries or lesions to frontal and temporal lobes of the cerebral cortex can result in language deficiencies, such as Wernicke and Brocas aphasia (Groome, 2006). For example, patient Phineas pledge suffered an injury to the Brocas area (damage to frontal lobe), showed inability to produce language, as there was no blame structure and the language was just string of disjointed words (Fleischman, 2002 Groome, 2006). Gage also showed emotional inbalance, where he was described to have acted out of face and was more aggressive, which was the res ult of damage to amygdale (Fleischman, 2002 Groome, 2006).Whilst, Wernickes aphasia (damage to temporal lobe) results in hollow production of language the patient is able to produce sentences but it does not convey information (Groome, 2006). Moreover, studies on blindsight suggest that patients such as DB have no conscious experience of perceived surroundings, however they pluck to use the visual information at some other level to guide them through the surrounding world (Groome, 2006). It is believed that this neglect is the result of damage to the contralateral hemisphere.For example patients who have lesions to the right hemisphere have left spatial neglect, thus will fail to notice the left situation of space (Groome, 2006). Such studies, play up that spatial neglect is not a unitary disorder but a cohort of deficits. Thus, it allows us to distinguish between conscious experiences and the ability to respond appropriately to stimulus (Groome, 2006). The brain is a major orga n that executes functions and vital processes essential to human occupation for example thinking, memory, language and emotions.The use of brain injuries and diseases, enables us to identify emend models to comprehend cognition as these areas will create a infixed lesion in the processing mechanism. Thus, it identifies specific elements that play a major procedure in cognition. The mentioned studies show specific cognitions can be used to process information in a particular way. To ensure that specific cognitive model is processing properly, it is important to look at the neural natural process of that region. Lack of activity in the interested area shows impairment in the model and that region.Therefore, by studying that specific area further, we can highlight its activity and information processing. This will allow us to understand normal functioning of the brain further. However, it is important to note that these theories might not be fully supported. For example, not much i s known about the central executive system thus, the vagueness only allows to corroborate processes that are not fully understood. Therefore it is vital to critically analyse theories before applying them. References Baddeley, AD. Kopelman, MD. , and Wilson, BA. (2004). The Essential Handbook of storehouse Disorders for Clinicians. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd Blanchard, J. J. & Neale, J. M. (1994) The neuropsychological signature of schizophrenia generalized or derived function deficit? American Journal of Psychiatry, 151, 4048. Fleischman, J. (2002). Phineas Gage A low-spirited but true story about brain science. Boston Houghton Mifflin. Groome, D. (2006). An adit to cognitive psychology. Hove England. Heinrichs, R. W. & Zakzanis, K. K. 1998) Neurocognitive deficit in schizophrenia A quantitative freshen up of the evidence. Neuropsychology, 12, 426445. Martin, G. N. (2003). Essential biological psychology. London Arnold. Parkin, AJ. , Walter, BM. , and Hunkin, MM. (1995). Relations hips between normal aging frontal lobe function, and memory for temporal spatial information. Neuropsychology, 9, 304-312. Swain, SA. , Polkey, CE. , Bullock, P. & Morris, RB. (1998). Recognition memory and memory for order in script-based stories following frontal lobe excisions. Cortex. 34, 25-45.