- 1. Neuropsychology: 7330 Prof. R. D. Whitman
2. 3. 4. Introduction
- For millennia, probably since the emergence of consciousness
and symbolic thought humans have been concerned with a set of
problems some of which are reducible to the mind-brain problem
- The key original issues in philosophy and psychology are still
the focus of attention in neuropsychology.
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- The mind body problem (Descartes at least)
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- Thought (including language, memory, problem solving)
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- Reductionism -neuropsychologists assume psychoneural
equivalence at some level.
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- Localization versus equipotentiality
5. First Use of the term Neuropsychology
- Neuropsychology:Derives from various Greek words to amount
to:doctrine of the "nerves" (neurologie) and the soul
(psychologie).Now:mind and brain:
- The first use of the term neuropsychology, is usually
attributed to a talk given by Karl Lashley at a 1936 presentation
at the Boston Society of Psychiatry and and Neurology, reprinted a
year later.Stanley Finger(1994) notes that William Osler used it
first in passing, and that Goldstein used it in his 1934 classic.He
notes that Lashley cited the Goldstein reference in the same
sentence in his talk.As Finger notes, Osler was speaking of brain
diseases and mental disorders, whereas Lashley and Goldstein were
referring to the study of higher cortical function following brain
injury or disease [but were they referring only to higher cortical
function following insult? or was Lashley concerned with
understanding the relationship between higher cortical function and
brain]Finger states that it is largely a clinical field, though
there is a growing hard core experimental neuropsychology)
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- Kurt Goldstein later worked with Marianne Simmel, a
psychologist who later worked with the neurologists in Chicago who
gave Ward Halstead his patients.
6. Other Historical Derivations
- Neuropsychology is the body of knowledge and research relating
mind and brain.It differs from physiological psychology only in its
focus of its attention and, in recent years, it's clinical
application.It has historically been interested in higher cortical
processes.Thus it is an integration of two of the three basic foci
of psychology -- mental processes and a reductionist understanding
of these.The third major area of psychological study, the social
interactions of persons, is a less touched upon issue for
neuropsychology.
- Had Sigmund Freud not been distracted by the development of his
personality theory he might have made a significant contribution to
neuropsychology.He was trained as a neurologist, and had written an
excellent monograph ( On Aphasia ).Project Towards a Scientific
Psychologywas published posthumously.I believe that it is his most
provocative work, and that you cannot understand his personality
theory without understanding this.(Several more modern works have
reviewed this paper, including an excellent one by Karl
Pribram).Donald Hebb (1949) wrote a book discussing a hypothetical
way of thinking about cell assemblies which was very similar to
Freuds theories and which clearly predates, at least in concept,
modern connectionist theory.
7. 8. 9. Other Historical Derivations
- Often used to refer to "higher cortical function" {Luria, A.
(1966). Higher Cortical Functions in Man. New York, Basic Books.}.
But the distinction between higher cortical functions is not
clear:basic sensory processes are mediated cortically and
subcortical damage can influence complex intellectual
functions.
- Only twenty years ago, in the early 1970's there were only two
journals,CortexandNeuropsychologia , specifically dedicated to the
study of brain and higher cortical functions.Today it has become a
major focus of study with multiple books, specialized books,
multiple journals, and multiple professional groups that identify
themselves as members of the neuropsychological community.
- Historically it has been closely tied with neurology but the
special nature of psychology as a science - a science constructed
of theories of mental processing and the awareness of the
importance of measurement issues and experimental design, and the
concept of representation separates neuropsychology from
neurology.Whereas neurology contributed to the knowledge of brain
and mind in the last century and into the beginning of the present,
experimental psychology has been a dominant source for increased
knowledge since that time. That is because of the limitations of
the casual observations of correlations between brain damage and
its effects.
10. Two trends modified neuropsychology:
- The first trend is the extraordinary growth ofClinical
Neuropsychology .It's advantages are many..
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- Its costs are a medicalization of the field, a preoccupation
with tests, clinical correlations, and so on - to the exclusion of
knowledge of previous research, model building, hypothesis testing,
and so on.
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- BUT, the clinical neuropsychologist today, despite the clinical
demands of the specialty are likely to be knowledgeable of changes
in the field, to do research and publish, to maintain an active
presence in professional associations, to involve themselves with
standards in the field, and so on.
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- Requirements:neuropathology, neuroanatomy, basic understanding
of neurochemistry, psychometrics, psychopathology, neuropsychology,
and tests as applied to brain damaged populations.The standards set
by Division 40 of the American Psychological Association are very
appropriate. (Provided)
11. Clinical Neuropsychology has both a theoretical research and
an applied tradition
- The theoretical research position came first.Clinical
Neuropsychology neuropsychology Ann Triesman, Teuber, Milner, these
were experimental psychologists who took experimental psychology to
the clinical population.
- Later the applied, largely testing tradition emerged,
stimulated by clinical needs following WWI, WWII, and the Korean
War.
12. Two trends modified neuropsychology: Trend 1 continued
- Current Trends largely market driven
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- Emphasis on description of skills/deficits rather than
localizing hypotheses
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- Emphasis on rehabilitation
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- Behavioral approaches to rehabilitation: money driven
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- More sensitive behavioral tests
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- More emphasis on prevention
13. Whitman Bias:
- Unfortunately the professionalization of the field may result
in a loss of understanding of what made neuropsychology special.
Current credentialling approaches are more concerned with
neuropsychologists as testers than as theoreticians.Much of the
current clinical neuropsychology literature is distracted by
clinical cases and issues and models which, rather than providing
"nature's experiments" are becoming the focus of attention: --BUT
this trend is counterbalanced by the explosive growth of cognitive
neuroscience
- What are some of the important questions?
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- Localization of function versus equipotentiality: OR, How does
the nervous tissue do various emergent functions.
14. Two trends modified neuropsychology:
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- Cognitive psychologyis, traditionally, more concerned with
models than with brain, only recognized the importance of taking
brain into account in its models in the past 15 years.Though many
of the roots of modern cognitive psychology (pattern perception,
I/O psychology (e.g. Donald Broadbent), Neisser'sCognitive
Psychology ) are broad a good deal of the field has been
preoccupied with models of language. Often these researchers have
been concerned with dissociating themselves from learning theory
(often simplifying it by reference to Skinner, or radical
behaviorism).Michael Posner probably deserves credit, more
recently, for making the brain a respectable consideration in
cognitive psychology. However, most of the credit is probably due
to the advances in neuropsychology only recently "discovered" by
cognitive psychologists.Only recently one leader in the current
"connectionist modeling" movement, Mark Seidenberg, admitted that
connectionist models had a vague similarity to learning models but
refused parenthood and said that learning only represented a small
part of the cognitive domain.He is wrong.And it's too bad he marred
an otherwise excellent article with his need to say that.It is a
sign of immaturity in a science to dissociate oneself from
historical roots.Actually connectionist models are quite like a
number of previous approaches - Hebb's cell assemblies (1949),
associationistic learning theory, and mathematical learning theory,
Gestalt Psychology even, and so on.
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- Interesting phenomenon here: the cognitive psychologists who
recently "discovered" neuropsychology for themselves, and even act
as though they invented it, often seek special clinical cases to
prove their models of how the brain might work.But traditionally it
is the other way around =the clinical observation leads to the
model which leads to critical experimental tests.
16. Historical Notes
- Craniotomy: 3000 B. C.in pre-Columbian Peru extending to the
end of the Inca civilization in the sixteenth century
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- An archeologist by the name of Smith discovered an Egyptian
surgical text written in the "Old Kingdom" about 3000-2500 B. C..
The Papyrus includes about 50 cases. Case No. 22, entitled
"Instructions concerning a smash in the temple," reads, in
part:
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- "If thou examinist a man having a smash in his temple, thou
shouldest place thy thumb upon his chin and thy finger upon the end
of his ramus, so that the blood will flow from his two
nostrils...If thou callest to him (and) he is speechless (and)
cannot speak, then shouldest say concerning him...he is speechless;
(and) he suffers with stiffness in his neck. An ailment not to be
treated."
17. Historical Notes
- 384-322 B. C. In the time of Aristotle, the brain was viewed as
a cooling system for the heart. Democritis and Plato, on the other
hand, thought intelligence was located in the brain.
- 5 B. C. From the Corpus of Hippocrateswe obtain a collection of
clinical cases dealing with speechlessness. He also notes that
lesions produced contralateral spasms. The loss of speechlessness
was attributed, however, to the loss of fluid of the blood
vessels.And noted that probing of the tissue on one side could lead
to paralysis on the other side.
- A. D.130 -- 200The next significant physician to touch upon our
topic wasGalen.In the manner of the heart versus the brain as the
center of sensation he employed the experimental method. He seized
the heart of an animal with forceps and observed that the animals
sensation was still intact and that the animal grew louder in its
complaints. On the other hand, when the ventricles of the brain are
pressed these abilities are lost...therefore the nervous principle
is located in the head.He also made considerable anatomical studies
of the cranial nerves and at least correctly identified them as
pathways.
18. Historical Notes
- During the next 1500 years or so numerous writings in a variety
of areas of the world attributed the workings of sensation and
cognition to either the tissue of the brain or to the ventricles.
(e.g.Vesalius) Then in the 1600's developments in philosophyand
increased descriptive anatomy of the brain resulted in more
theorizing about mind and brain. However, the search was still for
the elusive single seat of mentation. This single seat of thought
was located in numerous places.
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- Descarte located it in the pineal body (1686)
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- Vieussens and Willis located it in the corpus striatum
(1664)
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- Lancisi in the corpus callosum (1739)
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- Sir Charles Bell & Fancois Magendie : spinal roots are
split into dorsal sensory and ventral motor divisions.
19. Historical Notes
- Then a new school of psychology, often referred to as "faculty
psychology" emerged, heavily influenced by Scottish psychology
(Reid and Stewart). This perspective subdivided the intellectual
function into separate, specialized "faculties." [This perspective
is emerging again in the work of the popularist, Gardiner and
Sternberg (the Yale Sternberg, not the good psychologist)]
- Early 1800's. It wasGall,and his studentSpurzheim,however,
wholed the modern movement towards localization. Borrowing heavily
from the Scottish and English psychologists (though making
modifications where necessary for his purposes) he proposed that
the brain consisted of many organs, each subserving a particular
faculty. This solution solved, as Krech (1962) points out, a
particular ego function for Gall.He was often beaten out in school
by others who he felt could memorize better than he. He then made
the observation ....kid with bug eyes and good memory,(Emanuel
Swedenborg (1688-1772) actually had done a lot of this theorizing
earlier than Gall but he turned to religion and his neurological
theorizing was buried until the late 1800s)
20. Galls Four Assumptions:
- Moral and intellectual faculties are innate
- Their exercise and manifestation depend on cerebral
structures
- The brain is the seat of all faculties, tendencies,
feelings
- The brain is composed of as many particular organs as there are
faculties, tendencies and feelings
21. Historical Notes
- And this created a debate (which often recurs) between
localizationism and anti-localizationists.
- Period of 1861 - 1875..rapid growth in neurology, anatomy,
physiology,Broca, Bouillard, Meynert, Wernicke, and so on.Language,
hemispheric dominance
- Fritsch and Hitzig,stimulation of motor cortex.
- At that time the two opposing approaches can be exemplified by
Wernicke's neural connectionism and Wundt's associationism.(Again
interesting that modern cognitive "connectionists" wish to
dissociate themselves from associationism)
22. Historical Notes
- Equipotentialism (Flourens)versus localizationism (Gall)The
debate again flourished as a result ofLashley's(1950) search for
the engram.
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- Hughlings Jackson:Hierarchical Organization.
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- Much of this history is clinical cases with correlated deficits
leading to localization of function versus thinking,
23. A second major trend was the development of theNeuron
Theory,and its subsequent proposals about neuronal connections,
neuronal nets, and so on.
- Golgi,Ramon y Cajal (1890's),
- A conceptualization of this... Wernicke, long known by
neuropsychologists and recently discovered by cognitive
psychologists....the "centers" somehow retain representations of
the information reaching them, over time these representations (or
images) integrate the information via the paths connecting the
centers.This led to the "diagram makers", again similar to
tendencies of early cognitive approaches.Disconnection
syndromes:later made Geshwind
24. Thentrend towards localization
- Lateralization of functioning :does the right hemisphere have
language...Broca, and more recently Gazzaniga.
- Agnosias (visual agnosia: Freud, 1891)
25. MODERN PERIOD:
- Karl Lashley: Mass Action and Equipotentiality
- Vigotsky, Simmel, Goldstein
- Von Monakow's "diathesis"
- Teuber,double dissociation
- Penfield and Jaspers neurosurgery
- Psychometrics and statistical evaluation(Bessel, Galton,
Binet)
- Brenda Milner:Rasmussen, Wada, Penfield,lateralization after
removal of temporal lobes:Doreen Kimura,
- Discovery of fluent and non-fluent articulatory aphasia (rather
than a normal distribution of fluency)
- New issue:aphasia and intellectual status,apparently aphasia
interferes with other cognitive functioning.
- In the 1960's LURIA, but also many other psychologists who had
been working in the field (Hunt, Simmel, Benton, and so on.)
26. Karl Lashley cut the cortex every which way to disrupt
memory connections: and failed 27. 28. Lashley, K. S. (1963).Brain
Mechanism and Intelligence:A quantitative study ofinjuries to the
brain . New York: Dover.
- The whole implication of the data is that the higher level
integrations are not dependent upon localized structural
differentiations but are a function of some more general, dynamic
organization of the entire nervous system. P. 157.
- These phenomena all point to a functional organization
independent of differentiated structure and to some more-general
energy relations within the central nervous system. P. 167.
- Localization for purposes of targeting areas of damage does not
provide an explanation of function.Otherwise this would lead,
ultimately, to the localization of single ideas in single
neurons.
- The facts which give the chief difficulty to the existing
theories may be grouped into four categories:
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- the determination of reactions by patterns or ratios of
excitation imposed upon varying anatomical elements(with this must
be included the equipotentiality of cerebral areas and association
tracts);
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- the apparent disturbance of equilibrium among the parts of the
central nervous system without specific losses of function, as in
the occurrence of more-pronounced symptoms from unilateral lesions
to the cerebellum, corpus striatum, etc., than from bilateral
lesions;
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- the dependence of efficiency in learning and retention and,
less certainly, of ease of performance upon the quantity of
functional tissue; and
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- the seeming limitation of the possible complexity of
organization by the total quantity of nervous tissue.
- These phenomena all point to a functional organization
independent of differentiated structure and to some more-general
energy relations within the central nervous system. Pp.
166-167
29. MODERN PERIOD:
- Karl Lashley: Mass Action and Equipotentiality
- Vigotsky, Simmel, Goldstein
- Von Monakow's "diathesis"
- Teuber,double dissociation
- Penfield and Jaspers neurosurgery
- Psychometrics and statistical evaluation(Bessel, Galton,
Binet)
- Brenda Milner:Rasmussen, Wada, Penfield,lateralization after
removal of temporal lobes:Doreen Kimura,
- Discovery of fluent and non-fluent articulatory aphasia (rather
than a normal distribution of fluency)
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- New issue:aphasia and intellectual status,apparently aphasia
interferes with other cognitive functioning.
- In the 1960's LURIA, but also many other psychologists who had
been working in the field (Hunt, Simmel, Benton, and so on.)
30. Teubers Double Dissociation
- Teuber, H. L. (1955)Physiological Psychology.Annual Review of
Psychology , 6, 267-296.
- In this review he introduces the concept of "double
dissociation" in which one lesion produces a deficit(skill 1
deficit) with no detriment to a second skill (skill 2 deficit), and
a second lesion produces a deficit in the second skill without
detriment to the first skill.
31. MODERN PERIOD:
- Karl Lashley: Mass Action and Equipotentiality
- Vigotsky, Simmel, Goldstein
- Von Monakow's "diathesis"
- Teuber,double dissociation
- Penfield and Jaspers neurosurgery
- Psychometrics and statistical evaluation(Bessel, Galton,
Binet)
- Brenda Milner:Rasmussen, Wada, Penfield,lateralization after
removal of temporal lobes:Doreen Kimura,
- Discovery of fluent and non-fluent articulatory aphasia (rather
than a normal distribution of fluency)
-
- New issue:aphasia and intellectual status,apparently aphasia
interferes with other cognitive functioning.
- In the 1960's LURIA, but also many other psychologists who had
been working in the field (Hunt, Simmel, Benton, and so on.)
- Then Halsted (later Reitan), Edit Kaplan (Boston Process
Approach)
32. Whitmans Incomplete List of Reasons Why It Is Difficult to
LOCALIZE FUNCTION
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- What is the role of interactions?
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- Is the function localized at a macroscopic or microscopic
level?
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- Homologous structures may not have analogous functions.
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- Higher order properties may emerge from lower level
processes.
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- Recovery of function always contaminates results.
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- Functions may be redundantly represented in the CNS.
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- Single nuclei may serve multiple functions.
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- Only deficits are revealed by lesion studies.
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- Single deficits are rarely seen.
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- Psychological functions may not be isomorphic with brain
function
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- The nervous system is plastic.
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- Methods of assessment of psychological function may not tap
homogenous functions.
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- Methods of brain assessment (e.g. brain imaging) differ in the
type of information obtained.
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- Methods of brain assessment are time-limited.
33. Techniques
- CITE THE MARTINEZ AND OTHER STUDIES FOR NSF GRANT _- EVOKED
POTENTIALS AND THE LATERALIZED PRIMING COURSE OF EVENTS
- Martinez, A., et al.,Involvement of striate and extrastriate
visual cortical areas in spatial attention.Nature Neuroscience,
1999.4 : p. 364-369.
- Brefcznski, D.E. and E.A. DeYoe,Nature Neuroscience.2, A
physiological correlate of the 'spotlight' of visual
attention(370-374).
34.