Joshua Riley-Graham Hurt Brains
Don’t Think Good
N E U R O L O G I C A L D I S O R D E R S A N D W H A T T H E Y T E L L U S A B O U T O U R S E L V E S !
HURT BRAINS DON’T THINK GOOD
PHRENOLOGY
• Wrong, but not stupid!
• “Le bon Dieu est dans le detail”!
THE NEW PHRENOLOGY
• Brains = modular !
• Dedicated bits for particular tasks!
SPECIFIC DAMAGE, SPECIFIC PROBLEMS
• Can be very specific about where damage is in sensorimotor system!
TWO SIDES
• Split brain patients !
• Hemispheres are isolated!
TWO SIDES
• Each hemisphere only sees !one picture !
• “You shovel s**t with it” !
VISION
• Seems like we just get a gestalt… !
VISION
• Each one of those parts can fail individually and show the seams in the system!
• Fun test of this – adapt just one eye to darkness at a time !
AKINETOPSIA
• Also called “motion blindness” !
• V5 area of visual cortex is damaged!
• Movement no longer exists !
BLINDSIGHT
• Two pathways for vision!
• Patient has no conscious perception of sight, insists they are blind… !
• …but can guess where objects are and reach for them way, way above chance !
VISUAL AGNOSIA
• Fine visual acuity, no recognition!
VISUAL AGNOSIA
• Can be for living things, !non-living things, faces, !numbers… !
• Can be ridiculously specific! !
NOT JUST A VISION THING
• Pure word-deafness !
• Hearing in general is fine !
• Reading, writing, speaking fine !
• No comprehension of speech whatsoever!
HEMISPHERIC NEGLECT
• Half the world ceases to exist!
HEMISPHERIC NEGLECT
• Bilateral Extinction!
• 1 + 1 = 1!
ALIEN HAND SYNDROME
• Dr. Strangelove = not entirely fictional!
• Loss of conscious awareness and control over a limb, so it gets a “mind of its own” !
KORSAKOFF’S SYNDROME
• Thiamine deficiency leads to memory problems leads to wild confabulation!
• “You wouldn’t believe how much that cost to have installed” !
CAN’T STOP WON’T STOP
• Parkinson’s Disease = perseveration!
• Wisconsin Card Sort Task!
• PD patients can’t learn new rule !
TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING
• Parkinson’s Disease = not enough dopamine being produced!
• Solution? Dopamine-producing drugs! !
• Problem? Compulsive gambling! !
WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR?
Joshua Riley-Graham
Thank You!