Lecture 8a

Tuesday, September 25, 2018 13:08

Methods in Biological psychology

EEG and fMRI
Electroencephalography (EEG)
- Developed by Hans Berger in 1929
- Non invasive brain imaging technique
- Records averaged electrical activity at the scalp--"brain waves"
- Cell in the brain produce electrical and chemical signals to communicate ---
action potential and NT.
How EEG works?
- Every time a cell "fires", there is an electrical activity
- Electrodes placed on the scalp record electrical activity
- Information recorded by the electrodes is sent to a computer for processing
- The signal from each electrode is amplified

- Noisy/messy
- There can be interference in the signal
- Filter the data to get rid of the noise
- The electrical signal from each cell is tiny
- For an electrode to detect electrical activity, a lot of cells have to fire
- These cells have to fire at the same time
- Synchronization
- The more cells firing together at the same time, the stronger the EEG signal,
average potential respond
Examining frequency components
- High frequency wave to be high pitch sound, vice versa
- Different frequency components correspond to different cognitive states
- This provides insights into an individual level of consciousness
- DELTA---associated with deep sleep (0-4Hz), observe sleep patter
- THETA---rarely seen in humans, broadly related to emotion and cognition (4-8
Hz)
 - High frequency wave to be high pitch sound, vice versa
- Different frequency components correspond to different cognitive states
- This provides insights into an individual level of consciousness
- DELTA---associated with deep sleep (0-4Hz), observe sleep patter
- THETA---rarely seen in humans, broadly related to emotion and cognition (4-8
Hz)
- ALPHA--resting wakefulness
- BETA---increased alertness and attention, low amplitude in the EEG
- Creativity and alpha power---top-down attention
Examining event related potentials (ERP)
- Analyse changes in the EEG output following a specific event
- Present participant with a stimulus
- Record neural activity time locked to that stimulus
- Take many recordings to get an "average response the stimulus
- Different peaks/troughs in ERP reflect different processing states
How do we interpret EEG data?
EEG has good temporal resolution--you can record exactly when changes in brain
activity occur
However, it has poor spatial resolution--you cannot tell exactly where those
electrical changes are occurring in the brain
Applications of EEG data?
- Clinical applications
- Measure different cognitive states/phenomena--attention, memory, activity
in sensory pathways

EEG – Main Points!

• EEG records averaged electrical activity produced by neurons at the scalp
- “brain waves” – stronger signal = synchronization of cells firing
• We can analyse EEG output by looking at frequency components, or
event related potentials
• Frequencies: DELTA–deep sleep, THETA –emotion and cognition,
ALPHA –resting wakefulness, creativity, BETA – increased alertness and
attention
• ERP = event related potential – average voltage change time locked to a
stimulus onset
• EEG has good temporal resolution and poor spatial resolution (don't know where
to happen)
• EEG is used in clinical and research domains, especially to measure
sleep

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imagining (fMRI)

- Non invasive imagining method which measures blood flow in the brain
How does fMRI work?
- Neurons in the brain get oxygen via red blood cells
- More energy needed by the brain=more oxygen use
- There are differences in the relative concentrations of oxygenated and
deoxygenated blood for varying cognitive states
 - Non invasive imagining method which measures blood flow in the brain
How does fMRI work?
- Neurons in the brain get oxygen via red blood cells
- More energy needed by the brain=more oxygen use
- There are differences in the relative concentrations of oxygenated and
deoxygenated blood for varying cognitive states
- It is assumed that these changes reflect differences in neural activation.
- Oxygenated and deoxygenated blood have different magnetic properties
- fMRI measures relative levels of brain oxygen use based on these different
magnetic properties
- A large, very strong magnet is placed around participants head
- Bold response: blood oxygen level dependent response
- Indirect measure of neural activity

How do we interpret fMRI data?

- Raw data collected from fMRI doesn't immediately resemble the 'pretty'
images we see in research papers.
- A mathematical transformation is required to turn the data into images
- Like EEG, the data also has to be filtered and smoothed
- fMRI has poor temporal resolution--you cannot record exactly when changes
in brain activity occur. However, it has good spatial resolution--you can tell
where those electrical changes are occurring in the brain
Applications of fMRI
- Mapping functionality of different regions of the brain (e.g. vision, language
etc.)
- Understanding neural bases of cognitive and psychiatric disorders, e.g.
dementia and schizophrenia
fMRI – Main Points!
• There are differences in the relative concentrations of
oxygenated and deoxygenated blood for varying cognitive
states
• fMRI relies on magnetic properties of these differences to
infer neural activity
• BOLD = Blood Oxygen Level Dependent Response
• There are differences in the relative concentrations of
oxygenated and deoxygenated blood for varying cognitive
states
• fMRI relies on magnetic properties of these differences to
infer neural activity
• BOLD = Blood Oxygen Level Dependent Response
• High risk of false positives in fMRI analysis (salmon study)
• fMRI has good spatial resolution and poor temporal resolution(they don't know
when to happen)
• Can be used to map language!

Video game and the brain

Can video games really make you smart?
Action game can improve the attention
More video games decrease the error while doing surgery