Cognitive neuropsychology
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Cognitive neuropsychology is a branch of
History
Cognitive neuropsychology has its roots in the diagram-making approach to
In 1861,
However, the early 20th century saw a reaction to the overly-precise accounts of the diagram-making neurologists. Pierre Marie challenged conclusions against previous evidence of Broca's areas in 1906 and Henry Head attacked the whole field of cerebral localisation 1926.
The modern science of cognitive neuropsychology emerged during the 1960s stimulated by the insights of the neurologist Norman Geschwind who demonstrated that the insights of Broca and Wernicke were still clinically relevant. The other stimulus to the discipline was the cognitive revolution and the growing science of cognitive psychology which had emerged as a reaction to behaviorism in the mid-20th century.[5] Psychologists in the mid-1950s acknowledged that the structure of mental information-processing systems could be investigated in scientifically acceptable ways. They developed and applied new cognitive processing models to explain experimental data from not only studies of speech and language but also those of selective attention.[6] Cognitive psychologists and clinical neuropsychologists developed more research collaborations to gain a better understanding of these disorders. The rebirth of neuropsychology was marked by the publishing of two seminal collaborative papers from Marshall & Newcombe (1966) on reading and Warrington & Shallice (1969) on memory.[6] Subsequently, work by pioneers such as Elizabeth Warrington, Brenda Milner, Tim Shallice, Alan Baddeley and Lawrence Weiskrantz demonstrated that neurological patients were an important source of data for cognitive psychologists.
It took less than one decade for neuropsychology to be fully re-established. More achievements in neuropsychology were recognized: the establishment of the first major book discussing neuropsychology using a cognitive approach, Deep Dyslexia, in 1980 after a scientific meeting about the topic in Oxford in 1977, the birth of the Cognitive Neuropsychology journal in 1984, and the publishing of the first textbook of neuropsychology, Human Cognitive Neuropsychology in 1988.[6]
A particular area of interest was memory. Patients with
Studies on the amnesic patient Henry Molaison, formerly known as patient H.M., are commonly cited as some of the precursors, if not the beginning of modern cognitive neuropsychology. Molaison had parts of his medial temporal lobes surgically removed to treat intractable epilepsy in 1953. Much of the hippocampus was also removed along with the medial temporal lobes. The treatment proved successful in reducing his dangerous seizures, but left him with a profound but selective amnesia. After the surgery, Molaison was able to remember some big events from before the surgery, such as the stock market crash in 1929, but was confused about many others and could no longer form new memories. This accidental experiment showed scientists how the brain processes different types of memory. Because Molaison's impairment was caused by surgery, the damaged parts of his brain were known, information which was usually not knowable in a time before accurate neuroimaging became widespread. Scientists concluded that while the hippocampus is needed in the creation of new memories, it is not needed in the retrieval of old ones; they are two separate processes. They also realized that the hippocampus and the medial temporal lobes, both of the areas removed from Molaison, are the areas responsible for converting short-term memory to long-term memory.
Much of the early work of cognitive neuropsychology was carried out with limited reference to the detailed localisation of brain pathology.
Methods
A key approach within cognitive neuropsychology has been to use single case studies and dissociation as a means of testing theories of cognitive function. For example, if a theory states that reading and writing are simply different skills stemming from a single cognitive process, it should not be possible to find a person who, after brain injury, can write but not read or read but not write. This selective breakdown in skills suggests that different parts of the brain are specialized for the different processes and so the cognitive systems are separable.
The philosopher Jerry Fodor has been particularly influential in cognitive neuropsychology, particularly with the idea that the mind, or at least certain parts of it, may be organised into independent modules. Evidence that cognitive skills may be damaged independently seem to support this theory to some degree, although it is clear that some aspects of mind (such as belief for example) are unlikely to be modular. Fodor, a strict functionalist, rejects the idea that the neurological properties of the brain have any bearing on its cognitive properties and doubts the whole discipline of cognitive neuropsychology.
With improved neuroimaging techniques, it has been possible to correlate patterns of impairment with a knowledge of exactly which parts of the
The principles of cognitive neuropsychology have recently been applied to
See also
- Capgras delusion
- CDR computerized assessment system
- Clive Wearing
- Cognitive bias
- Cognitive neuropsychiatry
- Cotard delusion
- Emotion and memory
- Erotomania
- Face perception
- Fregoli delusion
- HM (patient)
- Neuropsychological test
- Outline of brain mapping
- Outline of the human brain
- Phineas Gage
- Primary sensory cortex
- Prosopagnosia
- Retinotopy
References
- ISBN 978-0-631-21659-9.
The term cognitive neuropsychology often connotes a purely functional approach to patients with cognitive deficits that does not make use of, or encourage interest in, evidence and ideas about brain systems and processes
- ^ Harlow, John Martyn (1868). "Recovery from the Passage of an Iron Bar through the Head". Publications of the Massachusetts Medical Society (Original publication). 2: 327–347.
- ISSN 1941-6016.
- ^ Carlson, Neil R. (2013). Physiology of Behavior. NJ, U.S: Pearson Education, Inc., p. 132.
- ^ Miller, G. A. (2003). The cognitive revolution: a historical perspective. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(3), 141-144. doi: 10.1016/s1364-6613(03)00029-9.
- ^ a b c Coltheart, M. (2008). Cognitive neuropsychology. Scholarpedia, 3(2), 3644. doi: 10.4249/scholarpedia.3644.
- ISBN 9780511526817.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-521-31360-0.