1. How Psychologists Study the Brain

2. Accidents Brain damage due to: Psychologists/Doctors examine:
Whiplash: aka – diffuse axonal injury
Stretching, twisting, damage to the axon
Isotropic Stress: high speed change scenarios
Car crash, explosions, sky-diving, etc
Creates a “pressure wave” or pulse
Causes damage to neurons
Psychologists/Doctors examine:
Loss of Vision
Loss of Hearing
Loss of Memory
Confusion

3. Lesions Def: cutting the brain, removing portions of the brain
Commonly done in the past
Today: lobotomy
Last resort, experimental surgery
McDreamy
Observe and document changes
Animal experimentation commonly performed
Are correlations reliable and valid?
Harvesting brains of the dead
Concussion victims, dementia, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, etc

4. Electroencephalogram (EEG)
Why would you get one?
Sleep Disorder
Having Seizures (epilepsy)
Determine “brain death”
How does it work?
Electrodes attached to the scalp (exterior)
Perform mental function or physical action
Brain waves produced & recorded

5. EEG Readings

6. Electrical Brain Stimulation (EBS)
How:
Electrodes attached, inserted in the brain (interior)
Charge emitted
Measure results performed by patient
Findings
Specific regions of the brain linked to sensory or motor cortex regions
Ventral Nerves: neurons sending messages to the brain
Epilepsy patients
OCD subjects

7. Computerized Axial Tomography (CAT) Scan aka – CT scan
Why would you get one?
Car accident
Suspected concussion
Locate blood clot, infection, or tumor
How is it done?
X-ray of the brain
Brain absorbs radiation and computer produces an image
Can be done on any organ

8. CAT Scans
Healthy Brain Scans
Abnormal Brain Scans

9. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
Why would you get one?
CAT Scan inconclusive
Looking for a tumor or aneurism
Examine bleeding in the brain
Damage to optic or auditory nerves
How does it work?
Brain produces “energy”
Computer measures radio waves
Looking for abnormalities, “hotspots”

10. MRI Images
Healthy Brain
A Brain on “MS”

11. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) Scan
Why would you have one?
To confirm CAT Scan
To measure blood flow
Diagnose: Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, ALS, or Cancer (lymphoma)
How does it work?
Chemical injected (glucose)
Chemical “lights-up”
Image captured
PET & CT Machines often are the same

12. PET Scan Images Schizophrenia Experiment Alzheimer’s Patient
PET scans of five normal individuals (left); each row is one person, and each image is a slice from five different levels of the person's brain. The red areas show regions of the brain that are activated when a person performs a memory task. In PET scans of five individuals with schizophrenia (right), each row represents a different person, with comparable slices. Clearly, the patients with schizophrenia do not generate the dramatic brain activity in the circuits of the brain critical to the memory task.