4.2.2.4 Ways of studying the brain Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) indirectly measures brain activity by detecting changes in:

   • Blood oxygenation
   • Glucose levels in the cerebrospinal fluid
   • Hormone concentrations in the pituitary
   • Electrical charge on the scalp

2. An EEG measures brain activity by recording:

   • Changes in blood oxygen levels in deep brain structures measured across the skull
   • Radioactive tracers injected into the bloodstream and detected by an external camera
   • The chemical composition of the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain
   • Electrical activity through electrodes placed on the scalp

3. An event-related potential (ERP) is:

   • A measure of hormone levels in the blood after a stressful event has occurred
   • A type of brain scan that uses radioactive tracers to map activity in deep areas
   • An EEG response to a specific stimulus, extracted by averaging many trials
   • A permanent scar left on the brain tissue by a stroke that damaged the area

4. Post-mortem examination of the brain involves:

   • Scanning a living person's brain with a strong magnetic field and radio waves
   • Measuring blood oxygen levels in the brain during a cognitive task in the scanner
   • Examining the brain of a person after death to identify damage or abnormality
   • Recording electrical signals from electrodes attached to the scalp during a task

5. Compared with EEG, fMRI has:

   • Better temporal resolution but poorer spatial resolution
   • Equal spatial and temporal resolution
   • No spatial resolution at all
   • Better spatial resolution but poorer temporal resolution

6. EEG is considered to have high temporal resolution because it:

   • Can locate the exact source of activity in deep structures of the brain
   • Records blood flow in fine detail across the whole brain volume
   • Measures activity over several days, tracking slow changes in the brain
   • Can detect changes in electrical activity within milliseconds

7. A major limitation of post-mortem studies is that they:

   • Require a live electrode placed inside the brain during the procedure itself
   • Measure only blood oxygen levels and cannot show structure or electrical activity
   • Can only be used on children, because the adult brain is too complex to examine
   • Cannot show how the living brain functions or establish cause and effect directly

8. A researcher needs to know the exact millisecond at which the brain responds to a stimulus. Which technique is most suitable?

   • Case study interviews with patients
   • Post-mortem examination of the tissue
   • EEG with event-related potentials
   • Structural MRI scanning of the brain

9. A researcher wants to pinpoint which area of the brain becomes more active during a memory task. Which technique is most suitable?

   • EEG
   • Event-related potentials
   • Post-mortem examination
   • fMRI

10. A post-mortem study finds damage in Broca's area in a patient who could not produce fluent speech. What is the inference?

    • Broca's area is likely involved in speech production
    • Broca's area controls vision and the processing of images in the cortex
    • Broca's area stores long-term memories that are used in everyday recall
    • Broca's area regulates hormone release from the pituitary gland below it

11. fMRI detects increased neural activity because active neurons:

    • Require more oxygen, which increases local blood flow and oxygenation
    • Produce a larger magnetic field that the scanner detects directly from each neuron
    • Grow new dendrites within seconds, which the scanner then detects as a change
    • Release radioactive tracers into the blood that the scanner picks up directly

12. Why do researchers average many ERP trials together?

    • To make the participants more relaxed and comfortable during the testing session
    • To reduce random background noise and reveal the consistent response to the stimulus
    • To increase the strength of the magnetic field inside the scanner during testing
    • To measure blood oxygenation more accurately across each individual trial

13. Which scanning technique uses magnetic fields and radio waves rather than radiation?

    • Computed tomography (CT) only
    • EEG electrodes
    • Positron emission tomography (PET) only
    • MRI and fMRI

14. Why is the poor temporal resolution of fMRI a problem for studying some cognitive processes?

    • The blood-flow response is slow, so rapid neural events are blurred over several seconds
    • The magnetic field is too weak to show the anatomy of the brain clearly in the resulting image
    • Blood oxygen levels never change during brain activity, so there is no signal to detect
    • The scanner cannot detect any movement at all, so the participant must stay very still

15. Evaluate the use of EEG in studying sleep. Which point is most accurate?

    • It provides high temporal detail on sleep stages but has limited spatial precision
    • It shows the exact location of every neuron involved in dreaming and deep sleep
    • It measures only blood oxygen and not electrical activity from the brain's cells
    • It can only be used on animals rather than humans, because electrodes are not safe

16. Which technique records the brain's electrical activity through electrodes but cannot pinpoint deep structures precisely?

    • EEG
    • Post-mortem dissection
    • Structural CT scan
    • Structural MRI scan of the skull

17. What is a strength of post-mortem examination in studying the brain?

    • It measures blood oxygen levels during a cognitive test performed in the scanner
    • It can be repeated on the same person over many years to track changes
    • It can show structural damage that may be linked to a lost function
    • It shows real-time neural activity during a task performed by the living person

18. The BOLD signal used in fMRI reflects which change?

    • Changes in electrical charge across the scalp measured by electrodes attached to it
    • Increases in cerebrospinal fluid pressure caused by swelling of the brain tissue
    • Changes in the ratio of oxygenated to deoxygenated haemoglobin in the blood
    • The release of neurotransmitter into the synaptic cleft from active presynaptic cells

19. Which combination of methods would give both good location and good timing information about a memory task?

    • Combining post-mortem examination with case studies
    • Combining correlation with self-report questionnaires alone
    • Using a single EEG electrode placed in one location
    • Combining fMRI with EEG

20. Why are brain scans correlational rather than causal evidence?

    • They always show the same result for every participant, so the findings are fixed in advance
    • They show which areas are active during a task but do not prove that the area causes the behaviour
    • They manipulate the brain directly with electrical stimulation to produce the behaviour in question
    • They measure only the size of individual neurons, which is too small to link to behaviour

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