Studying Damaged Brains - Essay Example

The approach in the field of psychology is known as cognitive psychology and explains the phenomenon of processing information within the human brain. The major way to test and assess this process is to test different theories of cognitive psychology in cases (whether animals or humans) with brain damage, This method, like any other methodology has both advantages as well drawbacks associated with it.

Neuropsychologists study patients with some damage in a particular part of the brain and then compare their results with the persons having intact brains. According to these theorists, if a specific part of the brain is damaged resulting in some specific disturbances then different theories can be formulated regarding the control of certain activities by the brain, This can be explained by the following example; if a patient has a lesion in the inferior frontal gyrus and he has got difficulty in the production of speech which is known as aphasia and there is another patient who has a lesion in superior temporal gyrus and he can speak fluently but his speech cannot be understood so this shows that the process of production and the comprehension of speech is controlled by two different parts of the brain.

This is suggestive of the fact that studying patients with brain damage can help in testifying the theories regarding the control of different activities by different parts of the brain.
This appears to be an attractive advantage of testifying different theories by studying them on damaged brains but still, there are some disadvantages also and one of the major disadvantages is that the brain damage or the lesion causing brain damage is not focal in most of the cases. So it is very difficult to have a small portion of the brain damaged and the rest of it exactly normal so if someone relies on studying the damaged brains to test his theories then there are possibilities that other factors or the extensive nature of the brain damage may influence the results of his studies. One other drawback is the assumption that the damaged brain can act similarly to the intact brain except for the part that is damaged but it's not the actual scenario as a small lesion of the brain can affect a major portion of the intact brain too.
Studying damaged brains despite some of its disadvantages is practiced by many of the neuropsychologists who study patients with specific lesions in the brain and then based on their findings, they provide psychotherapy to their patients which is a modality of psychological treatment that involves speaking with the patient and studying the damaged brains may help the neuropsychologists in determining the factors which can improve the condition of the patient.

Measurement of Brain Damage:
There are available certain test which can help to assess the extent and the level of brain damage; these are mainly of two types:
a. Tests determining any structural form of damage.
b. Tests determining the functional form of abnormality in the brain.
a. Tests for the Assessment of Structure of the Brain:
1. CT Scan
2. MRI
3. DTI (Diffuse Tensor Imaging)
4. MRA (Magnetic Resonance Imaging)

b. Tests for Functional Assessment of the Brain:
1. Electro Encephalogram (EEG)
2. Brain Mapping
3. PET (Positron Emission Tomography) Scan
4. Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS)
5. Lumbar puncture
6. Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT-CT)
7. Evoked Potentials