Neurocognitive theories and the human brain
General objective
My goal with this work is that we can know and inform ourselves more about this issue since I think it is of the utmost importance, and of course I try to do it in a brief and precise way for all to be able to understand it very easily and have mastery of this theme since it will help us to know about the human brain.
Background
The interest in understanding what happens within the cranial cavity of the human being dates back centuries, where certain practices were evidenced that allow us to understand a first approach in the relationship between the brain, cognition and behavior of the human being. One of the first events, were the climbing practices, which consisted of cutting, scraping, chisel. A large number of cases lost your life during or after surgical intervention, however, there were also subjects that survived and in their bodies signs of recovery were observed and in many of these cases, the climbing was re -practiced until a “ Healing ”Definitive to the problems of behavior or pain presented by humans hundreds of years ago.
Theory of hemispherical specialization Roger Sperry (1973)
According to Sperry, a clear projection in philosophical thoughts that derive from both cerebral hemispheres., From this point of view, philosophers and thinkers are not free from the main binding of their own "ego", of their "personal brain trend". Well, hemispheric specialization is considered to the atomic, biochemical and functional differences of the right hemisphere with respect to the left hemisphere, these differences of each hemisphere contribute in a complementary way to achieve a unit. Although cerebral hemispheres have a symmetrical structure, with the two lobes that emerge from the brain trunk and with sensory and motor areas in both, certain intellectual functions are performed by a single hemisphere. The dominant hemisphere of a person usually occupies the language and logical operations, while the other hemisphere controls artistic and spatial emotions and abilities.
As we well know Roger Sperry, he showed us that the left and right hemisphere have different performance in language, perception, music and other capacities tests. What this means is that the brain divides its work in two interesting ways: in the left hemisphere it is dominant in language: processing what you hear and taking care of most of the speech tasks. It is also in charge of carrying out logical and mathematical calculations. In addition, when you need to remember a fact, your left brain extracts it from your memory. The right hemisphere is mainly responsible for space skills, facial recognition and music processing. He also performs some mathematics, but only estimates and comparisons. It helps us understand the images and make sense of what we see. Play a role in language, particularly to interpret a person’s context and tone.
The brain balances carefully and assigns the control of certain functions on each side, it is the natural way to ensure that the important organ can maximize its effectiveness by dividing tasks. Most people are skilled, which is actually controlled on the left side of the brain. You have probably listened to people to describe themselves as governed on the right or left side of their brain, those who allege on the left side often presume their mathematical abilities, while those of the right boast of their creativity. This is because the brain divides its two hemispheres just in half and each one performs a series of different operations.
Much of what we know about brain functions we owe it to Roger Sperry, whose experiments examined the way in which brain hemispheres operate both independently and specifically one with each other. Both hemispheres communicate information, such as sensory observations, one to each other through the thick calloso body that connects them. The right hemisphere controls the muscles on the left side of the body, while the hemispheres controls those of law. When the right eye winks the left part of your brain is working. Due to this cross connection, the damage to the side of the brain affects the opposite part of the body.
Functional brain organization
Alexander Luria (1974) proposes to understand the activity of the brain through blocks or functional units. For Luria, mental activity implies the participation of three functional units, which are:
First functional unit: Unit for regular tone and vigil, and mental states
It requires the maintenance of an optimal cortical tone level, this cortical tone is present and is maintained with oscillations during vigil, (disappears during sleep). The structures responsible for cortical production and maintenance are not in the same cortex but under it, and reticular formation, plays a role of activated mechanism of the cerebral cortex.
The training has two sections:
- Ascending reticular system
- They are fibers that go up to end in upper nerve structures: thalamus, caudate nucleus, archicortex and neocortex structures. Its function is to produce and regulate the cerebral cerebral activation tone necessary for normal functioning.
The main function of the reticular formation is to regulate the tone of the cortex and modulate its status: instinctive behavior for procreation and defense. The functional unit is attributed reflex functions such as, the reflex regulation of the psychological, neurological, endocrine and immunological vital functions that maintain the homeostasis of the organism. This unit is organized vertically at activity levels nervous.
Second Functional Unit: Unit to receive, analyze and store information
The structure is located behind the Rolandic Fiss (central fissure) is adapted for the reception of stimuli that travel from peripheral receptors to the brain, to its analysis and its combination within the dynamic dynamic structures.
It covers the entire bark of the parietal lobes (general sensory), temporal (hearing) and occipital ) Secondary area (projection-association). Injuries to this area can cause functional alterations (cutaneous-cinesthetic, auditory, visual). These areas are adapted to serve as a device for reception, information storage analysis.
Vigotsky presents a functional organization characterized in the general laws which are:
- The law of the hierarchical structure of the functions: it is that the tertiary areas organize the work of the secondary and these in turn of the primaries. Elemental work corresponds to primary areas, is modified by a more complex synthesis work within the same sensory modality.
- The law of the decreasing specificity of the functions: if the lesions occur in the primary or secondary area, the alterations will be reflected in the specific analyzer (visual, auditory, touch), but if the lesion occurs in the tertiary area, different will occur disorders.
- The law of the increasing lateralization of functions: the simplest functions linked to a specific sensory modality are equally represented in both hemispheres, on the contrary, the most higher functions not linked to a sensory modality are lateralized towards one or another hemisphere, as with language.
Third Functional Unit: Unit to program, regulate and verify the activity
They are located in the previous regions of the hemispheres, ahead of the parietal lobe. Is responsible for creating intentions, forming plans and actions of actions (what do I do?, How do I?, etc.), has an organization similar to the second unit. The output channel is the motor cortex. They play a fundamental role in the regulation of activity, changing according to the complex intentions and plans of man formulated with the help of language. They are attributed to the cortical regions of the motor analyzer.
Triuno Maclean brain theory (1978, 1990)
Paul Maclean raised a brain structure divided into three brain systems (commonly known as the three brains) interconnected between them, defined each structure and created the well -known theory of the tri -brain or brain brain, as follows: as follows:
The reptilian brain
The reptilian brain is considered the ancestral structure that regulates our vital functions and the most instinctive behaviors related to the survival of the individual (eating, drinking, sleeping) and the species (impulses and sexual relations). In short, according to psychology, the function of the reptilian brain is to act quickly and instinctively to ensure our survival.
The emotional or limbic brain
The limbic brain is considered the center of emotions, that is: our emotional nervous system. And is responsible for producing and generating emotions in our nervous system. It is important to affirm that this area has a very adaptive function: it produces emotional responses and generates a very important learning at the experiential level. Our memory, motivation, activation and attention systems usually work in a more productive way when they are influenced by emotions. Example: We will remember an event better if we have felt a strong emotion (such as going to the concert of our favorite group). On the other hand, we usually forget those facts that do not produce intense emotional responses.
The rational brain or neocortex
Neocortex or rational brain: this part of our brain is responsible for cognitive processing and reasoned and logical decision making. Popularly the rational brain is given the name of gray matter, however, the neocortex is formed by various encephalic structures, among them we highlight the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere of the cerebral cortex. Another name we find this area is the isocortex. We must understand the rational brain as a practically unique structure in our species. According to Maclean, the human being is the only organism that has fully developed the neocortex.
- Intellectual, logical and rational decision -making capabilities are some of the skills provided by this brain zone.
- In addition, the rational brain also helps us in the processes of self-awareness, reflection and organization
Total / integral brain theory Herrmann (1989)
Based on triune brain theory and cerebral dominance, it is the total brain model, which results from the integration of the hemispheric specialization theory and the Mc Lean triune brain theory. In addition to the left and right halves represented by the hemispheres, the upper (cerebral) and lower (limbic) halves would have, which gives rise to four parts or quadrants, all directly or indirectly connected to each other by the corpus callosum and others COMMISSIONS. The quadrants, called A, B, C and D correspond to four specific, different and independent modes of differential information processing, especially detected by the statistical method of conglomerates (clusters) and with the empirical support of a multitude of rigorously processed data.
The metaphorical model of quadrants or thought styles, with the characteristics of each one, is as follows:
- Quadrant A: (Left Cortical = CI) Left brain part, where the processing that occurs is: logical, rational, quantitative and analytical.
- Quadrant B: (Left LEFT = LI) Left limbic part, where the processing is: methodical, practical, organized and detailed-
- Quadrant D: (right cortical = CD) Right brain part, where the processing is visual, synthesizer, integrative and metaphorical.
- Cuadrant C: (Limbic right = LD) Right limbic part, where the processing is: emotional, intuitive, sensory and interpersonal.
Conclusions
By researching and finding carefully the neurocognitive theories that are made up of the theory of hemispheric specialization Roger Sperry, functional organization of the brain Alexander Luria (1974), theory of the brain tri -brain Maclean (1978, 1990) and the theory of the total / integral brain Herrmann (1989), I could conclude that all these theories tell us about the development of the brain in both hemispheres, the right and left hemisphere tells us that both hemispheres have different skills but of course that explain to us with different theories, to be more Exactly tells us that the brain carefully swings and assigns the control of certain functions on each side of the hemispheres and this others say that thanks to these theories it helps us to give answers about human behavior which is very complex.
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