Explain how biological factors may affect one cognitive process

Explain how biological factors may affect one cognitive process. (8)

Explain (8) – Detailed account including reasons or causes.

Brain Damage

The case study of Clive Wearing (Brain damage)
Description	Suffered damage in Hippocampus due to a contraction of a virus. His disease left him with extensive brain damage (parts of his temporal lobes). Suffers from Retrograde and Anterograde amnesia. MRI scanning show damage to the hippocampus and some of frontal regions. Episodic memory and some of his semantic memory are lost. He can still play piano, conduct music and remember his wife. He still has his implicit memory including his emotional memory for his wife.
[E]	Ecological validity: High, study of a real life case. Low potential ability to generalise because cases are individual. Ethics: Patient’s name was disclosed under consent.

The case study of Clive Wearing (Brain damage)

Description

[E]

Hippocampus – responsible for encoding and transferral of STM into LTM.
When damaged
Incapable of creating new long lasting memory (Anterograde amnesia)
Incapable of retrieving LTM (Retrograde amnesia)
Only affected 2 of 4 types of LTM
Explicit memory
Episodic (Affected)
Semantic (Affected)
Implicit memory
Still has the capability to play piano showing that his procedural memory was not lost. (Procedural memory)
Memories of wife. (Emotional memory)

Alzheimer Disease

Abnormal protein fragments kill brain cells
Amyloid plaques
Neurofibrillary tangles
Begin at the Hippocampus, destroying brain cells and connections
Making it harder for the retrieval and creation of memory (memory store and creation)
Damages Medial Temporal Lobe where Explicit Memories are heavily involved in.
Only affected 2 of 4 types of LTM
Explicit memory
Episodic (Affected)
Semantic (Affected)
Implicit memory
Procedural (Not affected)
Emotional (Not affected)
Causing difficulty to speak, understand, recall and regulate motor processes (e.g. heart beat, breathing, eventually causing death).

Hodges et al. – Study of memory of Alzheimer patients
Description	Measured semantic memory in AD patients with tasks such as naming pictures of animals and objects. Steady decline in semantic memory observed.