KMF 1023 Cognitive Psychology

CASE STUDY (20%) 3 STUDENTS IN A GROUP

Please read the following 2 case studies.

Read through the following cases and write your report on both cases, answering the
questions that follow:
Each case study is worth up to 10 marks.
Format:Font- Times New Roman, Font Size -12, 1.5 line spacing. Answer to each case
study should not exceed 3 pages (excluding cover page and reference page)
When you submit your case study assignment, please include a cover page that mentions the
following details:
Name (you and your group members)
Lecturers name
Students matric number
To hand in the case study, firmly staple your paper. Hand in the case study to instructors
office (level 2), before 4.30pm on the 18th November 2016 (Friday)

No late assignments will be accepted. No exceptions!

Instructions
Cases from Psychology Today.com
Case 1
HM, the Man with No Memory
Henry Molaison (HM) taught us about memory by losing his
Henry Molaison, known by thousands of psychology students as "HM," lost his memory on
an operating table in a hospital in Hartford, in August 1953. He was 27 years old and had
suffered from epileptic seizures for many years.

HM, aged 60: Copyright J, Ogden, "Trouble In Mind" 2012, p.173, OUP, New York
Source: Photo credit: Jenni Ogden, author's own photo
William Beecher Scoville, a Hartford neurosurgeon, stood above an awake Henry and
skilfully suctioned out the seahorse-shaped brain structure called the hippocampus that lay
within each temporal lobe. Henry would have been drowsy and probably didn't notice his
memory vanishing as the operation proceeded. The operation was successful in that it
significantly reduced Henry's seizures, but it left him with a dense memory loss. When
Scoville realized his patient had become amnesic, he referred him to the eminent
neurosurgeon, Dr. Wilder Penfield and neuropsychologist Dr. Brenda Milner of Montreal
Neurological Institute (MNI) who assessed him in detail. Up until then it had not been known
that the hippocampus was essential for making memories, and that if we lose both of them we
will suffer a global amnesia. Once this was realized, the findings were widely publicized so
that this operation to remove both hippocampi would never be done again.
Penfield and Milner had already been conducting memory experiments on other patients and
they quickly realized that Henry's dense amnesia, his intact intelligence, and the precise
neurosurgical lesions made him the perfect experimental subject. For 55 years Henry

participated in numerous experiments, primarily at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

(MIT) where Professor Suzanne Corkin and her team of neuropsychologists assessed him.
Access to Henry was carefully restricted to less than 100 researchers (I was honored to be one
of them), but the MNI and MIT studies on HM taught us much of what we know about
memory. Of course many other patients with memory impairments have since been studied,
including a small number with amnesias almost as dense as Henry's, but it is to him we owe
the greatest debt. His name (or initials!) has been mentioned in almost 12,000 journal articles,
making him the most studied case in medical or psychological history. Henry died on
December 2nd, 2008, at the age of 82. Until then, he was known to the world only as "HM"
but on his death his name was revealed. A man with no memory is vulnerable, and his initials
had been used while he lived in order to protect his identity.
Henry's memory loss was far from simple. Not only could he make no new conscious
memories after his operation, he also suffered a retrograde memory loss (a loss of memories
prior to brain damage) for an eleven year period before his surgery. It is not clear why this is
so, although it is thought this is not because of his loss of the hippocampi on both sides of his
brain. More likely it is a combination of his being on large doses of antiepileptic drugs and
his frequent seizures prior to his surgery. His global amnesia for new material was the result
of the loss of both hippocampi, and meant that he could not learn new words, songs or faces
after his surgery, forgot who he was talking to as soon as he turned away, didn't know how
old he was or if his parents were alive or dead, and never again clearly remembered an event,
such as his birthday party, or who the current president of the United States was. In contrast,
he did retain the ability to learn some new motor skills such as becoming faster at drawing a
path through a picture of a maze, or learning to use a walking frame when he sprained his
ankle, but this learning was at a subconscious level. He had no conscious memory that he had
ever seen or done the maze test before, or used the walking frame previously.
We measure time by our memories, and thus for Henry, it was as if time stopped when he
was 16 years old, eleven years before his surgery. Because his intelligence in other nonmemory areas remained normal he was an excellent experimental participant. He was also a
very happy and friendly person and always a delight to be with and to assess. He never
seemed to get tired of doing what most people would think of as tedious memory tests,
because they were always new to him! When he was at MIT, between test sessions he would
often sit doing crossword puzzles, and he could do the same ones again and again if the
words were erased, as to him it was new each time.
Henry gave science the ultimate gift; his memory. Thousands of people who have suffered
brain damage, whether through accident, disease or a genetic quirk, have given similar gifts
to science by agreeing to participate in psychological, neuropsychological, psychiatric and
medical studies and experiments, and in some cases by gifting their brains to science after
their deaths. Our knowledge of brain disease and how the normal mind works would be
greatly diminished if it were not for the generosity of these people and their families (who are
frequently also involved in interviews, as well as transporting the "patient" back and forth to
the psychology laboratory). After Henry's death his brain was dissected into 2000 slices and
digitized as a three-dimensional brain map that could be searched by zooming in from the
whole brain to individual neurons. Thus his tragically unique brain has been preserved for
posterity.

Question
What are the lessons about memory, that you have learnt from the above case of Henrys?
Explain and elaborate your points in a report and submit it to your Instructor.

Case 2
Einstein's Genius Linked to Well-Connected Brain Hemispheres
The right and left hemispheres of Einstein's brain were uniquely well-connected

The debate over right brain-left brain lateralization has raged on for decades. A study (link is
external) released on October 4, 2013 found Albert Einstein's brilliance may be linked to the
fact that his brain hemispheres were extremely well-connected. The ability to use right brain
creativity and left brain logic simultaneously may have been what made Einstein a genius.
The part of the brain that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is called the corpus
callosum. It contains a bundle of neuronal fibers found in humans and other higher order
mammals that allow the two hemispheres to talk to one another.
The new study, "The Corpus Callosum of Albert Einstein's Brain: Another Clue to His High
Intelligence," was published in the journal Brain. The research was led by Dean Falk who is
an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University. Falk and her colleagues found that
Albert Einstein had more extensive connections between certain parts of his cerebral
hemispheres compared to both younger and older control groups.
The study was led by Weiwei Men of East China Normal University. Men has created a
revolutionary technique allowing researchers to explore the internal connectivity of
Einsteins brain via the corpus callosum, for the first time. "This technique should be of
interest to other researchers who study the brain's all-important internal connectivity," Falk
said.
According to Falk, "This study, more than any other to date, really gets at the 'inside' of
Einstein's brain," Falk said. "It provides new information that helps make sense of what is
known about the surface of Einstein's brain." Using their new method, the team was able to
determine the relative thickness of various subdivisions throughout full length of the corpus
callosum.

The researchers found differences in thickness which were then color-coded to provide the
research group with an approximation for the number of neurons stretching between the left
and right hemispheres. A thicker corpus callosum suggests that there are a greater number of
neurons. Interestingly, different regions of the corpus callosum are implicated in a variety of
special functions. For example, neurons situated at the front of the corpus callosum are

involved in movement of hands, while neurons running along its back side are thought to be
implicated in mental arithmetic.
Its no coincidence that Einstein was a genius physicist and a master violinist. After having
been inspired by Mozart music at age 13, he began to practice the violin religiously. More
and more studies are beginning to link musical training and improved cognitive
function. Practicing an instrument engages all four hemispheres of your brain and makes
them more well-connected.
I thought of it while riding my bicycle.

Albert Einstein loved to take long walks and ride his bicycle around Princeton. He once said
of E=mc2, I thought of it while riding my bicycle. If you look at the daily routines of
creative greats there is a strong link between some type of bi-pedal aerobic motion that
engages all four brain hemispheres that leads to Eureka moments and creative breakthroughs.
This is a topic I will be exploring in my next book titled, Superfluidity.
Falk and her colleagues reported (link is external) on uncommon features of Albert Einsteins
brain when images were first release in 2012. By analyzing autopsy photographs, the team
was able to visibly identify features of Einsteins brain that could be fundamental to the
mans intellect. They found greater intricacy and deep grooves across certain regions of his
brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex, the visual cortex and the parietal lobes.
The prefrontal cortex is thought to be the seat of both critical and abstract thinking, decisionmaking and expression of personality traits. The parietal lobe is involved in sense and motor
function. Interestingly, Falks group found that the somatosensory cortex, which receives
sensory input information, was also increased in magnitude in an area that corresponded to
Albert Einsteins left hand.

In a Psychology Today blog title, Are Lefties More Likely to Become Champions and
Leaders? I discuss the role that handedness plays in linking up the left brain-right brain. The
conclusion is that ideally you want to create symmetry and become as close to ambidextrous
by fortifying the link between the right brain-left brain of both the cerebrum and the
cerebellum.
Conclusion: Left Brain-Right Brain Is Only Half the Story

Over the past few years, I have had my antennae up for scientific research exploring the
interconnection between all four brain hemispheres. I was excited this morning to wake up
and see this new study on the link between Albert Einsteins genius and his well-connected
brain hemispheres.
My father, Richard Bergland, was a neuroscientist and neurosurgeon who wrote a book
called The Fabric of Mind (Viking). He believed that the vermis which is the link between
the two hemispheres of the cerebellum is hugely important in the communication of the
cerebellar hemispheres. He also believed that the midbrain which connects the cerebrum
(up brain) to the cerebellum (down brain) is the gateway for keeping a line of
communication simultaneously flowing between all four brain hemispheres.
These are very exciting time for neuroscientific research on the interconnection between
brain hemispheres. At this point in time, much of this research is still theory and conjecture.
Therefore, it is important to look at the daily habits of people who have maximized
brainpower so that you can emulate their lifestyle choices and make your brain hemispheres
more well-connected, too

Question
What are the findings on the role of left-right brain factor and intelligence, that you have
learnt from the above case of Einsteins?
Explain and elaborate your points in a report and submit it to your Instructor