Q301 Summer 2001

Application Paper #4 - Individual

Project: Evaluation of Function of Epileptic Brain Area

Section: Language/Attention

Patient Jane Doe, age 29, has been having epileptic seizures that have been traced to a location in her left hemisphere. The malfunctioning tissue appears to be located at the top of the temporal lobe at the junction of the parietal and temporal lobes. We must remove this tissue in order to eliminate the seizures. However, we are worried about the possibility of causing permanent brain damage to one or more of her cognitive functions that take place in this area. We would like your team to advise us on how to determine which cognitive functions take place in this region.

Jane has a very important decision to make: should she try to live with her seizures, or have the procedure and risk losing cognitive abilities like language, attention, or parts of vision? You need to figure out what the malfunctioning areas are doing in Jane's brain so that she can make an informed decision about whether to have these areas taken out.

We have at our disposal a Pet scanner, an fMRI scanner, an EEG/ERP lab, invasive single-cell recording devices, a MEG lab and an array of behavioral tasks. We would like you to advise us on which equipment is best suited to this problem and what tasks we might do in order to determine the cognitive functions associated with this patient’s dorsal side of the left temporal lobe.

Patient Jane Doe is considering surgery to ablate portions of the dorsal (top) side of her left temporal lobe. This region, located at the junction of the temporal, occipital and parietal lobes, is thought to be responsible for her epileptic seizures. Removal of these neurons may prevent future seizures. However, this removal comes at the cost of whatever cognitive function these neurons are performing when they are not causing the seizures.

We would like your team to advise Jane Doe on the potential cognitive deficits she might face. She has a difficult decision to make: the surgery may or may not be successful the first time around, and each surgery has some risk associated with it. In addition, since unused neurons tend to die off in the brain, we know every neuron is performing some function in her brain. Thus the surgery will reduce some functioning for her. Your team must evaluate her particular brain using cognitive neuroscience techniques and a variety of behavioral measures. You will then be in a position to advise her about whether a particular task will be affected by the surgery and she can make the final decision about whether to have the procedure performed.

1) There are several possible cognitive functions that might be disrupted by an artificially-induced lesion in the dorsal area of the left temporal/parietal/occipital lobe. These functions include language, attention, motion perception, object identification, and possibly others.

2) Pick a particular behavior or cognitive competence from the list above to study using cognitive neuroscience techniques.

3) Pick a cognitive neuroscience technique to use to study the behavior you have chosen. You can use PET, fMRI or EEG/ERP.

4) Propose an experiment that is designed to determine whether the ablated brain area contributes to your chosen task in patient Doe.

5) Explain how you will use the data from your experiment to advise Patient Doe. Use language that would be appropriate for a lay person.

6) Discuss the reliability of your measures, including the assumptions that went into your analysis (e.g. assumptions underlying the subtractive or additive method intrinsic in your design). Make sure you are frank about whether you think these assumptions are true in your particular case.

Introduction: Do you state your goals clearly and concisely, and then follow them?

Choice of task: Is there previous evidence that your task might be performed in part by neurons in left temporal cortex?

Choice of experiment and equipment: Does your experimental design isolate the particular task you are interested in? Is the cognitive neuroscience equipment you have chosen appropriate for answering your question and ultimately advising Jane Doe?

Data analysis: Do you clearly state how you will use the results to advise Jane Doe?

Reliability: Does your critique of your experiment reveal potential flaws in your design or difficulties with current cogneuro techniques?

Important: Your report should be addressed to Jane, and written in a form that is clear and understandable by the layperson.

June 13th - Jane Doe paper due in class

Total: 33 _____ = _____

Comments: