Tools to study the brain

Tools to study the brain:

How is the world represented in our brains?

- Mental representaions are our own simulations and interpretations of the world

- Neural representations are the patterns of brain activity that represent the outside world

- External similus is likely to elicit a certain pattern of brain activity that generates a concsious perception - e.g: a mental representation of a dog.

Electrophysiology:

- A non-invasive way to measure electrical activity of the brain is to measure electroencephalography. 

- Electroencephalography allows us to measure neural activity in quasi real-time.

- The signal represents the summed activity of millions of neurons that sit under the recording electrodes. The signal is generated by the large pyramidal cells in the cortex because their axons are parallel to eacho ther so that the currents do not cancel eachother out.

- Raw electroencephalography recordings already tell us smoething about healthy vs abnormal brain activity.

- For studying cognition, it becomes more interesting when using event-related techniques.

- A typical approach is to use event-related potentials which is an averaging technique.

- We can compare the responses to different cognitive conditions. the ERP response…