Cognitive Neuroscience: 1997 Admission Exams

Please answer three (3) of the following questions:
1) Discuss the postnatal development of sensory cortices and factors controlling it.
2) Why is grey matter grey? to contrast it with white matter. Why is white matter white? because axons are covered with a myelin sheath. Why..? Carry the baby questioning on for at least 3 more why's.
3) Discuss the role of neurotrophic factors in the nervous system.
4) Discuss degeneration and regeneration in the nervous system.
5) Discuss Hebb's theory (1949) of synaptic modification: what is the basic theory, what are the physiological mechanisms believed to underlie the theory, and how might it be applied to real brain plasticity?
6) Sensory system physiologists traditionally have studied one single neuron's activity while presenting various sensory stimuli to the experimental subject. Recently, improved technology has allowed neurophysiologists to record many single neurons' activities simultaneously. What are the conceptual differences involved in studying many neurons in an ensemble, as opposed to studying single neurons sequentially? What can the physiologist learn, and not learn, from "network" activity?
7) A magazine carries the headlines "Every Man Will Be A Genius." The magazine has interviewed "scientists" who state that, very soon, they will have the technology to store very large quantities of information on silicone microchips and implant these chips in the human brain. For example, the contents of an entire encyclopedia could be put into the brain. Answer questions (a) and (b):
8) One of the properties of human information processing, which does not apply to traditional computer processing, is the capacity to generalize. Discuss its basis.
9) The activity of 10 cells could be sufficient to encode the identity of 100 faces. Give an explicit example of how such a representation could be implemented.
10) Briefly describe what blindsight (cortical blindness) is and how you would explain it.
11) Briefly describe one motor or premotor area of the cerebral cortex and the role that it plays in motor performance.
12) Answer either a) or b), but not both.
13) Discuss what can be learned about the organisation of higher-level cognitive processes from the application to prefrontal cortex of one or more of the following methodologies:-
14) Discuss critically a computational model of a human cognitive process, either as it applies to the results of experiments on normal subjects OR to a neuropsychological syndrome OR both.
15) Discuss from a neuropsychological perspective the qualitatively different types of process in the cerebral cortex which are involved in some form of memory function.
Edited by: F.P. Battaglia, SISSA, Trieste, Italy. batta@sissa.it