PassingPsych

Localisation is the theory that specific behaviours or cognitive processes can be linked to specific locations in the brain. For example mortar and visual area. The motor area is located in the frontal lobe and is responsible for voluntary movements by sending signals to muscles in the body. Hitzig and Fritsch (1870) first discovered that different muscles are coordinated by the motor cortex by electrically stimulating the motor area of dogs. The visual area, which receives and processes visual information is located in the occipital lobe at the back of the brain. Information from the right side of the visual field is processed in the left hemisphere and vice versa. The visual area consists of different parts which process different things such as colour, shape or movement. In this essay, I will give a brief account of localisation and the study of Draganski et al.

Draganski et al aimed to investigate whether the structure of an adult human brain would alter in response to environmental demands as a result of learning a new motor skill. To investigate, Draganski used a field experiment containing a total of 24 participants ( 21 female and 3 male). The participants' braids were scanned using structural MRI scans so that researchers could see the effect of learning-induced plasticity in the brains of volunteers. Participants had their brains scanned 3 times, once before learning juggling (motor skill), another scan after learning to juggle routing over 3 months and a final time after 3 months of not juggling. That is known as a repeated measures design as participants took part in both conditions. The results of the MRI scans showed no structural differences in the participants ' brains before juggling. However, there was an increase in the volume of the two regions ( motor and visual area)  of the jugglers' brains associated with the retention of visually detected movement information of learning. This difference decreases after e months of no practice. We find these individuals to a transient/ passing and selective structural change in areas associated with the processing and storage of complex visual motion,  

Draganski et al demonstrate the localisation of the motor and visual area. For example, these two areas of the brain increased after 3 months of learning to juggle and decreased when they stopped. This is important because as the areas increased in size when practising it showed that they were consistently being used resulting in strengthened neural connections in these areas of the brain when learning a new motor skill. As the areas of the brain decreased it showed that these areas were responsible for the visually detected movement as they were the only areas that changed. Therefore the brain is localised.