Cumulative level test: Cortex, wiring and modulation: from maps to habits and the appraisal of brain claims

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12 questions · 80% to pass · no timer. This longer test revisits both units in the level. These authored questions assess recognition and application of the taught distinctions, not professional qualification. You may review the lessons and retry. Repeat attempts reuse the question bank; a remembered answer is not proof of transfer to a new situation.

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Question 1

A paper reports that a cortical area contains a topographic map of the visual field, measured with 1 mm voxels and smoothing of 4 mm, and that the same area responds to faces. A commentary concludes that 'the face area is a map of faces'. Explain what the original measurement does and does not support, and which additional claim the commentary smuggles in.The measurement supports an ordering of visual field positions at a stated resolution and smoothing; it does not establish that any cognitive category maps onto the region, so the commentary converts an ordering claim into a category-localisation claim without evidence about ordering among faces.The measurement supports both claims, because a region that is topographically organised and face-responsive is by definition a category map.

Question 2

A researcher wants to know whether early visual deprivation has a lasting effect that a similar deprivation in adulthood would not. Design the comparison and state the two results that would distinguish a critical period from a gradually declining sensitive period.Deprive one early group and one adult group and compare their post-deprivation performance, since any difference in outcome establishes a critical period.Deprive comparable groups at different ages and measure the same function with the same task and equal duration, so that a sharp drop in effect size across a narrow age band supports a critical period while a smooth monotonic decline supports a sensitive period.

Question 3

A dopamine neuron recorded during a task fires strongly to an unexpected reward, weakly when a fully predicted reward arrives, and dips below baseline when a predicted reward is omitted. A student concludes that the neuron codes for liking. Rebuild the interpretation and state what additional evidence the 'liking' reading would require.The pattern is the signature of a reward prediction error referenced to the current expectation; a liking reading would require evidence that the signal tracks hedonic impact independently of prediction, for example a dissociation between the signal and hedonic reactions.The pattern shows liking because the response is largest when the outcome is most enjoyable.

Question 4

A student writes: 'Cortisol is the stress hormone, so chronic stress lowers cortisol and damages the hippocampus, and sleep disturbance is a side effect.' Correct the three claims in that sentence and state what evidence would be needed for a version that survives.Cortisol rises only during acute stressors, so chronic stress is marked by normal cortisol with no measurable effects on brain measures.Cortisol is one glucocorticoid in a two-receptor feedback system with a diurnal rhythm, exposure depends on amplitude and duration rather than a single level, and structural associations with sustained elevation are reported rather than demonstrated cellular damage, with sleep often a contributing exposure rather than a mere side effect.

Question 5

A sleep laboratory reports that a nap in the afternoon reduces slow-wave activity in the following night, and concludes that sleep pressure is a fixed daily quantity. Evaluate that conclusion using the regulation framework and the recording-resolution logic.Reduced slow-wave activity after a nap is consistent with a homeostatic component that discharges partially during sleep, but calling the quantity fixed requires evidence that total pressure rather than its distribution is conserved, and the claim must specify how intensity was measured and over what window.The result disproves the homeostatic account, because if pressure were conserved a nap would leave overnight slow-wave activity unchanged.

Question 6

A study finds that a language task activates regions in both hemispheres, with stronger left-hemisphere response in most participants. A writer states that this confirms the left hemisphere is the language hemisphere. Identify the two errors and produce a corrected sentence.The only error is statistical, since averaging across participants hides individual differences that would remove the leftward bias entirely.The first error is treating a graded group tendency as an absolute division of labour, and the second is inferring necessity from activation; the corrected sentence reports a leftward bias in activation in most participants while noting documented right-hemisphere contributions and the absence of necessity evidence.

Question 7

Two studies of the same training programme report opposite structural results: one finds a grey-matter increase in a frontal region, the other finds no change with a larger sample. Explain how both could be honest reports, and state what additional information would let you weigh them.The smaller study is likely to have produced an inflated estimate through selection and underpowering while the larger study is better able to detect small effects, and weighing them requires the effect sizes with confidence intervals, the number of comparisons and the consistency of the measurement and analysis pipelines.The larger study must be correct because a null result from a bigger sample always overrides a positive result from a smaller one.

Question 8

A behaviour is highly practised in a stable context, continues after the outcome is devalued, and is described in the popular press as a compulsion. Reconstruct the evidence-based description and state two things the habit literature does not establish about this person.The description should call it a compulsion, because insensitivity to outcome value shows that the behaviour is no longer under the person's control.The description should state that responding has become relatively insensitive to outcome value, indicating stimulus control; the literature does not establish the cellular basis of any associated change or that the pattern constitutes a clinical compulsion.

Question 9

A headline states that a brain region was found to be 'underactive' in a group of people with a condition. Using the inference tools from this level, list the steps needed to move from that observation to a defensible claim about the condition.State what the signal measures, whether the comparison set includes the right control tasks and conditions, whether the group difference is selective, whether activation or change in activation reflects involvement or necessity, and whether the result survives correction and replication.The observation is already sufficient, because a group difference in activation shows that the region functions differently in that condition.

Question 10

A press release for a longitudinal brain-training study says that daily practice 'rewires the adult brain permanently'. The study measured a structural image-derived difference at the end of training. Rewrite the claim as a bounded sentence and list the two pieces of missing evidence you would request.A bounded version simply omits the word permanent, since the rest of the sentence is a straightforward description of the measurement.A bounded version reports that the trained group showed a change in an image-derived structural estimate relative to a comparison group at the end of training; the missing evidence is follow-up measurement after training to test durability and a measure linking the structural change to a behavioural change.

Question 11

You are asked to referee a manuscript claiming that a critical period for a cognitive skill closes at age 7, based on a cross-sectional comparison of performance in three age groups. Write the three most important revisions you would require and justify each.Require a design that can distinguish a boundary from a gradient, a measure of the construct the mechanism concerns, and a statement of the comparison set and multiplicity handling; each is required because cross-sectional groups cannot separate age from cohort and schooling, a coarse composite can hide the pattern, and the boundary claim depends on how many comparisons produced it.Require only a larger sample, because with enough participants a cross-sectional age difference becomes a developmental finding.

Question 12

Assemble the full appraisal of the claim that acquiring the layout of a large city enlarges the hippocampus. State the design that supports the strongest version, the design that would still be needed for a general claim about learning, and one sentence on how the popular version should be corrected.The supporting design is the original comparison of drivers with controls, and a general claim about learning follows directly because the hippocampus is involved in all learning.The supporting design is a longitudinal within-subject study in which trainees were scanned before training and again after several years, with trainees who failed to qualify and controls as comparisons; a general claim about learning would need replication across tasks and populations with a tracked behavioural measure; and the popular version should be corrected to say that one unusually demanding spatial learning task was accompanied by a change in an image-derived estimate over years of practice.

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