Monday 9th January 2017.
5pm, F21, 7 George Square.
Professor Verity Brown (St Andrews): Banishing the shifty homunculus from the frontal cortex: Attentional set-shifting deficits re-examined.
[CCACE / Department of Psychiatry]
Abstract: Deficits in cognitive function are found in many psychiatric and neurological diseases and the severity of these deficits, particularly in schizophrenia, predicts poor outcome. Nevertheless, treatments have remained elusive and this is why it is important to understand the precise nature of the impairments and their neural basis. In this talk, I will present evidence, from rats and patients with schizophrenia, that supports the surprising conclusion that cognitive flexibility is not an executive function of the frontal lobes.