Lesion study
In neurobiology, lesion studies are experiments in which the effects of lesions in the brain are specifically investigated. This is useful for identifying specific areas of the brain that are involved in cognitive performance. These studies are based on the assumption that the damaged area is involved in the cognitive performance in which impairments can also be determined.
Lesion studies are performed in humans with lesions (e.g. caused by traumatic brain injury ) and in animals. However, it is often difficult to find people who have only suffered a lesion in a specific area of the brain. In animal experiments (including with rats ), lesions are often specifically added to the animals in order to determine differences in cognitive performance with and without the particular lesion.