Antti's lectures Flashcards
Testability
Statements in science have to intersubjectively testable
Falsifiability
The capacity for a theory or hypothesis to be proven wrong
Scientific publishing and public criticism
Whoever puts forward a statement about any aspect of reality has the burden of producing convincing evidence
Peer-review
The quality control of scientific publishing
Self-critical attitude
Scientists need to be equally critical to their own theories as they are to others
No absolute authorities
No person or authority is above criticism in science
Self-correction
Science is a self-critical open belief system in a constant process
Philosophy of science
What science tells us about reality, appearance vs reality
Scientific realism
Tries to answer the questions: “What is science?” and “What does science tell us about reality?”
Naive realism
Appearance=reality
Trepanation
To remove parts of the scull
Atonism
The brain can be divided into anatomically (structure) and psychological (function) parts
Holism
The brain cannot be divided into parts, it constitutes as one network
The cell theory
Living organisms are made up of cells, material objects - atomic constituents, living tissue - cellular elements as discrete units, neural tissue - a tangled net
The reticular theory
Neural tissue is a vast physically continuous network
Neuron theory
Neurons are individual cells
Functional localization
Localizationism and anti-localizationism, are both partially correct
Localizationism
Mental functions can be localized in different parts of the brain, the brain is a collection of “mental organs”
Anti-localizationism
Different mental functions cannot be localized in different parts of the brain, each mental function activates the whole brain
Cartesian dualism
The soul is beyond science, it belongs in religion
Phrenology
You can localize different mental functions in different parts of the brain, the size and mass of the brain directly correlates with the strength of mental capacity
Lesion localizationism
To localize damage in the brain
Wernicke’s aphasic
People with damage in a specific area of the temporal lobe can speak fluently, but what they are saying does not make much sense
Broca’s aphasic
The person understand what is being said to him/her but speaks with difficulty, if at all
Anomic aphasic
No names
Cognitive science
“Maps of the mind”, functional analysis of the mind
Neuroscience
“Maps of the brain”, anatomical/psychological analysis of the brain
Functional decomposition
Cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology
Cognitive psychology
Patterns of normal performance, measurable aspect of behavior in a task
Cognitive neuropsychology
Patterns of performance in brain-damaged patients
Gross neuroanatomy
Reveals macro anatomy of the brain
Fine neuroanatomy
Tracer stains (living tissue, make connections visible), fixation (solid), staining methods (make single neurons visible), microtome (cutting thin slices)
Connectomics
Mapping the “connectome” (wiring diagram) of the brain
Structural brain imaging
CT, CAT, MRI, shows only the anatomical structures of the brain, no change in the image in the matter of thinking
Functional brain imaging
Detects signals arising from the brain metabolism, PET - blood flow, energy consumption, fMRI - blood oxygen level
Electromagnetic brain sensing
EEG (Hans Berger), MEG, measures brain electrical activity
Electromagnetic brain stimulation
TMS, tDCs, tACs, measures brain stimulation
Spatial resolution
Tells us where in the brain something is happening
Temporal resolution
Tells us when something is happening
Truthlikeness
Some propositions are more or less true than other propositions
The cardio centric view
The heart is the center of intellectual and perceptual functions
The ventricle theory
Galenos, the intellectual soul has three parts, imagination, cognition, memory
Neologism
Wernicke’s “word salad”
Karl Popper
Truthlikeness, falisifiability
Plato
Believed in a soul with three parts
Aristotle
The function of the brain is to cool down blood, the cardio centric view
Hippocrate
Believed in a soul seated only in the brain
Galenos
Speech does not come from the chest and the brain does not cool down blood, nerves as tubes where animal spirits flow, the ventricle theory
Galvani
Electrotherapy/galvanism
Andreas Vesalius
Dissections, detailed descriptions of the brain
Renee Descartes
The soul is one and has its seat in the brain (pineal gland)
Cajal
Discovered that neurons are individual cells, the neuron theory
Golgi
The reticular theory, the nervous system, the brain is a single continuous network
Flourens
Against phrenology, believed in a unified soul/mind that cannot be separated into different parts
Emanuel Swedenborg
Identified effects of frontal lobe lesions to higher cognitive functions, localizationism
Broca
Disorders of speech are associated with damage in a region of the left frontal lobe
Wernicke
Damage to an area in the temporal lobe, close to the auditory cortex, results in another type of language disorder
Frantz Josef Gall
Phrenology
Wilder Penfield
Used stimulation of conscious patients during brain surgery
Brodmann
Published maps of cortical areas in humans, monkeys and other species
Hans Berger
EEG
Association
One damage hurts two functions in one area
Dissociation
One damage hurts one function in one area
Double dissociation
One damage hurts two different functions in two different patients
