Behavioural neuroscience: L1

Question 1

Brain facts:

1. weighs
2. body weight %
3. consumes % of energy resources
4. number of neurons
5. number of synapses
6. number of possible circuits

Answer 1

1. 1,400g
2. 3%
3. 20%
4. 100 billion
5. 1,000,000
6. 101,000,000

Question 2

Phineas Gage: brain & behaviour

1. injury to

Answer 2

1. frontal lobe

Question 3

reliance on chance discoveries is called

Answer 3

serendipity

Question 4

Hippocrates, 460BC beliefs about brain

Answer 4

1. brain is the command centre of the body
2. four bodily humours: earth, air, fire, water
3. mind disorders = imbalance of humours

Question 5

Galen, 130 CE beliefs about the body

Answer 5

1. used vivisection to study anatomy
2. sensory and motor neurons
3. idea od pnumata ‘spirits’
   - natural = liver
   - vital = heart
   - animal = brain
4. thought animal spirits travelled in hollow nerves

Question 6

Andreas Vesalius 1514CE beliefs about the body

Answer 6

1. dissection and vivisection
2. first detailed human brain drawings
3. failed to advance a new account of function to replace pnumata (spirits)

Question 7

Vesalius brain drawings

Answer 7

1. 2 cerebral cortices
2. gyri & sulci (folding of brain tissue)
3. extensive network of blood vessels
4. meninges - protective covering between skull and brain

Question 8

Descartes 1596: reflexes and volitional acts

Answer 8

1. all animals act automatically (reflexes)

2. humans alone perform voluntary acts (cogito, ergo sum - i think therefore i am)

Question 9

Descartes links mind and body

Answer 9

1. animals were controlled mechanistically by animal spirits passing from brain to hollow nerves
2. animal spirits directed by pineal gland

Question 10

Thomas Willis 1621

Answer 10

1. thought is generated by outer tissue of the cortex

2. cortex contained animal spirits that were transported via white matter

Question 11

Luigi Galvani 1737

Answer 11

1. rejected animal spirits
2. electrical charge
3. nerves coated in fat to prevent electricity from leaking out

Question 12

Franz Joseph Gall 1758

Answer 12

1. influenced by physiognomy
2. brain composed of several distinct faculties
3. skull map used to read person’s character = phrenology

Question 13

Phrenology

Answer 13

1. bumps of skull reflect development of:
   amativeness, cautiousness, spirituality, philoprogenitiveness
2. cortical localisation of function

Question 14

Paul Broca, 1861

Answer 14

1. patient leborgne unable to speak after damage to broca’s area
2. normal chewing, comprehension

Question 15

Gustav Fritsch & Edward Hitzig 1870

Answer 15

1. electrically stimulated frontal cortex (dogs) induced contractions of muscles on the opposite sides of body
2. removal of these motor regions = impairments of actions

Question 16

Egas Moniz 20th c: frontal lobes linked to personality

Answer 16

1. prefrontal leucotomy for relief of psychiatric disorders

2. observations of personality change in monkeys and humans following frontal lobe damage

Question 17

consequences of prefrontal leucotomy

Answer 17

1. personality consequences:

- apathy, emotional unresponsiveness, disinhibition