Chapter 1 Midterm 1 Flashcards
What is defined as a true brain?
Having both a cerebrum and cerebellum
What percent of neurons live in the cerebellum?
80% of all neurons
Does an octopus have a true brain?
No, an octopus doesn’t have a true brain
What is the CNS?
The central nervous system, the brain is encased by the skull and the spinal cord is encased by the vertebrae
What is the PNS?
The peripheral nervous system, is nerve processes and neurons outside of the CNS, includes sensory connections to receptors in the skin, motor connections to body muscles, and sensory and motor connection to internal body organs and gut
What are three reasons as to why we study brain and behaviour?
- How the brain produces behavior’s is a major scientific question
- The brain is the most complex organ.
- Brain disorders can be properly treated if we understand the brain
What responds to environmental stimulation?
Specialized cells respond to environmental stimulation for ex: light, vibrations etc
What came first neurons or specialized cells?
Neurons, came later for cognition
How is the brain fundamentally derived in terms of movement?
The brain is fundamentally derived to make movements in certain contexts when appropriate, for ex: sometimes it’s appropriate to not make any movement like when a rabbit faces a predator
What is another name for the cerebrum?
The forebrain
What is the cerebrum composed of in terms of hemispheres?
A right hemisphere and a left hemisphere
What are the three major parts of the brain?
Cerebrum, cerebellum, brain stem
What part of the hemipshere moves which part of the body?
Left side moves right side of body, right side moves lefts ide of body. This is common in most brains.
What is deep brain stimulation (DBS)
Is when an electrode is used to stimulate neurons by entering inside the brain in the thalamus
What is DBS used for?
This used to treat the tremor that comes with parkinsons disease, and also used to treat depression and aid recovery from traumatic brain injury
What do we know about parkinson disease?
Don’t understand fundamental processes of the disease but see manifestation of it when you lose brain neurons
What is behaviour?
Consists of patterns in time. most behaviours are a mix of learned and innate
What’s an example of animals having behaviours that are learned?
Elephants, until they are two they can’t use there trunk they learn to use it (learn motor skills)
What was aristotles perspective on brain and behaviour
Believed the brain cooled the blood and had no role in producing behaviour (was right) , believed in the pysche which was a non material identity that governs behaviour and lives on after death
How does the brain resemble a radiator?
It resembles a radiator to maximize the number of neurons allowed to be in the brain, bumps on the brain are gyri, valleys in brain are called sulci
What is mentalism?
Philosophical position that explain behaviour as a function of the nonmaterial mind, says all things like consioucness, sensation, perception, attention, imagination, emotion, motivation, memory, and volition
What was Rene Descartes position on brain and behaviour?
He tried to say it was both a nonmaterial mind but also a body that moves because of it, created the mind body problem caus ehow can the nonmaterial move something material?
How did Descartes imagine the body moved?
He believed that the pineal gland caused movement by pushing fluid towards the muscles which caused them to expand an dmove.
What was darwins perspective on brain and behaviour?
Darwins position was that behaviour is a function of the nervous system and no unseen things effect it
What famous concept did Darwin develop?
The concept of natural selection, states that a common ancestor was born 3.5 B years ago, but it only evovled once or evolved multiple tiems and only lineage survived giving rise to us. He gaves the mechanism for evolution.
What is an example of adaptation in pregnant women?
Pregnancy sickness is not acc a sickness but is a natural selection mechanism and is how to protect embryo from toxins in your food, women increase urine production to flush out toxins, GI motility slows down to reduce toxins that reach fetus, barrier between placenta and fetus blood- adaptation to reduce toxins.
How was pregnancy sickness “cured”? Is this good, and are there benefits of the medicine?
Cured by thalidomide, causes bad effects to fetuses However good to stop tumors as it prevents capillary genesis
Explain materialism in a summary
Because all animal species are related, their brains must too and behaviour. Brain and behaviour in complex animals such as humans evolved from simpler animals brains and behaviour and they also depend on learning
How did Darwin contribute the idea of Functionalism?
States that we adapted to do certain things and weren’t just created like this
What is eliminative materialism?
That behaviour and neural function are 100% correlated and without neural function there would be no behaviour, modern physcology takes this stance.
What philosophical position does contemporary brain theory take?
Materialism, as it argues for objective, measurable descriptions of behaviour that can be referenced to brain activity.
Is science a belief system?
No, is a set of procedures designed to allow investigators to confirm answers to a question independently
Where did humans come from?
Came from the family of great apes, the genus is human and species is modern human
What animal do humans share the most of their DNA with?
We share 99% of our genetics with the bonobo and common chimpanzee
What are juveniles in terms of evolution? What are humans juveniles of?
Juveniles are the stage at which other animals cannot sexually reproduce, humans are juvenile chimpanzees who have been able to sexually reproduce, combined with other differences in genome that have given us the ability to have language
How old is the earth?
Around 4.54 billion years old
When did life arise?
Around 3.7 Billion years ago
When did nervous systems arise?
Around 700 million years ago
What types of organism have nervous systems?
Eukaryotic organisms (multicellular with nucleus in membranes)
How did nervous systems generate behaviour?
Early nervous systems allowed animals to move away from harmful areas and enter beneficial areas, they allowed them to find food, mates, shelter, and avoid becoming food.
Why does the left side of the brain control the right sid eof the body and vice versa?
Because it arose from early decisions made in evolution and then was inherited
How did the nervous system evolve (say the order)
neurons and muscles
nerve net (simple nervous system, organized as a net, with no brain) (ex: sea anemone)
Bilateral symmetry
Segmentation
(segmented nerve trunk with bilateral organization ex: flatworm)
Ganglia (structure that resembles and functions somewhat like a brain
spinal cord
brain (is true brain with spinal cord (for ex: frogs))
What phlyum has true brains?
Chordates
Why did lampreys have to evolve?
Because they are parasites, arose first but had to evolve cause there was no other fish to leech off.
What theropod dinosaurs?
Bords- as they have hollow bones and three toed limbs
Was the age of dinosaurs having mammals subdued?
No, mamals roamed around during night
All chordates have a true brain meaning they have?
A cerebrum and cerebellum
What are the great apes?
Orangutans, gorillas, and chimps
What are the six characteristics of humans?
Humans are apes, primates, mammals, chordates, animals, and alive
How did brain size evolve as humans evolved?
the brain size increased as the homeo species evolved.
What proof do we have that brain size evolved?
The brain of australopithecus (Lucy) was the same size as that of living nonhuman apes.
What were the genuses of the first humans? Describe them
Homo Habilus (was around 2 million yrs ago in Africa, made simple stone tools)
Homo erectus (upright human)
was around 1.6 million yrs ago in europ and asia and had more sophisticated tools than H. habilis
What is an encephalization quotient?
is an estimate of brain size in comparison to body size
What animal has the biggest brain?
The great blue whale
Where do humans rank in terms of EQ?
Higher than most animals
What animals has the highest EQ?
the weakly electric fish- has a msssive cerebellum that can detect perturbation in its electric field
How much percent of a roundworms cell are part of the nervous system?
30%
How much percent of a blue whales cells are part of the nervous system?
less than 0.01%
As the number of neurons increases what happens to the synaptic connections?
The synaptic connection disproportionately increase
What are humans in terms of ability?
Humans are generalists- good at everything
What determines the ability to be intelligent?
synaptic pathways
How did climate change effect the evolution of the brain?
intense volcanization changed ocean currents in africa, made it dry, primates began to walk and forage which caused us to eat more fruit, gave more energy to create brains, also allowed us to use fire which unlocks nutrients in food helping brain grow
How does cooking food cause evolution?
When you eat cooked foods you increase the probability of mutations, get smaller facial muscles and bones, changes in skull form increasing blood circulation and brain colling which leads to a larger brain
What is heterochronicity?
is the study of different life stages, accounts for human features
What is neotony?
Juvenile stages of predecessors become adult features of descendants, happened with humans as well look like juvenile apes but are adults
How do apes keep track of their social circles? How do we?
allogrooming- they groom individuals, through evolution we began to tlak as you can’t groom that much, talk about other ppl
Humans suit big brains because?
We are big, long lived, homeothermic mammals, with complex developmental, social, political, and environmental challenges.
Is there a correlation between brain size and intelligence within a species? Among multiple species?
No, in different animals species the behaviours correlate with the relative number of neurons they have
The brain works as the body is, relying on neurons and cells, what is this called?
The brain works materialistically
