History of the brain Flashcards
Trial of Galileo
- He was put on trial because of challenging Aristotle’s view that the Earth is the centre of the universe
- He favoured a heliocentric view (the sun was the centre of the universe)
What were the Ancient Egyptian’s stance on the brain?
- They believed that the heart was the essence of life, and the source of good and evil
- The brain was considered a minor, unimportant organ
- The brain was discarded during mummification, e.g during Tutankhamen’s mummification
What was Plato’s stance on the brain?
- He provided the first account of the mind or soul
- He believed the mind/soul had 3 parts: Logos (reasoning), Thymos (emotion), and Eros (desire)
What was Aristotle’s stance on the brain?
- He believed that there were 3 main divisions of the mind which were imagination, reasoning and memory
- He proposed the first philosophical position that all intellectual functions were produced by an immaterial soul, found in the heart
- He also believed the brain was simply for cooling blood
What was Hippocrates’ stance on the brain?
- He created the view of materialism
- This states that the brain and brain alone underlies behaviour
- He also discovered that injuries to one side of the brain can cause deficit on the other side of the body
- He also discovered that diseases have natural causes (as oppose to supernatural)
What are the 3 main philosophical positions?
1) Immaterial soul: all intellectual functions are produced by our soul
2) Materialism: the brain alone underlies all behaviour
3) Dualism: the brain and mind work together to control behavioual (brain) and higher cognitive (mind) functioning
What was Galen’s stance on the brain?
- He observed that behavioural change accompanied brain injury
- Upon dissecting animal, he noticed nerved from the brain lead to parts of the body. He believed that water filled ventricles pushed fluids (humours) through nerves around the body. These included:
-Blood(enthusiasm)
-Black bile(wisdom)
-Yellow bile(bad temper)
-Phlegm(relaxed peaceful) - He believed that differences in the balance of humours explain differences in mood
What was the Renaissance?
This was a discovery period for science and arts from 1400 to 1600
What was Leonardo da Vinci’s research on the brain?
- He laid the foundation for anatomical drawing
- However, he was not very accurate with his images
What was Descartes’ stance on the brain?
- He created the final philosophical position of dualism
- He believed the brain worked in a way similar to a machine, being controlled by nerves filled with fluid
- He suggested higher human functioning was governed by the mind. This combination of the brain and mind working together gives rise to dualism
What was Gall’s stance on the brain?
- He formally proposed the concept of localisation. This involves different parts of the brain being involved in different aspects of brain
- He also proposed the method of phrenology. Differences in behaviour would be reflected by a growth of particular parts of the brain, which would be detected by measuring the bumps on the individual
What is equipotentiality theory?
- This was a direct challenge to functional localisation
- It proposes that the brain functions as a whole
What was Lashley et al’s experiment?
- They did experiments on rats that involves gradually destroying parts of the rats brain and sending it into a maze
- They found that there was no particular area destruction that lead to inability to complete the maze, but in fact the eventual total loss of brain
- They concluded it is the size of the lesion rather than the location of the lesion that is critical in affecting complex behaviour
What is the neuron doctrine?
This is the concept that the nervous system is made up of discrete individual cells
Damage to which lobe causes prosopagnosia?
Damage to regions of the temporal lobe can lead to a condition known as prosopagnosia (face blindness), but leave the ability to recognise objects intact
