Introduction

Question 1

Building the Mind’s Machine

Answer 1

Building the Mind’s Machine:

• want to know how the operation of the brain produces the mind—the perceptions, emotions, thoughts, self-awareness, and other cognitive processes that inform our behavior.

Question 2

Neuroscience

Answer 2

NEUROSCIENCE – The scientific study of the nervous system. The first scholars to study the relationships between brain and behavior called themselves philosophers, because it was philosophy that established the scientific method as our best tool for finding new knowledge.

BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE – The field that relates behavior to bodily processes.

• Biological Psychology, brain and behavior, and physiological psychology are all synonyms for behavioral neuroscience.​
• The main goal of this field is to understand the brain structures and functions that respond to experiences and generate behavior.
• The modern era of behavioral neuroscience-characterized by objective experimentation and use of the scientific method to test hypotheses—has a formal history of only 100 years or so.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD – Scientists use a formal system of hypothesis testing and refinement to gradually develop understanding of neural processes. See attached diagram.

DUALISM – Descartes asserted that humans, at least, had a nonmaterial soul as well as a material body and that the soul governed behavior through a point of contact.

PHRENOLOGY – The belief that bumps on the skull reflect enlargements of brain regions responsible for certain behavioral faculties.

• The whole brain is active most of the time, so this modern map simply reflects the peaks of brain activation during various behaviors.

LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTION – Different brain regions specialize in specific behaviors.

• Neuroscientists today accept that the localization of function within the brain is more or less true. Although the whole brain is active most of the time, when we are performing particular tasks, certain brain regions become even more activated, and different tasks activate different networks of brain regions. So modern functional maps of the human brain track the locations where these peaks of activation occur.
• IQ measures may instead show a stronger relationship to individual differences in connectivity than to brain size

Question 3

The future of behavioral neuroscience is in interdisciplinary discovery and knowledge translation

Answer 3

The future of behavioral neuroscience is in interdisciplinary discovery and knowledge translation:

• The economic toll of so much illness is staggering: the cost for treatment of dementia (severely disordered thinking) alone exceeds the costs of treating cancer and heart disease combined.

NEUROPLASTICITY – How behavior and experiences alter the physical brain.

• The only explanation for our ability to learn skills and form memories is that the brain physically changes in some way to encode and store that information.

SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE– Uses the tools of neuroscience to discover how biological and social factors continually interact and affect each other as behavior unfolds.

• Even simple interactions with other people can remodel our brains.
• EX: the amount of testosterone in a male’s circulation affects his dominance behavior and aggression, expressed in social settings ranging from friendly games to overt physical aggression (see Chapter 11). But the outcome of those contests can cause changes in relative testosterone levels—winners show more testosterone, and losers have less—so testosterone concentration in the blood at any particular moment is determined (in part) by the male’s recent history of dominant/ submissive social experience. The modified testosterone level, in turn, helps determine the male’s dominance and aggression in the future.

ADULT NEUROSCIENCE – The creation of new neurons in the brain of an adult.

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY – Viewed animal behaviors as adaptations that evolved to solve specific ecological pressures, such as the need to find food and avoid predators. How natural selection might have shaped our own behavior, including specific cognitive abilities.

EPIGENETICS – Field focusing on factors that have a lasting effect on patterns of gene expression.

• Nearly all of the cells in your body have a complete copy of your genome (i.e., a copy of all your genes), but each cell uses only a small subset of those genes at any one time.
• Epigenetic modifications are increasingly understood to have a major role in the development of individual differences in mental health disorders such as depression and stress pathology.

GENE EXPRESSION – The turning on or off of specific genes—without changing the structure of the genes themselves.

• In some cases, the acquired alteration in gene expression is passed down through generations, from parent to child, despite the absence of genetic modifications.
• Earlier, we described rats that will show heightened stress reactivity throughout their lives if neglected by their mothers while they are pups, and we asked whether this phenomenon was more attributable to “nature” or to “nurture.” The answer is: neither. Or perhaps both. It is an epigenetic phenomenon, in which the maternal neglect causes lasting inactivation of a gene—a process called methylation (see Chapter 13)—that causes the pup to be hyperresponsive to stress for the rest of its life. So, early experience produces a permanent change in the way in which genes are expressed in the brain of the neglected rat, thus altering its behavior in adulthood–nurture and nature.

NEUROECONOMICS – Identify brain regions that are especially active when decisions are being made.

• This research has some shorter-term benefits relating to product marketing—what makes us want to buy something—over the longer term, we will develop a more complete understanding of
• The ways in which we perceive and express our free will.

CONSCIOUSNESS – The personal, private awareness of our emotions, intentions, thoughts, and movements and of the sensations.

• Many of the traditional and emerging topics in behavioral neuroscience converge on the problem of consciousness.
• However, we are nowhere near understanding consciousness this clearly. We generally have no idea what the actual inner experience of a human or animal is only what an individual’s behavior tells us about it. So even if you tell me that the sky is blue to you, I can’t tell whether blue feels the same in your mind as it does in mine.
• Experiments lead us to interesting—possibly disturbing—conclusions that our consciousness may track the operation of our brains much less accurately than we perceive.