Introduction To Biological Psychology Flashcards
The black box brain
Non-conscious control
CharCter
Thinking- remembering,calculating and planning
Talking sensing moving co-ordination
Historical view of mechanism controlling action
Evidence from ancient Egypt c30000BC and before suggests that hole were drilled in skulls of living people for therapeutic purposes
At this time it was the heart not the brain which was believed to be seat and soul and repository of memories
The body function according to balance between vital fluids or humours which included
Blood
Yellow bile
Black Nike
Phlegm
Galen (129-200AD)
Galen- visual examination of dissected sheep brain , cerebral cortex was the recipient of sensations,cerebellum controlled muscle movement
He was close to the truth but his reasoning 2as incorrect
Showed that the brain contained hollow fluids filled spaces (ventricles)
Assumed that movement was controlled be flow of humours to and from the brain and muscles through nerves which he believed to be hollow tubes
Rene Descartes hydraulic model 1596-1650
Nerves are hollow tubes carry8mg fluid called animal spirit
The pineal gland in the brain pumped animal spirit into tHe nerves and inflated the muscles to produce movement
Sensation memory and other mental functions produces when animal spirit flowed through pores in the brain - largely perpetrated Galen view
Still believed in d dualism separation of the body and mind
The hydraulic model
Fire displaces skin which pulls a tiny thread which opens a pore in the ventricle allowing the animal spirit to flow through a. Hollow tube inflating leg muscle causing foot to withdraw
Phrenology- Franz Joseph Gall 1758-1828
German anatomist and physiologist who spent much of his career working in Vienna studied the shape of skulls concluded that bumps and depressions in skull relate to specific psychology and personality characteristics
Phrenology became very popular through favouring more scientific approach thought it absurd
Little to no truth in this study but did suggest localised function of the brain
Paul Broca 1824-1880
Dad- speech difficult
It’s in patients with frontal lobe damage
1861 Aubertin - patient with part of frontal cranium missing spatula pressed against exposed brain stopped patient talking
The case of Louis leborgne (Paul broca)
Unable to speak then a very few meaningless syllables for 21 years but intelligent and capable of comprehending spoken and written language
Capable of communication using motor gestures
Post-mortem of leborgnes drain showed single lesion towards back of left frontal lobe
First evidence for highly localised control of function in cortex
Localised function in the brain
Eduard Frisch and Gustav Hitzig (1870)
Electrical stimulation of the brain in a dog to discover the motor and sensory cornices
4 years later Robert Bartholow did similar with human brain established there is indeed localised function
Brain imaging
MRI-magnetic resonance imaging (structural and functional
PET- position emission tomography
Opened up a new route of investigation of regional brain function
Visualise changes in activity in localised areas of the brain during performances of motor perceptual and cognitive tasks importantly many of these studies have confirmed and extended the findings from studies on brain damaged patients
Electrical signalling in nerves
Luigi Galvani challenges Descartes animal spirit model
Showed a frogs leg muscle twitch when small electrical current applied to nerve supplying it nerves acted through electrical mechanisms rather that by hydraulics
Conduction speed in nerves was found to be several orders of magnitude slower than electricity in wires indicating a biological basis for electrical transmission along nerves
Chemical transmission between nerve cells
Synapses the junctions between nerve cells originally thought that transynaptic was also electrical
Ottos Loewi
Awarded Nobel prize showed transmission at some synapses controlled my chemicals neurotransmitters
In 19502 established that trans synaptic transmission is predominantly chemical
Understanding control of function
Brain damaged patient - assess cognitive defect locate are of brain damage
Functional neuroimaging
Functional MRI meaurument during task performance measure activated by different aspects of the task
The story of Phineas Gage
Gage was a young railway construction supervisor in Vermont
He was well liked, reliable, energetic and good at his job
September 1848, while preparing a powder charge for blasting a rock, he tamped a steel rod into charge-filled hole, without putting in wadding.
The charge exploded and blew the rod out of the hole straight at Gage
entered his head through his left cheek, destroyed his eye, traversed the frontal part of the brain, and left the top of the skull at the other side.
After the accident he became extravagant , anti-social, foulmouthed, bad mannered and a liar: he could no longer hold a job or plan his future.
He died in 1861, thirteen years after the accident, penniless and epileptic: no autopsy was performed on his brain.
