Lecture 1 Flashcards
In the timeline of neuropsychology and the mind brain debate there are 12 points, who does the timeline start with?
Aristotle, who believed that the mind was in the heart.
Plato and Hippocrates who believed that the mind was in the brain
Following on from Aristotle and plato, what was the belief about where the mind resided?
In the Middle Ages it was believed that the mind was in the ventricles , so the spaces in the brain where the cerebrospinal fluid was.
Descartes believed that the mind was in the pineal gland which was stimulated by activated nerves which in turn controlled the release of animal spirits into the ventricles leading to muscles acting
What is balloonist theory? Which famous philosopher believed in this view?
Descartes
It’s the belief that tiny balloons expand and deflate in the muscles which then lead to motion
Following on from Descartes and the Middle Ages we had Gall and phrenology. Which two crucial men followed this period?
Broca, identified lesions to the 3rd convolution in the frontal lobe which led to impaired speech production
Wernicke, identified that lesions to the left posterior superior temporal gurus led to deficits in language comprehension
Wernicke discovered something else to do with language comprehension and production what was it?
Found that damage to the white matter between Broca’s area and wernickes area led to overall language impairments
After wernickes and Broca’s localisation discovery we had the discovery of the action potential. Who did this and what could now be done?
Hodgkin & muxley (1939)
Using action potentials you could now do single cell recordings
Cognitive psychology was soon founded after the discovery of action potentials, what did this mean?
It meant that publications by people such as broadbent, Chomsky and Miller could be done
Following the cognitive revolution, was the invention of the CT and MRI, which two scientists did this?
Hounsfield (1973)
Lauterbeur (1973)
Following MRI and CT which major imaging technology was developed and by who?
Phelps discovered PET in 1975
Finally, ogawa discovered which imaging technique and when?
Developed fMRI and BOLD in 1990
Just after the mind brain debate, another debate arose, the localisationist vs holistic view. What did each argument believe?
Localisationist believed that there are specific areas in the brain that are responsible for different aspects of our behaviour
The holistics believed that the whole brain is responsible for our behaviour and there was no specialisation
Who are two people that believed in the holistic viewpoint?
Flourens and lashley
What did flourens do?
He ablated neural tissues in animals and showed that there was recovery. He believed that this meant that the brain was working as a whole -aggregate field idea
What was lashley looking for?
Memory engrams in rats. So he found when he lesion end their brains more and more the performance on the mazes degraded slowly, showing that there wasn’t a specific engram in one place but are all connected.
Name 7 scientists that favoured the localisationist view
Gall Pakinje Hughlings jackson Broca and wernicke Hitzig Brodmann Penfield
What did pakinje find?
The 1st nerve cell
What did Hughlings Jackson find?
The topographic map of the body after studying the order in which seizures effect epileptic patients
Hitzig also believed in the localisationist view, what did he find?
Stimulated different areas of a dogs motor cortex and saw specific reactions in the neck and hind legs.
What did penfield discover that was important for the localisation view? What did he name it?
The grandmother cell,
It suggests that there are specific neurons specialised for specific tasks which has other cells that are specialised to support that grandmother cell.
What was the pre 1900 view of how the brain worked?
Mostly to do with phrenology, Francis Gall, so that different lumps on the skull suggested that those parts of the brain were used a lot and had therefore grown. For example a lump behind the ear suggested excessive aggression
