Lecture 1: Introduction and History

Question 1

What is Behavioral Neuroscience?

Answer 1

The study of the neural and biological bases of behavior

Question 2

Behavior

Answer 2

The way in which an animal or person acts (walking, sleeping, eating, listening, learning, deciding, etc.)

Question 2

Ancient Greek Contribution to Neuroscience

Answer 2

-8th century B.C. to 6th century A.D.
- The birth of early neuroscience
- Had the idea that the mind can reside in the body in one place

Question 2

Neuroscience

Answer 2

The study of the brain and its function (anatomy development, activity (physiology), pathophysiology, etc.)

Question 3

Edwin Smith Papyrus (1600 B.C.)

Answer 3

• Ancient Egyptian medical text
• Earliest recorded reference to the brain
• Describes symptoms of head trauma
  - “he speaks not to thee”
  - “he shudders exceedingly”
• Dislocated neck vertebra; description of paralysis

Question 4

Hippocrates

Answer 4

• 5th Century BC
• Greek Physician, “Father of Medicine”
• Said that every emotion and pain comes from the brain and the brain alone

Question 4

Socrates

Answer 4

• 4th Century BC
• Father of western philosophy with plato
• Said thought and reason are located in the heart
• Brain is a cooling mechanism for the blood
• Cardiocentrist

Question 5

Cardiocentrism

Answer 5

Belief that the mind resides in the heart

Question 6

Encephalocentrism

Answer 6

Belief that the mind resides in the brain

Question 7

Galen

Answer 7

• 2nd Century AD
• Physician to gladiators
• Observed that after pneuma (CSF) is spilled from the brain men stop moving and cannot feel (paralysis), he took this to mean the pneuma is the essence of the soul or its primary organ

Question 8

Leonardo Da Vinci

Answer 8

• 15th-16th Century
• Inventor, artist, architect, neuroscientist
• Special interest in the brain ventricles
  Performed an experiment using liquid wax to get a model of brain ventricles of an ox

Question 9

Rene Descartes

Answer 9

• 16th-17th century
• Mind and body are separate (dualism)
• but a foot in fire causes feeling of pain in the mind, so they must interact
• This interaction happens in the pineal gland

Question 9

Dualism

Answer 9

• Mind and brain are separate but interacting
• Some of the mind survives destruction of the body

Question 10

Reductionism/Materialism/Monism

Answer 10

• Mind is only activity of brain molecules
• Biology gives rise to mind via one-way causation

Question 11

Emergentism

Answer 11

• Mind emerges as a higher-order entity
• Analogy: You cannot predict ocean waves via water molecules

Question 12

John Locke

Answer 12

• 1632-1704
• English philosopher and physician
• Suggested that at birth, the mind is a Tabula Rasa (blank slate)
• Nature vs. nurture
• Father of empiricism

Question 13

Empiricism

Answer 13

Relying on observation and experimentation to support arguments

Question 14

Ramon y Cajal

Answer 14

• 1852-1934
• Spanish neuroscientist
• Marks the beginning of modern neuroscience
• Won the Nobel Prize in 1906
• Looked through a microscope at brain tissue and drew the dyed neurons
• Speculated that the dendrites touching the axon is how messages travel

Question 15

Phineas Gage Classical Clinical Case Study

Answer 15

• 1840’s railroad worker in Vermont
• Used tamping rod to push explosives into hole to clear land for train tacks
• Tamping iron exploded upwards
• It did not harm parts of the brain that were essential to survival
• Frontal lobe was severely lesioned
• Good memory, however his personalty had changed. He had become more impatient and profane; had less restraint
• Frontal lobe is important in restraint and decision making

Question 16

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks

Answer 16

• A man was not blind but could not interpret the meaning of what he saw, called agnosia

Question 17

Patient EP Case

Answer 17

• Pleasent, good humor
• At 70, diagnosed with viral encephalitis
• He recovered, but was unable to form new memories
• Remembers old memories
• Was caused by lesion to the hippocampus