Lecture 1: Introduction and History Flashcards
What is Behavioral Neuroscience?
The study of the neural and biological bases of behavior
Behavior
The way in which an animal or person acts (walking, sleeping, eating, listening, learning, deciding, etc.)
Ancient Greek Contribution to Neuroscience
-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
Neuroscience
The study of the brain and its function (anatomy development, activity (physiology), pathophysiology, etc.)
Edwin Smith Papyrus (1600 B.C.)
- 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
Hippocrates
- 5th Century BC
- Greek Physician, “Father of Medicine”
- Said that every emotion and pain comes from the brain and the brain alone
Socrates
- 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
Cardiocentrism
Belief that the mind resides in the heart
Encephalocentrism
Belief that the mind resides in the brain
Galen
- 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
Leonardo Da Vinci
- 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
Rene Descartes
- 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
Dualism
- Mind and brain are separate but interacting
- Some of the mind survives destruction of the body
Reductionism/Materialism/Monism
- Mind is only activity of brain molecules
- Biology gives rise to mind via one-way causation
Emergentism
- Mind emerges as a higher-order entity
- Analogy: You cannot predict ocean waves via water molecules
John Locke
- 1632-1704
- English philosopher and physician
- Suggested that at birth, the mind is a Tabula Rasa (blank slate)
- Nature vs. nurture
- Father of empiricism
Empiricism
Relying on observation and experimentation to support arguments
Ramon y Cajal
- 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
Phineas Gage Classical Clinical Case Study
- 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
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
- A man was not blind but could not interpret the meaning of what he saw, called agnosia
Patient EP Case
- 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
