lecture 2 - approaches

Question 1

Tinbergens four questions
-what did he win
-what did he do

Answer 1

-nikolaas tinbergen (1907-1988)
-(won nobel prize 1973) in medicine or physiology
-with karl von frisch and konrad lorenz
-was an ethologist : the organisation and elicitation /causes of individual and social patterns of behaviour in animals

-presents 4 categories of explanations for animal behaviours
-systematic approach

Question 2

tinbergens four questions
-explanation

Answer 2

-presents 4 categories of explanations for animal behaviours
-systematic approach (deeper than surface explanation)
-encourage consideration of the causes of a behaviour
-application to human behaviours?
-4 questions in psyc arent used outright-but they do take these into account

Question 3

what are the four questions for behaviour explanation(tinbergen)

Answer 3

-functional mechanism : why are they doing it? (what kind of survival problem is it solving)

physiological mechanism : how does it happen / what causes it to happen (external/internal causes that we can observe in environment leading to this behaviour)

ontogenetic mechanism : how does this behaviour develop (innate /developed)

evolutionary mechanism : why did the behaviour originally develop? (how did this behaviour develop over the history of the species)

Question 4

physiological mechanism questions : what causes it to happen?
-why so important

Answer 4

-important as this is behavioural neurosciences key question
eg
-how does activity in wenickes area lead to language understanding
-how does dopamine influence feelings of reward?
-how does dopamine affect motor control?

Question 5

ontogeny / developmental : how did it develop over the lifetime of an individual
explain

Answer 5

-nature? (genes) is the behaviour inherited
-nurture? (environment) (is it learned)
-can it be a combination of both

Question 6

ontogeny / developmental
-example of this
(genetic/nature based example)
peleg et al (2006)

Answer 6

peleg et al (2006)
-facial expressions influenced by genetics
-if you look at facial expressions in a family group they are more similar to each other compared to others
-in exp they looked for participants who had congenitally blind family members
-they found similarity in facial expressions by sighted and congenitally blind family members (more similar than to others)

Question 7

ontogeny/developmental
environment based example
pavlov 1897

Answer 7

-classical conditioning
-pavlov showed that dogs would salivate when given exposure to food stimulus
-didnt salivate when given sound stimulation
-so then paired food and sound together the dog learned to associate the two (learning takes place) and so sound stimulus eventually = salivation

Question 8

ontogeny/developmental
gene-environment interaction example
-Barr et al (2005)

Answer 8

-animal based study looking at rhesus macaque monkeys

-they manipulated the environment of the monkeys
-baby monkeys either raised as normal with their mothers (mother reared)or separated from mothers and raised themselves (peer rearing)

-looking at gene rh-5HTTLPR gene, (codes for a hormone thats produced in response to stress)
-within the 2 groups we have variations in the genotype, some have a short-long version and some have long-long version

-monkeys are exposed to stressful situation and are tested for level of rh, (before and after stressful situation)
- for peer reared monkeys : those who have short-long genotype have a massive differences in the amount of acth theyre producing after stressor
-in mother reared that differences isnt there

shows that certain genetics might predispose someone to a certain disorder and then the environment can affect whether that manifests or not

Question 9

phylogeny/evolution : why did the behaviour originally develop
examples
-why may behaviours persist
-why may they lose original purpose

Answer 9

-behaviours may persist because they are useful
-can see examples of this in our common ancestors

behaviours may lose their original purpose in some species
-used now for a different reason
-or simply is no longer useful
-eg goosebumps, in mammals hair raising makes them look bigger , we produce goose bumps but doesn’t make us look bigger , so has no function now but we can see this back in our ancestors

Question 10

adaptive value/function : why are they doing it now?

Answer 10

What survival problem does it solve?
* Food, shelter, reproductive success…
* Behaviour previously selected for one function
* Behaviour applied flexibly in current environment

-blue tits can peck at stuff, etc but when milk bottles existed they would peck through the soft lid (shows adaptive function)

Question 11

infant crying behaviour
-apply the 4 questions to it

Answer 11

-physiological : external : pain,hunger,lonliness, need attention. internal causes : due to cns maturing

ontogenetic : initially due to internal changes as the infant grows. (first 6 months) develops to become more directed (when the caregiver is near)

evolutionary : (difficult to find evidence for this) communication to caregiver, caregiver can hear infant from further away, and when visual information is low

functional
-signals to the caregiver
-indicates the infants particular needs

Question 12

what does biology psychology ask

Answer 12

-how does a certain behaviour related to the brain
-how can we look at how it works

Question 13

methods in biological psychology
iv/ dv

Answer 13

IV - independent variable factor that is manipulated in study
DV- dependent variable - the factor that is measured in a study
-in behavioural neuroscience, we aim to understand the relationship between biological and psychological processes

Question 14

we may manipulate a biological process and see what effect it has on _______ measure
-neuropsychology
-psychopharmacology

Answer 14

psychological
eg
neuropsychology : which behaviours and mental processes change when a particular brain area has been damaged?

psychopharmacology : which behaviours and mental processes are affected by drugs that change chemical processes in the brain

Question 15

we might manipulate a psychological process and see what effect it has on a ______ measure
-psychophysiology
- neuroimaging

Answer 15

-biological
psychophysiology - what physiological changes (eg heart rate/ blood pressure) occur when a behaviour / mental process is carried out (eg stressful task)

-neuroimaging : which brain areas show changes in activities when a behaviour or mental process is carried out?

Question 16

neuroimaging
what we pay attention to / asses in neuroimaging
-temporal resolution
-spatial resolution
-invasive/non invasive
-pros/cons

Answer 16

-how good is its temporal resolution (ability to record activity over time)
-how good is its spatial resolution (ability to accurately indicate location of activity)
-is it invasive/non invasive
-what other pros/cons are there to its use

Question 17

single cells recording
-what is it
-invasive/non invasive
-temporal and spatial resolution?
-pros/cons

Answer 17

-take a single micro electrode and insert it into a single cell in the brain, to record changes in individual cells. as that cell is firing its electrical signal is changing and micro electrode is recording

-invasive technique : have to open skull. A lot of work on this was done on primates/animals

-temporal resolution : wide ranging (ms to hours)

spatial resolution. limited (one cell) at a time

-has been used on people eg brain surgery to try stop seizures prior to surgery
-can perform this to get key areas in the brain so when they perform the surgery they known where is sensitive etc
-can sometimes get data by asking patient when being used
-has shown cells respond to very specific categories

Question 18

electroencephalography (EEG)
-what is it
-key uses
-invasive/non invasive
-temporal/spatial resolution?
-pros/cons

Answer 18

-measurements of electrical brain activity at scalp surface
-repeated stimulus exposure in studies (asked to do it again and again in studies ) to identify the response to the specific stimulus

-key used : studies of language (as good temporal resolution)

-non invasive

-temporal resolution : excellent
-spatial resolution : poor

Question 19

Magneto-encephalography (MEG)
-what is it
-invasive/non invasive
-temporal/spatial resolution?
-pros/cons

Answer 19

-measures magnetic fields produced by brain activity at the skull

-non invasive

-tenporal resolution : excellen-ms level

-spatial resolution: reduced distortion compared to eeg: magnetic fields are not distorted by the skull

-has a lot of setup involved- have to stop magnetic field interfering with it

Question 20

positron emission tomography (PET)
-what is it
-invasive/non invasive
-temporal/spatial resolution?
-pros/cons

Answer 20

-detects regions of activity by tracking emission from radioactive substances
(inject radioactive substance that goes in their bloodstream) - you give them a task-the idea is the region of the brain involved with the task will require more blood flow- as you have a radioactive isotope in the bloodstream, its throwing out particles, throwing out positrons as it does so.

-invasive (uses injection)

-temporal resolution : low : records activity over 60s+ (theres a delay (blood flow)
-spatial resolution : reasonable : locates activity within 3-4mm

Question 21

functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
-what is it
-invasive/non invasive
-temporal/spatial resolution?
-pros/cons

Answer 21

-detects functionally induced changes in blood oxygenation in the brain(relies on same pet, neural activity should require blood) (brain active and blood flow takes time to get to the region)
-an indirect measure : only looks at blood flow, not neural activity
indirect so delay between brain activity and blood flow

-non invasive

-temporal resolution: poor. tracks over several seconds. indirect measure of activity
spatial resolution : excellent

Question 22

functional neuroimaging
-things to be aware of (baseline for fmri)

Answer 22

-in fmri your always making comparisons between the brain when its doing a task and then a baseline condition
-what baseline should be used ? (because essentially everyone will be thinking differently when sitting there in the scan)
-resting state?
-a similar task?

Question 23

emotional processing of faces by dead salmon
-be aware of false data

Answer 23

-took salmon to fmri lab
-show photos of emotional faces
-dead salmon in the scanner
-an error that has come in by running so many comparisons that something comes through as significance by chance

Question 24

how has neuroimaging been referred to as ‘ a new phrenology)

Answer 24

Neuroimaging has sometimes been referred to as ‘the new phrenology’
* Region ‘lights up’ -> responsible for the function
* Imaging doesn’t indicate a causal link
* Strong evidence: methodological convergence (cross-referencing findings across methods

but this research can be misleading

Question 25

trans cranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)
-what is it
-invasive/non invasive
-temporal/spatial resolution?
-pros/cons

Answer 25

-stimulates ‘temporary lesions’ - magnetic pulse of current used to temporarily inhibit processing in an area
-examine whether inhibiting a region interferes with a particular task
temporal resolution: poor, the length of the influence of TMS is not known precisely
spatial resolution - the spatial area affected by tms is fairly large so resolution is poor
-non invasive