Lecture 6: A short history of brains, behaviour and emotions Flashcards
wat waren de tekortkomingen van brysbaert en rastle
– Very much focused on cognition in (healthy) adults
– Less focused on:
* Development (phylogenetic and ontogenetic)
* Neuropharmacology
* Emotion
* Sex, sleep, food, agression, altruism, etc.
waar dachten plato en aristotle dat denken gebeurde
plato - head
aristotle - heart
wat dacht aristotle over het hart
heart is thinking organ,
- because it is affected by emotions.
- located at the central point.
- all living creatures have a heart, but not all living creatures have a brain.
the brain cools the heart:
- because the brain does not seem to be affected by emotions.
wat dacht galen
the brain is a hub:
– The Greek Roman Galenus discovered in the 2nd century A.D. a function of the nerve pathways:
– Cutting the nerves in a pig’s throat prevents the pig from making any noise
– So the ‘voice’ comes from the brain, not the heart
– Through ventricles, animal spirits and nerves, the soul had contact with the body
– The role of the brain as a hub was established
the ventricles of Vesalius
functional division:
- vesalius saw 3 ventricles in the brain
- were given various functions: 1=common sense & fantasy, 2=thoughts, 3=memory
descartes over het brein
descartes introduced mechanical thoughts about the body and behaviour.
used a clock as metaphor, and bird migration (is an example of clock drived mechanical behaviour)
descartes’ mechanical theory of the reflex
- sensory experience through the nerves
- it bounces back through the same nerves (soort van als een spiegel)
- leads to involuntary behaviour
(descartes) the soul remained spiritual in nature:
– Neoplatonian substance dualism:
* (divisible) res extensa
* (indivisible) res cogitans
– Own neuroanatomical research
– Body and soul meet in pineal gland
wat dacht thomas willis over het brein
functional organization in brain matter
wat bedoelde willis met functional organization of brain matter, en wat was hier toen bijzonder aan
dat vanaf de ventricles tot de grey matter -> dus langzaamaan meer focus op de gevulde delen ipv de ventricles.
- Higher brain structures for more advanced organisms, more complex functions (memory, volition)
- Lower structures for more elementary functions (heartbeat, respiration)
wat had Gall bedacht
organology & cranioscopy
organology=
differences in predisposition can be seen in cortical development: well-developed function, larger cortical area
who invented the 0
Braghmagupta! in india
wie maakte de cranioscopy van gall populair
zijn student (wat voor personaliteit heeft … etc)
Flourens’ (anti)localization experiments:
hij hield zijn dieren langer in leven.
localiseerde sommige functies in de brainstem, cortex was still regarded as a functional whole.
Flourens’ equipotentiality theory =
psychological functions are indivisible properties of the cortex as a whole
-> de cortex werkt samen, kan functies opvangen
wanneer kwam er momentum voor cortical localization
The localization hypothesis triumphs of Broca (1861) and Wernicke (1874):
– People with damage to Broca’s area say sensible things in bad sentences
– People with damage to Wernicke’s area say
nonsensical things in good sentences
Gustav Fritz & Eduard Hitzig (1870)
– Challenged Flourens
– Cortex could be stimulated and there were several (motor) areas!
Robert Bartholow (1874)
– Human confirmation of experiments Fritsch & Hitzig
– Electrical room
– 30-year-old Mary Rafferty first human who was electrically stimulated in the brain
– She died during the experiments
wat zei Sechenov
inhibition is a neuronal reflex (instead of being due to the soul). ze waren toen victorian, dus iedereen ging uit van dualisme en je mocht geen impulsen inhiberen want freud zei dat dat slecht was.
Inhibition (and other ‘higher’ mental functions) as a neuronal reflex instead of God-given ability
wat zei survival of the fittest over het brein
All structures - from societies to brain structures - evolve from undifferentiated and homogeneous to differentiated and heterogeneous (more complexity)
John Hughlings Jackson;
– Central nervous system has different levels of sensori-motor units
– The evolutionary oldest are at the bottom of the brain
– The evolutionary newest (more complex, more differentiated and more flexible) areas are at the top of
– Higher areas integrate input from lower areas
– Higher mental processes (‘Will, Memory, Reason, and Emotion’) found their origin in ‘sensori-motor nervous arrangements’.
– Complete disenchantment of the brain
Dus John Hughlings Jackson:
– Higher areas control the lower areas
– Clinical basic assumption: if area fails
due to damage, the function also fails
But: sometimes damage resulted in
new behavior…
– ‘Release from control’: Cortical areas could no longer control, lower areas were given free play
– Dissolution: opposite of evolution
– Neurological & psychiatric disorders, drunkenness
Camillo Golgi
– The quality of microscopes increased
rapidly in the 19th century and it was
seen that the brain consists of small
parts (‘globules’)
– Golgi discovered that you could make
these globules visible with silver nitrate
– Supporter of reticularism: the brain is a
continuous network
Ramón y Cajal:
– With Golgi staining technique: Globules are separate cells
– Waldeyer (1891): ‘neuron’
– In 1906, Golgi and Ramón y Cajal were awarded the Nobel Prize
– New question: How do neurons communicate?
the war of the soups and the sparks =
tells the saga of the dispute between the pharmacologists, who had uncovered the first evidence that nerves communicate by releasing chemicals, and the neurophysiologists, experts on the nervous system, who dismissed the evidence and remained committed to electrical explanations.
wat gebeurde er in de 19e eeuw
- Lab and clinic: evidence for cortical localization
- Evolutionary layered organ
– Cortex: ratio, control
– Subcortex: drives, emotions, pathology - Dualism has given way to materialistic sensorimotor reflex thinking
- Building blocks discovered: separate neurons
wat dacht james over emotie
bodily sensation -> becoming aware -> emotion
want see a bear -> run away -> fear
wat dacht Cannon
dat de thalamus de emotion area was
wat dacht Bard
de hypothalamus is the emotion area
wat dachten ze in 1930-1950 over de hypothalamus en de cortex
hypothalamus: emotion, drives, irrationality, unconsciousness
cortex: ratio, control, consciousness
paul maclean:
the triune brain: consists of the reptilian complex (basal ganglia), the paleomammalian complex (limbic system), and the neomammalian complex (neocortex), viewed each as independently conscious, and as structures sequentially added to the forebrain in the course of evolution.
visceral brain (later limbic system!)
hij had dit ontdekt doordat neurotics bleven ‘haken’ in the genital phase, but could still use words, en psychosomatics konden het juist niet meer zeggen. therefore these functions were separated.
dus de limbic system heeft daarmee een psychoanalytic achtergrond.
Psychoanalysis and the visceral brain
– Visceral brain: oral and sexual behavior, aggression, not linguistic -> id
– Cortex: ‘word brain’
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waarom klopte the triune brain van maclean niet
het was te simpel, je kan het brein niet op die manier indelen.
wat gebeurde er rond 2000 over de plek waar emoties zouden zijn
amygdala!
nu weten wet dat de amygdala ook een hoop andere dingen doet, en dus niet alleen voor emoties is.
mcCulloch en Pitts
maakten een soort neural network
Hebb
cells that fire together, wire together!!
– as the connection between neuron A and
neuron B is used more often, it becomes
stronger
– The network is not static, but evolves as a function of input from other parts of the brain and the environment
(1949)
hoe werd de theory van Hebb geaccepteerd
door de bevinding long term potentiation (1960)
wat deed alexandr luria
- Neuropsychological examination of soldiers during and after WWII
– Romantic science: comprehensive case studies
3 laws van alexandr luria
- law of hierarchical structure
- law of diminishing specificity
- law of progressive lateralization
law of hierarchical structure =
Cortical areas have a dominant role in relation to secondary, lower-lying areas
the law of diminishing specificity =
The further information is processed in the
brain, the less specific, global and abstract it will be
Law of progressive lateralization:
in the (cortical) hemispheres more functional lateralization can be found than in lower lying areas
hoe kwamen computer models of neurons in stand
combinatie van Hebb, McCulloch and Pitts
– The combination of insights
from Hebb, McCulloch and
Pitts led to ‘neural networks’
– This is done by ‘rewarding’
good responses by
strengthening the connections
used
– With fairly simple principles,
neural networks appear to be
able to learn elementary tasks
well
oke
Problem: each additional layer
quickly made model much
more complicated
– With today’s super powerful
computers, more and more
layers can be added
– Simulations are becoming
more realistic & performance
better
oke
wat denken we nu over het brein
- (to a certain extent) functional specialization: - most mental processes depend on multiple functional areas
– most areas contribute to different functions - hierarchy in terms of integration and
abstraction, but not in terms of importance! - dynamic (both at neuronal and functional level)
the brain as a dynamic network
Dynamic, hierarchical & digital
Hans Berger
registration of neural electrical activity in 1929
– In the 1990s, the MRI
machine made it
possible to observe in a
noninvasive way brain
activity
– Functional => fMRI
oke
Critical historical analysis of:
– Serotonin deficiency theory of depression:
too little serotonin causes depression
– Dopamine theory of schizophrenia: too much
dopamine causes schizophrenia
oke
premature acceptance of biological explanations is risky…
– fMRI and localization
– Psychopathology and neurochemistry
– Correlation ≠ causality
– Simplification emotion-ratio
Brain science went through stormy technological developments in the 19th and 20th centuries
– 19th century:
* microscope, ablation & stimulation
– 20th century:
* Breakthroughs in visualization methods, electrophysiology and neurochemistry
* Important insights into cellular functioning and functional localization
* Formal modelling
oke
The extent to which neuroscience actually
advances psychology is not yet clear at all levels
– On elementary process levels (perception &
motor skills) absolutely
– So far very limited at higher abstract levels
(e.g. clinical psychology)
It is the task of psychologists (and historians!) to keep a close eye on this and to weigh the evidence seriously. They’re (you) in a very good position to do that!
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The Capgras delusion plays an important role in thinking about the
role of neuroscience in psychology. The psychoanalytic explanation
that Capgras gave for this delusion was ____ . In the neuroscientific
approach, however, this delusion is explained by damage to a brain
area that is responsible for ______ .
(a) an incestuous desire for her father; face recognition
(b) repressed feelings of aggression; sexual regulation
(c) a dream interpretation; the processing of nerve impulses
a
