Problem 8 Flashcards
What was Platos view on where the soul is located ?
Thought the soul was divided into 3 parts, situated in the
- Brain
- -> for reasoning, immortal - Heart
- -> for sensations, mortal - Liver
- -> for appetite
Galen
Was a greek physician that performed various operations on humans + animals to study the functions of various body parts
What was Galens view on where the soul is located ?
17th/18th century
Thought the soul
- resides in solid parts in the brain
- produces + stores animal spirits in the ventricles
Animal spirits
Refer to spirits that travel over the nerves between the ventricles in the brain + body
–> soul communicates by means of these spirits
Ventricles
Refer to apertures (Öffnung) in the middle of the brain which were thought to contain perceptions + thoughts
—> contains animals spirits
Differentiation of the vesicles
Renaissance
- Front vesicle receives info from senses
- -> “common sense”/Perception - Middle vesicle comprises thought + judgment
- -> reasoning - Back vesicle contains memory
What lead to an increased doubt in the existence of spirits in the nerves ?
Focus was turned to the solid parts of the brain, rather than the ventricles
–> led to the discovery of Grey + white matter, with grey matter involved in memory ( Thomas Willis)
Galens definition of “Reflex” , respectively explanation
He referred to the observed phenomenon as “sympathy” between the various body parts
–> one body part responds sympathetically to another distress
Descartes definition of “Reflex”, respectively explanation?
Said it consisted of a sensory impression which was rushed to the brain + subsequently reflected back into a motor command (like a mirror)
–> happens unconsciously
A series of breakthrough altered the model of brain functioning + made modern neurophysiology possible.
Which were the 5 big breakthroughs in the 19th century ?
- Discovery of the CEREBROSPINAL AXIS
- Growing impact of REFLEX
- -> Reflex arc - LOCALIZATION of brain functions
- Discovery of the NEURON
- Disentangling of COMMUNICATION between neurons
What did physicians find out abut the role of the cerebrospinal axis in the regulation of physical functions in the 19th century ?
Many bodily functions didn’t require the cerebral hemispheres
–> reflexes were mediated by the spinal cord, not hemisphere
Reflex arc
Hall
Refers to the mechanisms involved in involuntary movements elicited by sensory stimuli
- -> Describes the processes underlying a reflex
- -> made use of recent discovery of afferent+ efferent nerves
How did the “Reflex arc” impact further research + discoveries ?
Reflex arc was extended from the spinal cord to the complete brain
–> saying it is the basis of mental functioning (Sechenov, teacher of Pavlov)
Brain equipotentiality theory
Marie Jean Flourens + Müller
View that the brain functions as a whole with all parts having an equal significance
- -> later proved wrong + replaced by localization theory
- -> Holism
Localization theory
Gall + Spurzheim
States that mental functions are localized in specific parts of the brain
- -> replaced the brain equipotentiality theory
- -> Phrenology
Jean Baptiste Bouillard provided evidence for the fact that … ?
Language production is controlled by the front parts of the brain
–> first empirical evidence
What did Paul Broca + Wernicke discover ?
That language production + comprehension is specifically controlled by the left frontal lobe
- -> Brocas area
- -> Wernickes area
The availability of better microscopes + new techniques to stain brain tissues due to technical innovations in the 19th century lead to the discovery .. ?
… that the brain consists of a network of individual neurons that communicate with each other (Neuron Doctrine)
–> Golgi + Cajal
How did Galvani find out that communication in the NS resembles the transmission of electrical signals ?
Noticed that a dissected leg of a frog contracted each time the assistant touched a bare nerve with his scalpel
How did Reymond find out that nerve signals indeed involve electricity ?
By means of electric fishes + much improved techniques to measure small signals
–> in 20th century it was discovered that communication between nerve cells is achieved through neurotransmitters
What did the examination of the bullet wounds in the WWs lead to ?
Provided physicians with better/ more detailed knowledge about the BEHAVIORAL consequences of brain injuries
ex.: Prosopagnosia, partial loss of vision after gun shot to neck
Neuropsychology
Branch of psychological research, looking at the relationship between brain + behavior/mental state
- -> understanding consequences of brain damage
- -> increasingly took over the treatment of brain damaged patients
What caused dissent among neuropsychologists ?
- Damage caused by brain injuries + strikes are usually widespread and not limited to one specific brain structure
- Results of the examinations really went beyond a list of symptoms displayed by various patients
Cognitive Neuropsychology
1970s/80s
Research dealing with the consequences of brain injury for the information processing models proposed by the cognitive psychologists
–> aimed to find correlations between symptoms + dysfunctions in the brain
Deep Dyslexia
Condition of strongly impaired reading after brain injury
–> not reading the word itself but a semantically related word
ex.: saying storm instead of thunder
=> one of the first topics to be addressed by cognitive neuropsychology
One of the first techniques used to extract info from a working brain was “single-cell recording” which was invasive.
Which non invasive + more advanced techniques were proposed later on ?
- EEG
- -> discovery of seizures, different sleep stages - ERP
- -> allows to look for differing signals as a function of characteristics of the stimulus - MEG
- -> better resolution - PET
- -> invasive - fMRI
- -> based on measurement of blood with + without oxygen
- -> most popular
=> techniques show a correlation between brain activity + performance on a task
NOT: whether brain activity is necessary
Cognitive Neuroscience
Refers to the scientific study of the biological mechanisms underlying cognition, by using theories of CNP and try to find evidence for them by using brain imaging techniques
- -> largely based on brain imaging techniques, TMS
- -> created this new research field
TMS
Refers to a stimulation if the brain to interfere briefly with the activity of a small region go the grey matter
–> to ascertain that the brain region is crucial for performance
Cognitive neuropsychiatry
Subfield that tries to understand consequences of mental disorder in terms of breakdown within the cognitive models of normal psychological functioning
ex.: Delusions
Delusions
Is a condition where one has strong beliefs that are not supported by empirical evidence
Capgras delusion
Refers to a situation in which a person still recognizes close relatives but is convinced that they have been replaced by look alikes
Freudian interpretation of delusion
States that delusional people adopt conflicting feelings towards relatives
- -> these result in a dissociation between the absent loved persons + present hated look alikes
- -> Ödipus complex
Marie Jean Pierre Flourens
Best known critic of Gall
–> was opposed to localization theory because this divided the mind + brain into functionally distinct parts
=> thought soul was unitary (religious)
Associationism/
Connectionism
(Wernicke)
Refers to a type of theorizing where language use was viewed in terms of associating representations in different brain centers
–> emphasis was put on the connections between the centers
BUT: The brain is also asymmetrical, Wernickes area only on left
John Hughlings Jackson
Opposer of Connectionism
–> thought that the NS is hierarchal organized + is highly interactive as a whole
Identifiability Problem
Anderson
Inferences of the Neuropsychologists are only indirect, making it impossible to identify unique cognitive processes
–> was solved by cognitive psychologists
Arthur Wigan
Was a traveling doctor in the 19th century, who wrote the book “Duality of the mind” in his 60s
- -> Thought that the brain consists of two separate halves, with own feelings + thoughts
- -> corpus collosum being a division
–> each brain lives an independent life, which explains multitasking
How did Wigan explain insanity ?
There is always one dominant half, which determines how mentally healthy we are
–> one hemisphere helps the other
Sperry
Rediscovered Wigan 100 years later
–> discovered the distinct functions of each hemisphere
