Task 7 - The Brain: Psychology Meets Neuroscience Flashcards
The Edwin Smith Papyrus
A papyrus from Ancient Egypt that contains descriptions of the symptoms and treatment of different forms of brain injury.
Galen
130-200 CE, 6 centuries after Aristotle, demonstrated the importance of the brain for sensation and movement control with his experiments on animals.
Thought that soul resides in the brain.
Andreas Versalius
1514-1564
Resumed & extended dissections to humans. He established that there are 3 ventricles, each with a specific function:
Front ventricle - receives information from the senses and was called the common sense. It also included fantasy & imagination.
Second ventricle (middle of the head) - supports thought and judgment.
Third ventricle (back of the head) - contains memory.
Johann Schenk
In 1585, Johann Schenk published a book reporting clinical observations of brain injuries.
One of the conclusions of the book was that after brain damage patients sometimes could no longer speak even though their tongue was not paralyzed. This was attributed to loss of memory of (or inability to retrieve) words.
5 Breakthroughs of the 19th century
breakthroughs in the 19th century altered the model of brain functioning and made modern neurophysiology possible:
1. The discovery of the cerebrospinal axis
2. The growing impact of the reflex (Marshall Hall)
3. The localization of brain functions
4. The discovery of the neuron
5. The disentangling of the communication between neurons
Marshall Hall
1790-1857
Introduced the term REFLEX ARC - describes the process underlying a reflex (a signal is picked up by sensory receptors, transmitted to the spinal cord through an afferent nerve, to interneurons, which activate motor neurons that send a motor command over an efferent nerve).
• Hall used the recent discovery that there are 2 types of nerves (afferent & efferent). Before that it was thought that nerves work in both directions. Later, Hall’s reflex arc was extended by researchers from the spinal cord to the brain. They stated that the reflex arc is the basic unit from which all other neural functions evolved.
Brain equipotentiality theory
all parts of the brain have equal significance and are involved in each mental function - was dominant until the 19th century.
Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud
In 1825, Jean-Baptiste Bouillaud presented evidence that supposedly proved that speech was controlled by the front parts of the brain (autopsies revealed that 8 people with speech problems had lesions in the frontal lobes, while 6 other patients without speech problems did not have damaged frontal lobes.)
• In 1861, Paul Broca, considered to be the father of neuropsychology, extended Bouillaud’s work and presented evidence that speech production was controlled by the left frontal lobe.
Karl Wernicke
In 1874, Karl Wernicke presented evidence that problems with understanding language could result from damage to the posterior left hemisphere.
The disentangling of the communication between neurons
around the end of the 18th century the idea emerged that communication between neurons resembles the transmission of electrical signals.
In 1786, Luigi Galvani found the first empirical evidence for this idea • he noticed that a dissected leg of a frog contracted each time his assistant touched a bare nerve with his scalpel and the electricity generator nearby produced a spark.
Around 50 years later, Emil de Bois-Reymond established that nerve signals indeed involved electricity, using techniques to measure small electrical signals in electric fishes.
In 1852 von Helmholtz discovered that the neural signals are not simply electrical, but also chemical, by measuring their speed (108km/h, rather than close to the speed of light).
Capgras delusion
the delusion that one’s family members are replaced by imposters that look exactly like them.
Described by Joseph Capgras (1873 - 1950) according to his observations of Mme M. - a woman with a history of delusions, who was convinced that her child and her husband were replaced by doubles
• they had lost all their warmth and familiarity, and she thought that her real relatives had been kidnapped.
He stated that the source of the delusion was an incestuous desire for the father, which led to ambivalence in the feelings for other relatives, resulting in a mixture of love and hate. If the conflict escalated too much, it was “solved” by making a dissociation between the real, loved person, who was absent, and the look-alike that could be hated.
Alois Alzheimer
In 1906, Alois Alzheimer described the first case of Alzheimer’s disease, presenting his findings of the behavioral and neuropathological changes in a woman who died at age 51 after developing a rapidly progressive dementia.
Jean Marc Gaspard
In 1825, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard made the first description of what later became known as Tourette’s syndrome.
Two-factor theory of delusions
2 deficits are necessary for delusions to occur:
1. An anomalous perceptual or affective experience which is responsible for the content of the delusion (in the case of Capgras’ delusion it may be the
lack of autonomic arousal which leads to the inference that the person is an impostor).
2. An impaired ability to evaluate beliefs which prevents the rejection of the bizarre belief (it is suggested that the right frontal cortex plays a role in this
function).
