Week 1 - Intro to Neuroscience Flashcards

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1
Q

What was the Cardio-centralist model? What evidence supported it?

A

The heart was the centre of THOUGHT and CONTROL of the body.

Evidence: Blood vessels were known to emanate from heart to all parts of the body. Sensation and motion were believed to travel with the blood.

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2
Q

What was “pneuma” thought to be?

A

Penuma (breath of life) conveyed SENSATION from the body to the heart, and MOTION from the heart to the body.

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3
Q

What evidence established the brain as the controller of the body?

A

Galen and Pergamon (170AD) noted NERVES connecting to sensory organs to the brain and other nerves connecting the brain to muscles and internal orgrans.

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4
Q

Once nerves were found, was the brain thought to be the seat of thought, control and emotion?

A

Not initially. The cardio-centralist model persisted until Galen of Pergamon noted passage of nerve connections.

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5
Q

Where was the pneuma thought to be housed?

A

The ventricles. They were then considered the most important part of the brain. Galen suggested pneuma also penetrated into the rest of the brain.

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6
Q

What did Thomas Willis do?

A

Moved away from focus on ventricles, focused more on GREY MATTER.

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7
Q

What did Thomas Willis rename “pneuma”?

A

He renamed this substance to “animal spirits”. “spirit” ie. liquid. A liquid that allows us to move.

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8
Q

Who introduced the idea of “functional localisation”?

A

Thomas Willis did, and it’s the idea that different parts of the brain do different things.

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9
Q

Which three parts did Willis consider the brain to be made up of?

A

Cerebral cortex (rational soul - controls animal spirits), Cerebellum (controls automatic movements), Corpus Striatum (receives sensory information from animal spirits).

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10
Q

How did the Animal Spirits work?

A

They were a fluid derived from blood and produced in the brain. They moved through nerves and when they arrived as muscles, they flowed into the muscle causing it to “inflate”.

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11
Q

Who challenged the Animal Spirits?

A

Fancis Glisson.

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12
Q

What did Francis Glisson find?

A

The gallbladder works without any nervous input. also showed that muscles contract and not “inflate”.

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13
Q

What did Francis Glisson find?

A

The gallbladder works without any nervous input. also showed that muscles contract and not “inflate”.

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14
Q

Who found that there was electricity in animals? (think nintendo consoles - they need electricity).

A

Luigi Galvani (1737 - 1798). He found that electrical stimulation of a nerve caused muscle contraction.

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15
Q

Who discovered the nerve impulse?

A

Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818-1896). Found that a wave of electrical potential passes along the nerve.

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16
Q

What did Bois-Reymond name the electrical potential passing along the nerve?

A

the “action current” (now called “action potential”).

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17
Q

How did Paul Broca establish localisation of function as a principle of neural organisation?

A

Paul Broca - Mr “Tan” with striking speech disorder, had a large lesion in his left frontal lobe. Over time, more cases with similar language problems were found to have similar lesions. This was the FIRST ESTABLISHED localisation of function in the cortex.

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18
Q

How did Carl Wernicke establish localisation?

A

Found a second region where damage results in a different language disorder (left temporal lobe). This inferred that different parts of language were localised to different parts of the brain.

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19
Q

What is meant by “plasticity”?

A

The idea that the brain is able to change, even in adulthood. Up to the 80’s, it was believed the brain was formed and fixed and that things just deteriorate.

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20
Q

What kind of experiments (in the 80’s) influenced perspectives on plasticity?

A

Neurons associated with receiving touch information, after amputation, started responding to touch on fingers beside amputated fingers (cortical map changed).

21
Q

What are the issues underlying the “mind-brain problem”?

A

“How does neural activity relate to mental activity?”
An attempt to reconcile two dimensions of reality.

  • Material (brain) events - deterministic
  • Mental events - free will, qualia (qualities of experience), sense of self, feelings
22
Q

What is Dualism?

A

Mind and brain are separate things.

23
Q

What are the different forms of dualism?

A
  • Interactionism,
  • Parallelism,
  • Epiphenomenalism.
24
Q

What is interactionism?

A

A form of dualism where mind and brain INTERACT, separate but influencing each other. Explaining why sense of self follows you and your brain around.

25
Q

What is parallelism.

A

Mind and brain don’t interact, but do co-exist mysteriously.

26
Q

What is eiphenomenalism?

A

Mind is separate (not physical ie. all dualism) BUT results FROM physical activity. A byproduct of brain activity.

27
Q

Problems with dualism?

A
  1. If mind is not physical, how can we study it or ask meaningful questions?
  2. If mind and brain interact, HOW? It is a paradox.
28
Q

What is monism?

A

Proposes mind and brain are the same thing.

29
Q

What are the forms of monoism?

A
  • Materialism (realism),
  • Identity position,
  • Mentalism (idealism)
30
Q

What is materialism?

A

Mind can be explained entirely on basis of physical laws that govern brains interaction with environment. Mind is a description of the brain in action. No longer a noun, but a verb.

31
Q

What is identity position?

A

Mental events and brain events are just different levels of description of the same thing. For every unique mental event we have, there is a corresponding brain activity.

32
Q

What is mentalism?

A

the MOST radical: All things (including brain) are JUST mental events (all mind stuff).

33
Q

Has anyone come up with a good explanation for consciousness?

A

No.

34
Q

Anterior. Front or back of brain?

A

Front.

35
Q

Posterior. Front or back of brain?

A

Back.

36
Q

What kind of property do we regard consciousness as?

A

A fundamental property; one that cannot be reduced to something else.

37
Q

What is a “dorsal view” of the brain?

A

From the top.

38
Q

What is a “ventral view” of the brain?

A

From the bottom.

39
Q

What two different kinds of cells occupy the brain?

A

Neurons and glia.

40
Q

What do neurons do?

A

Convey messages to one-another, muscles and glands, and vary in size and shape.

41
Q

What do glia do?

A

Many things, but do not carry messages over long distances.

42
Q

What is monism?

A

The idea that the universe consists of only one type of being.

43
Q

What is dualism?

A

The idea that minds are one type of substance and matter is another.

44
Q

What are the four biological explanations of behaviour?

A

physiological, ontogenetic, evolutionary and functional.

45
Q

What does a physiological explanation refer to?

A

Activity of the brain or other organs (eg. chemical reactions or hormones).

46
Q

What does an ontogenetic explanation refer to?

A

How a structure or behaviour DEVELOPS, including the influences of genes, nutrition, experiences and their interactions.

47
Q

What does an evolutionary explanation refer to?

A

A reconstruction of the evolutionary history of a structure or behaviour. The characteristic features of an animal are almost always modifications of something found in ancestral species.

48
Q

What does a functional explanation refer to?

A

It describes WHY a structure or behaviour evolved the way it did.