1. Exploring the brain - Lecture notes 1 PDF

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Summary

How can we understand why we do stufTinbergen's 4 questions: 1963o How does the behaviour increase the animal’s fitness? o How has it been modified by evolution? o What causes the behaviour to happen? o How has it developed during its lifetime?Development of concept of the mindMind = soulAristotle:S...

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How can we understand why we do stuf Tinbergen's 4 questions: 1963 o How does the behaviour increase the animal’s fitness? o How has it been modified by evolution? o What causes the behaviour to happen? o How has it developed during its lifetime?

Development of concept of the mind Mind = soul

Aristotle: Said the mind controls behaviour but not to do with the brain - soul

Descartes

Introduced dualism where the body is separate from the mind -

mind is non-material (does not follow law of physics)

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Materialism

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is when brain controls behaviour, = -

The mind is an epiphenomenon (generated by the brain)

Evidence that brain underlies behavior Phineas gage -

Evidence that brain causes behaviour

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Drive to move occurs in the brain before you are conscious of it -

shows brain explains our behaviour

Alzheimer's disease -

Loss of cells

Things in psychology can be explained from both biology and psychology

Methods of exploring the brain Neuropsychology Looking at specific brain damage to a particular brain region in case studies to find out the type of functioning that is missing in these patients. -

Eg. Patient HM lost hippocampus and developed global amnesia, suggesting that the hippocampus was involved in episodic memory -

HM (localisation due to brain liaison in the medial temporal lobes)

PET imaging (petron emission tomography) -

Insert radioactive tracer in blood stream and detect the radiation

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The binding of the tracer -> quantifies how many endogenous proteins there are and their function.

Glucose -

Our brains use a lot of glucose -> if we put in radioactive glucose, we can see how the brain activity looks

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Can quantify how much lower a person’s brain activity is compared to a healthy person’s.

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) Structural A scan of the brain’s anatomy -

You can see into the shape of the brain (if one part looks bigger etc)

Functional (FMRI) Which parts of the brain are active through the changes in blood oxygenation across the brain to measure neuronal activity. -

It measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow

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Finds where theres an increase in blood flow => where the brain is active

Animal testing We can see many parallels between animals and humans (our brains are similar)

We can manipulate brain activity and study brain structure, function and behavior. -

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Ethology -

Looking at the animal in its natural environment

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eg : Darwinism

Behaviorism -

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Animal behavior in a lab setting

Physiology -

Learned behavior (pavlov’s dogs)

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Neuroanatomy

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Neurophysiology

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How single neurons respond How the brain responds

Recording brain activity from brain tissue or animals -

Anatomy

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Electrophysiology

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Imaging

Manipulating brain activity Using animals gives us the ability to manipulate brain activity and record the activity -

Electrophysiology

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Genetic changes

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allowing us to directly record from individual neurons by inserting an electrode into the brains of animals) or imaging techniques.

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Can put in a protein inside the brain that is activated by light and bind it to just the hippocampus

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Transgenic animals (animals with genes from other animals inserted into their DNA) specific interventions to change the function of a protein/cell etc.

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Pharmacology

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Lesions/disease model...