Untitled Flashcards Set

Course Outline

1. First Day Notes

• Structure → Anatomy

• Function → Physiology

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Function of the Nervous System

• Perception

• Integration

• Control of Movements

• Memory

Also connected to the conscious 

• Listening

• Hearing

• Conscious about the things that are happening in the environment 

• Movement: Mostly voluntary

Conscious and Unconscious Behavior 

Unconscious - breathing, digesting, circulating

• Connected to the autonomic nervous system

Conscious

• Connected to the somatic nervous system

When talking about the nervous system, think about how it affects all the parts of the body.

• The basic structure of the nervous system is the neuron

• Neurogenesis: The process by which new neurons are formed in the brain

• Neuroplasticity: The ability of the brain to change and compensate in cases of damage

  • Can happen when there’s damage to the brain

  • Learning new skills

• For the brain to work, you stimulate the brain → “the more you connect with each other, the faster the information is transmitted”

  • In stroke, when there are “scars” or dead neurons, the remaining neurons try to find new pathways to regrow and connect to other neurons; neuroplasticity

• You have to create new connections to the neighboring neurons 

• Because of aging, as you grow older, your neurons make more connections

• The billions of neurons are already there, they just make more connections 

  • The important thing is that they make more connections 

• Action Potential - basic message in the neurons 

• Goal of Nervous system→transfer the message

• Early on, the neurons try to make more connections.

• A patient who suffers a stroke, the way to stimulate the brain is physical therapy and occupational therapy.

• Neuroplasticity pushes the brain to do so many things.

1. Foundations of Behavioral Neuroscience

Behavioral neuroscience was formerly known as Physiological Psychology 

The Goals of Research

Scientific explanation takes two forms:

• Generalization - refers to explanations as examples of general laws, which are revealed through experiments

  • Ex. Behavioral observations that show mice builds nest under two conditions: Low temperature and pregnant

• Reduction - refers to explanations of complex phenomena in terms of simpler ones 

  • Ex. Physiological effects on the mice that causes them to build nests (i.e. temperature and hormones)

• In practice the research efforts of both neuroscientists involve both forms of explanation: generalization and reduction

• Physiological Mechanisms tells us about physiological processes such as language, memory or mood. For example, damage to a particular part of the brain can cause someone to have a disability

  • Ex. If the left hemisphere is damaged=speech is affected

Roots of Behavioral Neuroscience

Contributions from the Ancient World

• Papyrus 1700 BCE - oldest surviving descriptions of the brain, cerebrospinal fluid, meninges, and skull.

• Hippocrates (460-370 BCE) - concluded that thought and emotions are assigned to the brain.

• Aristotle - thought the brain served to cool the passions of the heart, which the heart controls emotions and thoughts.

Contributions from Philosophy: Mind-Body Question

• Animism - belief that there are spirits in objects, what older people focused studies on.

  • We move because of spirits.

• Dualism - is a belief in the dual nature of reality, which means that mind and body are separate.

  • Body; ordinary matter

  • Mind; not ordinary matter

• Monism - is a belief that everything in the universe consists of matter and energy and that the mind is a phenomenon produced by the workings of the nervous system.

• René Descartes (1596–1650) - animals were mechanical devices where behavior was controlled by environmental stimuli

  • Some movements were automatic and involuntary; a person touched a hot object, and the hand would immediately withdraw. He calls these actions reflexes.

  • There is an acknowledgement that there is a mind, but it’s not integrated there is just a link

  • Descartes was a dualist, he believed the mind controlled the movements of the body, while the body provided information; interaction of Mind and Body happened in the pineal body

  • He believed the brain used pressurized fluid to control behavior

    • This was disproved by biologists

Contributions from Physiology: Electrical Communication in the Nervous System 

• Luigi Galvani (1737–1798) - Italian physiologist, found that electrically stimulating a frog’s nerve contracted the muscle to which it was attached

  • Discovered that nerves convey messages and one of the founders of action potential. 

• Johannes Müller (1801–1858) - German physiologist that applied experimental techniques to physiology

  • Experimentally removing or isolating animals’ organs, testing their responses to various chemicals, and otherwise altering the environment to see how the organs responded.

  • Discovered doctrine of specific nerve energies - although all nerves carry the same basic message (electrical impulse) we perceive it in different ways.

    • Optic nerves produce sensation of visual images 

    • Auditory nerves produce sensation of sounds

  • Because the brain receives messages from different nerves, the brain must be functionally divided

• Gustav Fritsch (1838– 1927) and Eduard Hitzig (1838–1907) - used electrical stimulation as a tool for understanding the physiology of the brain

  • They found that stimulating different portions of a specific region of the brain caused specific muscles to contract on the opposite side of the body.

    • We now refer to this region as Primary motor cortex; speech part controls the muscles of the lips, tongue, and throat

• Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894) - was the first scientist to attempt to measure the speed of conduction through nerves

  • Neural conduction was slower than wires–27.4 meters per second

  • Chemical communication

  • Color theory 

  • Invented the ophthalmoscope 

Contributions from Anatomy: Structure of the Nervous System 

• Pierre Flourens (1794–1867) - French researcher that removed various parts of animals’ brains and observed their behavior. 

  • Experimental ablation - Seeing what the animal could no longer do, he could already infer the function of the missing portion of the brain.

    • Ex. Charles Xavier got hit in the back with a bullet so he lost sensation in his legs.

  • Hypothalamus - keep your body in a stable state called homeostasis.

• Paul Broca (1824–1880) - French surgeon that applied experimental ablation to the human brain

  • He did not intentionally remove human brain parts; he observed patients with strokes

  • Observations led him to conclude that a portion of the cerebral cortex on the front part of the left side of the brain performs function that are necessary for speech

    • Known as Broca’s area

• Jan Purkinje (1787–1869) - Czech physiologist that studied both the central and peripheral nervous system

  • Discovered Purkinje fibers–neurons terminating on cardiac cells responsible for controlling contractions of the heart.

• Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) - used Golgi staining technique to examine individual neurons of the brain

  • His drawings of neurons from the brain, spinal cord, and retina depicted detailed structures of these cells for the first time. He then proposed that the nervous system consisted of billions of discrete, individual neurons.

  • Synapse connection - they are not connected physically but they are connected with the synapse.

Contemporary Research Contributions

• The field of epigenetics focuses on the role of the environment in the expression of genes

2. Natural Selection and Evolutions

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - formulated the principles of natural selection and the theory of evolution, which revolutionized biology at the time and continues to shape the field of behavioral neuroscience

Functionalism and the Inheritance of Traits

• Darwin’s theory emphasizes that all of an organism’s characteristics–its structure, its coloration, its behavior–have functional significance

  • Ex. Strong talons and sharp beaks of eagles help them to catch and eat prey

• Functionalism - the principle that characteristics of living organisms perform useful functions.

• Adaptations also occur in brain structures 

  • Ex. songbirds have highly developed brain structures that allow them to produce songs in response to social and environmental stimuli

• Natural Selection -theory of evolution to explain the means by which species acquired their adaptive characteristics

  • If an individual’s characteristics permit it to reproduce more successfully, some of the offspring will inherit the favorable characteristics.

• Mutations - accidental changes in the chromosomes of sperm or eggs that join together and develop into new organisms

  • Ex. random mutation of a chromosome in a cell of an animal’s testis or ovary

• Selective advantage - mutations that are beneficial to the organism that possess them

  • An individual with selective advantage is more likely than other members of its species to live long enough to reproduce

  • Examples of selective advantage:

    • Resistance to a disease

    • Ability to digest new food

    • Attractive appearance to potential mates

  • Effects of these physical alterations can be seen in animal’s behavior

    • Ex. Changes in small animal’s brain causes it to freeze when it perceives a nearby movement

Note: Variety is a definite advantage for a species

• When the environment changes, species must adapt or run the risk of extinction

Evolution of Human Brains

• Evolution - is a gradual change in the structure and physiology of a species as a result of natural selection

  • Examples:

    • Color vision - ability to discriminate ripe fruit from green leaves

Evolution of Humans

• hominids (humanlike apes) - appeared in Africa. They appeared in drier woodlands and in the savanna 

• Homo erectus (“upright man”) - the first hominid to leave Africa that scattered across Europe and Asia.

• Homo neanderthals - one branch of homo erectus, and neanderthals resembled modern humans 

• Homo sapiens - evolved in East Africa around 100,000 years ago.

Our evolutionary process did not have to produce a brain that consisted solely of specialized circuits of neurons that perform specialized tasks. Instead, it produced a primate brain with an abundance of neural circuits that could be modified by experience.

By large, the primate brain is more similar to a general purpose, programmable computer.

Intellectual ability - attributed to having a brain with plenty of neurons that are available for behavior

Findings from the Human Brain

• Primate brains contain more neurons per gram than rodent brains

• After birth the brain continues to grow

• Production of new neurons almost ceases

• Those already present grow and establish new connections with each other

• Neoteny - prolongation of maturation, roughly translated as “extended youth”

3. Ethical Issues in Research with Humans and Other Animals

Research with Animals

Humane Treatments

• Maintaining laboratory animals in good health in comfortable, sanitary conditions

• Administer anesthetics and analgesics so that animals do not suffer during or after

• Prevent infections with proper surgical procedures and the use of antibiotics

It is difficult to say whether an experiment is worthwhile

Pet ownership has the potential to cause much more suffering among animals than scientific research does. 

Thus in scientific research we are required to:

1. Receive permission from board of experts

2. Subject themselves to periodic inspections to be sure that home is clean and sanitary

3. Insure pets have enough space to exercise properly

4. Insure pets have appropriate diets

We cannot make progress without using animals for research and for training future researchers

• We also can no longer extract hormones used to treat human diseases

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) - composed of a veterinarian, scientists who work with animals, non-scientist members, and community members not affiliated with the institution

• This group also reviews all proposals for research involving animals, with the intent of ensuring humane and ethical treatment of all animals involved

Research with Humans

Informed consent - describes the process in which researchers must inform any potential participant about the nature of the study, how any data will be collected and stored, and what the anticipated benefits and costs of participating will be.

• Protecting the identity of participants is crucial for all research with human participants

Neuroethics - interdisciplinary field devoted to better understanding implications of and developing practices in ethics for neuroscience research with human participants

Neuroethics explored the ethical challenges of neuroscience research by investigating

1. Neuroimaging and brain privacy

2. Dementia, personality, and changed preferences

3. Cognitive enhancement and justice

4. Deep brain stimulation research and the ethically difficult history of psychosurgery

The Institutional Review Board (IRB) - functions similarly to IACUC to ensure ethical treatment of volunteers in research. Composed of scientific experts, laypeople, and members of the community.

4. The Future of Neuroscience: Career and Strategies for Learning

Careers in Neuroscience

• Neuroscientists - concern themselves with all aspects of the nervous system: its anatomy, chemistry, physiology, development, and functioning

• Behavioral neuroscientists - study all behavioral phenomena that can be observed in humans and animals, and they attempt to understand the role of the nervous system, interacting with the rest of the body

• Other terms for Physiological Psychology

  • Biological psychology

  • Biopsychology

  • Psychobiology

  • Behavioral neuroscience

Two fields that often overlap with behavioral neuroscience

1. Neurology (Neurologist)

   1. Physicians who diagnose and treat diseases of the nervous system

2. Cognitive neuroscience (Cognitive neuroscientists)

   1. Researchers with a PhD and specialized training in the principles and procedures of neurology