Biologische en cognitieve
psychologie
Summary Physiology of Behavior – Carlson
Chapter 1: Introduction
- Scientific explanation takes two forms:
o Generalization: refers to explanations as examples of general laws, which are
revealed through experiments.
o Reduction: refers to explanations of complex phenomena in terms of simpler ones.
- Two different approaches to the mind-body question (which role does the mind play?):
o Dualism: belief in the dual nature of reality; mind and body are separate the body
is made of ordinary matter, but the mind is not.
o Monism: 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.
- Behavioral neuroscientists: study all behavioral phenomena that can be observed in humans
and animals.
o Attempt to understand the physiology of behavior.
- Important discoveries of the past that contributed to today’s field of behavioral
neuroscience:
o Ancient Egyptian, Indian, and Chinese cultures considered the heart to be the seat of
thought and emotions.
Ancient Greeks did to, but Hippocrates concluded that this role should be
assigned to the brain.
Not all ancient Greek scholars agreed with Hippocrates.
Aristotle did not; he thought that the brain served to cool the passions of the
heart.
o Seventeenth century
Descartes: animals were mechanical devices; their behavior was controlled
by environmental stimuli. His view for the human body was much the same:
it was a machine. Some movements of the human body were automatic and
involuntary; they did not require participation of the mind reflexes.
First to suggest that a link exists between the human mind and the
brain.
o He believed that the mind controlled the movements of the
body, while the body, through its sense organs, supplied the
mind with information about what was happening in the
environment.
o Nineteenth century
Johannes Müller: applied experimental techniques to physiology.
Doctrine of specific nerve energies: Müller observed that although
all nerves carry the same basic message – an electrical impulse – we
perceive the messages of different nerves in different ways.
o How? Messages occur in different channels. Because
different parts of the brain receive messages from different
nerves, the brain must be functionally divided.
Pierre Flourens: experimental ablation removing parts of animals’ brains
and observe their behavior. By seeing what the animal could no longer do,
he could infer the function of the missing part.
Paul Broca: applied the principle of experimental ablation to the human
brain.
Observing the behavior of people whose brains had been damaged
by strokes.
Broca’s area; damage results to loss of the ability to speak.
Use of electrical stimulation as a tool for understanding the physiology of the
brain.
o Contemporary research
Developments in experimental physiology included many important
interventions, such as sensitive amplifiers to detect weak electrical signals,
and neurochemical techniques to analyze chemical changes.
Other developments contributed to new brain-based treatments for mental
disorders.
Natural selection and evolution
- Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution emphasized that all of an organism’s
characteristics have functional significance.
o Darwin’s theory gave rise to functionalism – a belief that characteristics of living
organisms perform useful functions.
o Organisms of today are the result of a long series of changes due to genetic
variability.
o Darwin formulated his theory of evolution to explain the means by which species
acquired their adaptive characteristics.
Cornerstone of this theory: principle of natural selection.
Members of a species are not all identical and some of the
differences they exhibit are inherited by their offspring. If an
individual’s characteristics permit it to reproduce more successfully,
some of the individual’s offspring will inherit the favorable
characteristics and will themselves produce more offspring. As a
result, the characteristics will become more prevalent in that
species.
- The process of evolution is a gradual change in the structure and physiology of plant and
animal species as a result of natural selection.
- Verhaaltje over evolueren van de mens; geen zin om dit samen te vatten.
Ethical issues in research with humans and other animals
- Research with animals
o When using animals, we should be sure that what we are doing is both humane and
worthwhile.
o Most industrially developed societies have very strict rules about the care of animals
and require approval of the experimental procedures that are used on them.
o In the United States, any institution that receives federal research funding to use
animals in research is required to have an Institutional Animal Care and Use
Committee.
This group reviews all proposal for research involving animals, with the
intent of ensuring humane and ethical treatment of all animals involved.
o Research with laboratory animals has produced important discoveries about the
possible causes or potential treatments of neurological and mental disorders.
- Research with humans
o Research with human volunteers is essential to advancing our knowledge of the
brain in health and disease.
o The Institutional Review Board functions similarly to the IACUC to ensure ethical
treatment of volunteers in research.
o Research with human participants must also include informed consent and
precautions to protect the identity of the participants.
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.
o An emerging interdisciplinary field, neuroethics, is devoted to better understanding
implications of and developing best practices in ethics for neuroscience research
with human participants.
Chapter 2: Structure and functions of cells of the
nervous system
Cells of the nervous system
Overview of the nervous system
- The nervous system consists of two basic divisions: the central nervous system and the
peripheral nervous system.
o Central nervous system (CNS): the brain and the spinal cord
Communicates with the rest of the body through nerves.
o Peripheral nervous system: nerves and most of the sensory organs
- Nerves: bundles of thousands of individual neurons, wrapped in a tough, protective
membrane.
- Different types of neurons
o Sensory neurons: specialized cells of the PNS that gather information from the
environment.
o Motor neurons: control the contraction of muscles.
o Interneurons: in between sensory and motor neurons and lie entirely in the CNS.
Neurons
- Neuron: the information-processing and information-transmitting element of the nervous
system.
- Regions of a neuron:
o 1) Cell body, or soma; contains the nucleus
o 2) Dendrites;
Look like trees
Function like antennas to receive messages from other neurons.
Receive neural messages that are transmitted across the synapse, a small
space between the terminal buttons of the sending cell and a portion of the
somatic or dendritic membrane of the receiving cell.
Communication proceeds in 1 direction: terminal button
membrane of the other cell
o 3) Axon;
Long, slender tube, often covered by a myelin sheath
Outer surface of the axon carries information from the cell body to the
terminal buttons.
Action potential: the basis message the axon carries
o A brief electrical event that starts at the end of the axon next
to the cell body and travels toward the terminal button.
o 4) Terminal buttons;
Little knobs at the end of an axon
Special function: when an action potential traveling down the axon reaches
them, they secrete a neurotransmitter. This chemical either excites or
inhibits the receiving cell and thus helps to determine whether an action
potential occurs in its axon.
Terminal buttons can from synapses on the membrane of dendrites or the
soma.
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