Psyc 362Class Notes for Exam 1--Chapter 1/introduction1/27/15-Reasons why we study the brain and nervous system:● Everything we do, perceive,and experience is possible because the brain gathers information from interactions between the external and internal world and mind/process of thinking. ○ Humans have a tendency to be non-accepting of what’s around us as well as changing the environment. It seems the brain allows for this.○ With our brains, we have been able to develop many skills,resulting in beautiful and skillful creations (art, architecture, the ability to go to space…)● The Brain is very complex and is far from being entirely understood. To some extent, the human brain makes us different from the rest of the animal kingdom, however, the relationship between brain and behavior is very similar to other species-The Ultimate function of the brain is to move/change-Behavioral Neuroscience: the study of physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience. ● The goal is to describe the physical mechanisms of the body that allow for our mental activities and movements.● Purely behavioral acts of social interaction can be studied at different levels of analysis.○ we look at and try to understand how such an event either originated in the brain or is influencing the brain. ● Want to be capable of describing and explaining what occurs. The goal is to understand why we act the way we do, why were are different from each other, why some of us growup to be one thing and others another thing. We use the knowledge of the brain to try and understand behavior-The relationship between the mind and body is a big issue in Beh. Neuro.. One explanation is dualism, the idea that the mind and body are interacting, but separate entities; in this case the body is physical, but the mind is not. Another perspective is monism, the idea that the mind is aproperty belonging to the physical nervous system/body; this was based on the idea that everything in the universe consists of matter and energy so the mind must be a result of the working nervous system.. -Consciousness: by means of the usage of language, is self-awareness and the ability to communicate one’s thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and memories. ● Physiological approach to human consciousness holds the view that consciousness can be affected by drugs, by brain trauma, and illness, thus consciousness is a physiological function, just like other forms of behavior. (includes perception, motivation, emotions, memory, motor control)● Can vary across day/night cycle (from sleep and dreaming come special states of consciousness) or from alteration by drugs and other substances. ● Blindsight: damage to the visual system on one side of the brain that produces blindness in the opposite side. Patients are unable to see but able to reach for objects placed in their blind visual field. This implies that its not necessary to be conscious of a stimulus in order to act on that stimulus.○ See photo: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Blindsight%20primitive%20visual%20system&qs=n&form=QBIR&pq=blindsight%20primitive%20visual%20system&sc=0-0&sp=-1&sk=&id=6541ACB6F19363AFF4A689F1710F71BCBFA6117A&selectedIndex=0#view=detail&id=6541ACB6F19363AFF4A689F1710F71BCBFA6117A&selectedIndex=0-Split-brain procedure: Since behavior has multiple bases of appearance, there are many aspects behind behavior; therefore, there are regions or structures or pathways in the brain that may mediate. This includes the corpus callosum, a bundle of axons that interconnect the 2 cerebral hemispheres. In this procedure, ● Shows that systems in the brain that are prominent for language may also be involved inconsciousness● Callotomy uses a cerebral retractor to perform the split brain procedure in which the corpus collosum is cut to alleviate epileptic seizures. This helps prevent future seizures from spreading from one hemisphere to the other. ○ The result is an inability of the left and right brain to communicate directly. Because the language and verbal center is located on the left hemisphere, callatomy patients that process information that doesn’t reach the left hemispheredoesn’t enter the consciousness and the person can’t verbalize. \● Testing ex: olfactory stimulus presented to the right side and patient asked to say what they experienced but couldn’t verbalize having any stimuli experience. The right side experienced stimuli, but cannot verbalize due to not being able to communicate to the left brain the information proceed. That information remains in the unconsciousness, however, when asked to grab with their left hand what they think the smell could’ve been, they are often capable of correctly choosing the stimuli