Psyc 362Exam 1 Ch 1-4Lecture notes 1/2715-2/17/15-The Ultimate function of the brain is to move/change-Behavioral Neuroscience: the study of physiological, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience. -Animism: in ancient times, it was believed that moving objects were controlled by animating spirits.- It was also believed that humans had “spirits/souls” which stem from self-awareness of our existence.- Understanding the human body, especially the nervous system, is the key to unlocking explanations of how we precieve, think , remember, act, and are self aware● The goal of Behavioral Neuroscience is to understand why we act the way we do, why we’re different from each other, why some of us grow up 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.. 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. Monism: the idea that the mind is a property belonging to the physical nervous system/body; 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: refers to humans awareness of, and ability to tell others about, thoughts, perceptions, memories, and feelings by means of the usage of language, (ability to communicate). Can be altered by changes in the structure or chemistry of the brain. it is possible that the evolution of the human ability to communicate verbally is what allows for consiouness!● Physiological approach to human consciousness: consciousness can be affected by drugs, brain trauma, illness, and thus is a physiological function, just like other forms of behavior. (includes perception, motivation, emotions, memory, motor control)● 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.-Split-brain procedure: shows that disconnecting part of the brain (which are involved with perceptions from parts involved with verbal behavior) also disconnect them from consciousness.It is possible that parts of the brain involved in verbal behavior are also involved in consciousness. Corpus callosum is a bundle of axons that interconnect the 2 cerebral hemispheres. In this procedure, it is cut to separate the 2 hemisphere and prevent spread of epileptic seizures. Procedure called Callotomy, uses a cerebral retractor. - The 2 cerebral hemispheres are symmetrical parts of the largest part of the brain that each received sensory info and control movements in accordance with the opposite side of the body (Contralateral).- 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 hemisphere doesn’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 because olfactory information is received ipsilateral. 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 object. Goals of research is to explain the phenomena under study. The explination takes 2 forms:Generalization: explains particular instances of behavior as examples of general laws Reduction: explains complex phenomena in terms of simple ones History and biological roots of physiological psyc.Ancient Greeks believed for a long time that the heart drove the mind-Hippocrates- was the first to recognize that role (of the mind) belonged to the brain.-Aristotle disagreed and thought the brain helped tame the heart, which engine the mind-Galen concluded Aristotle was wrong after dissection research, with his anatomical descriptions of nerves and more, showed that the sensory organs were so far from the heart and so close to the brain. Descartes (during renaissance) supported dualism, saw the world and animals as mechanical, with behaviors controlled by environmental stimuli. Also saw human body as a machine and observed some reflex/involuntary reactions to stimuli which had no participation of the mind. He believed the mind was a “uniquely human attribute that is not a subject to the laws of the universe”. ● He was the first to suggest a connection between the mind and its physical housing, the brain, such that the sense organs of the body supply the mind with info about what’s happening in the environment, and the mind uses this info to control the body.● He proposed the idea that the mind interacted with the physical body through the pineal body with its control of hydraulic pressure within the brain. (WRONG as proved by↓)Galuani- using electrical simulations that caused muscle contractions● Muller, doctrine of specific nerve energy/Localization of function-believed specific nerves carry messages from different sensations. Said that, although all neurons carry the same message (electrical impulse), we precieve the messages of different neurons in different waves since the messages occur in different channels. Also said the brain must be functionally divided since it receives sensory information from different parts of the body.Flourens used ablation (the removal of discrete brain areas from animals) and observed their behavior. What the animals could no longer do indicated the function of the specific part. The problem is that you never know if the effect is due to one piece of the whole system. Broca and cortical location of function: observed stroke patient with brain damage (paralyzedon the right side of his body), Tan, who progressively lost control of left and showed majorspeech deficiet (aphasia) following a stroke. He also looked at cancer cells and saw they were capable of spreading across brain ■ His autopsy of Tans brain noted damage to the left hemisphere. The location, Broca’s area, is important for the production of speech.Fitsch and