PSYCHOLOGY 260 1: BEHAVIORAL NEUROSCIENCE Jane Adams, Ph'D'

1

• Wed Jan 25
• How do behavioral neuroscientists study the
  relationships between the structures of the
  nervous system and the behaviors they mediate?
• somatic intervention - alter neuroanatomy or
  neurophysiology and measure the change in
  behavior
• behavioral intervention - alter behavior and
  then measure changes in neuroanatomy or
  neurophysiology
• correlation - relate existing physical
  characteristics to behavioral characteristics
  (neuroanatomy genetics neurochemistry)

2

• 5 Viewpoints that Aid Understanding in
  Behavioral Neuroscience
• Use of behavioral descriptions
• Use of biological descriptions
• Use of evolutionary explanations
• Use of understanding of developmental changes in
  nervous system and behavior
• Use of knowledge applied to improving the health
  and well-being of humans and other animals

3

• History of Approaches/Questions
• Where does knowledge come from?
• Nativism body, soul, knowledge come from God
• from B.C. to 1500s
• illness or strangeness due to evil spirits
• treatments focused on driving out the evil
  spirits
• spells, potions, incantations
• drill into skull to release demons
• use electric fish to shock out evil

4

• 2. Do body and soul interact?
• Descartes - French scientist - 1600s
• Suggested that body and soul are 2 separate
  things - one physical, one spiritual.
• Dualism the physical body and spiritual soul
  are 2 separate things
• Descartes suggested that they communicate in
  brain area
• Still believed that all knowledge came from god
  - Nativism
• Put focus on the brain as the most important
  organ for behavior

5

• 3. Then where does knowledge come from? Not God?
• John Locke - late 1600s - 1700s
• Suggested that all knowledge comes from
  experience
• Empiricism mind is a blank slate at birth (tabula
  rasa) and all
  
  knowledge comes from experience
• directed attention to brain and how it works

6

• 4. How does the brain work and what does it do?
• People in history - 1700s-1900s
• Gall - suggested that certain areas of the brain
  involved in certain behavioral traits.
  Phrenology - not very scientific bumps on skull
  (due to brain size of the part underneath)
  related to personality traits
• Broca - 1st scientific evidence relating brain
  structure to function
• The Case of Tan - man who lost ability to
  speak Broca found tumor in left frontal area of
  brain.
• Brocas area - important for speech

7

• Fechner, Helmholtz, Wundt - 1700s-1800s -
  scientists studying sensation and perception (is
  what I hear and see etc the same as what you hear
  and see?)
• Studied physical stimulation and the
  psychological experience of it
  psychophysics.
• William James - late 1800s argued that
  consciousness is a property of the nervous system
  that should be studied through biology of nervous
  system

8

• People in history - 20th century
• Ebbinghaus, Thorndike, Pavlov - research on
  learning and memory
• Franz and Lashley - location of memory via
  brain lesion studies
• Hebb - learning and memory occur in complex
  networks of brain cells whereby connections are
  strengthened through use