Chapter 1 - Intro to Brain and Behaviour

Question 1

What different actions are encompassed in behaviour?

Answer 1

• Intellect, emotions, consciousness

Question 2

What is found within the CNS?

Answer 2

• Brain, spinal cord, and retina (starts as an out-pocketing of the diencephalon in uterus)
• All enclosed by bone

Question 3

What is found within the PNS?

Answer 3

• Nerves that carry signals in and out of CNS
• Ex. spinal nerves, cranial nerves

Question 4

What are glial cells?

Answer 4

• Non-neuronal cells that support the function of neurons
• Ex. nutritional support, immune function, regulation or neuronal signalling
• About 85 billion

Question 5

Innate vs. Learned behaviour?

Answer 5

• Innate - Inherited (genetically encoded), no experience needed to perform, very fixed
• Learned - Required experience (more complicated behaviours), dependent upon brain plasticity

Question 6

What’s mentalism?

Answer 6

• Explaining behaviour using the non-material mind
• Developed by Aristotle
• Human intellect is produced by the psyche-mind
• This concept marked the beginning of modern psychology
• Believed that the brain strictly cooled the blood (there are a lot of blood vessels)

Question 7

What’s dualism?

Answer 7

• Explaining behaviour by both a non-material mind and a material body
• Developed by Descartes
• Mind-body problem - Descartes believed that the mind resides in the pineal gland, where it dictates the flow of fluid through the ventricles and into the muscles to move the body

Question 8

What’s materialism?

Answer 8

• Explaining behaviour by the function of the nervous system with no recourse to the mind
• Developed by Darwin and Wallace
• Along with the theory of evolution explaining the unity and diversity of life

Question 9

What’s the main mechanism for evolution?

Answer 9

• Natural selection
• Descent with modification = evolution

Question 10

What are three important things to remember about evolution?

Answer 10

1) Only populations can evolve
2) Natural selection acts only on heritable traits
3) Evolution is not goal-directed

Question 11

T/F: Evolution explains the origin of life

Answer 11

• FALSE
• Evolution explains how we evolved from one common ancestor
• Natural selection can only act on existing characteristics

Question 12

Why are Mendelian genetics relevant to Darwin’s theory of evolution when discussing brain and behaviour?

Answer 12

• Genes that produce the nervous system in different animal species tend to be very similar (highly conserved) in other animal species

Question 13

What are epigenetics?

Answer 13

• Differences in gene expression related to environment and experience
• ‘Epi’, greek for beyond
• Chemical markers in gene expression that increase or decrease areas of gene expression where DNA strands are wrapped around histones

Question 14

What are the foundations of materialistic neuroscience?

Answer 14

• Natural selection
• Genetic inheritance
• Epigenetics

Question 15

What’s the general time line for brain and behaviour evolution?

Answer 15

• Earth formed > first lifeform > first brain cells evolved > first brain evolved > humanlike brain evolved
• Modern human brain has been around for about 200 000 years

Question 16

What’s the classification order for taxonomy?

Answer 16

• Broadest to most specific: Domain > Kingdom > Phylum > Class > Order > Family > Genus > Species

Question 17

How do you name an animal using standard taxonomy?

Answer 17

• Genus species (italicized)

Question 18

What are the three domains?

Answer 18

• Bacteria and Archaea (prokaryotic; no nucleus)
• Eukarya (nucleus)

Question 19

What is the purpose of cladograms?

Answer 19

• To depict phylogeny (evolutionary descent of species)

Question 20

What was the general phyla evolution of the brain?

Answer 20

1. Nerve net - no brain, simple NS (jellyfish)
2. Segmented nerve trunk - bilaterally symmetrical organization (flatworm)
3. Ganglia - structures that resemble/function kind of like a brain (squid)
4. Brain - true brain and spinal cord

Question 21

T/F: Of all chordates, humans have the largest brain relative to body size

Answer 21

• TRUE

Question 22

Who’s the most recent common primate ancestor?

Answer 22

• Hominin ancestor
• Walked upright

Question 23

What are some common facts regarding the hominin ancestor?

Answer 23

• Brain 1/3 size of humans
• Around 1 meter tall
• Originated in South Africa

Question 24

What primate ancestors proceeded hominins?

Answer 24

• H. habilis (first animal designated as genus homo, referred to as handy human)
• H. erectus (upright humans, first to spread beyond Africa)
• H. sapiens (appeared around 200 000 years ago and co-existed with the Neanderthals)

Question 25

What’s the encephalization quotient?

Answer 25

• Developed by Harry Jerison in 1973
• Quantitative measures of brain size obtained from the ratio of actual brain size to expected brain size

Question 26

What’s the difference between a theory and a natural law?

Answer 26

• Theory - a widely accepted explanation that is continuously supported
• Natural law - events in nature that occur the same way, every time (more substantial)