Lecture 1

Question 1

What does the brain do?

Answer 1

• Thinking
• remembering
• perceiving
• logical reasoning

Question 2

What did Aristotle think about the brain?

Answer 2

• Brains weren’t seen as important for a long time

- he thought the brain was/is an organ of minor importance

Question 3

What did Hippocrates think about the brain?

Answer 3

• He thought the mind and brain were the same thing

Question 4

Who is Rene Descartes and what did he do/suggest?

Answer 4

• A French Philosopher
• thought of the human body as a machine
• the first to suggest a/the link between the mind and the brain
• he said/suggested the soul is seated in the Pineal Gland
• the soul uses the Pineal Gland and fluid pressure in the brain to move the body
• (however it is easy to disprove this)

Suggested the idea of Dualism:
- The body is made up of ordinary matter but the mind isn’t

Also suggested idea of Monism (reductionism):
- Psychology can be reduced to physiology (/reduced to its simplest form)

Question 5

Who is Broca and what did he do/suggest?

Answer 5

• Observation of human brain injuries
• an injury to Broca’s area (which is located in the left hemisphere) = speech aversion - can’t produce speech

Connections of the brain aren’t fixed:

• Always brain plasticity
• always Nature-Nurture