Lecture 1: Introduction & overview Flashcards
What are Tinbergen’s 4 questions to understand behaviour
1 - How does the behaviour increase the animal’s fitness?
2 - How has the behaviour been modified by evolution?
3 - What causes the behaviour to be performed?
4 - How has the behaviour developed during the lifetime of the individual?
What is the general idea of psychobiology?
Studying how brain and cell systems interlink with behaviour, learning and evolution
Who were the first people to try to understand the mind?
Aristotle - thought the mind controlled behaviour but that it was located in the heart.
Hippocrates - Thought the brain and mind were connected to the organs and muscles.
Descartes - Was a ‘dualist’ and agreed that mind and brain were separable, brain and body work like machine and souls are direct brains via the pineal gland.
Patricia Churchland - ‘Materialism’ view where the neurobiology of the brain generated the conscious mind and behaviour.
Evidence that brain underlies behaviour?
- Brain damage changes the mind e.g. through injury like phineas gage
- Disease like Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.
- Evolutionarily preserved behaviour - different brains produce the same responses. e.g. same reaction to certain tastes in different species for sweet and bitter tastes.
- Electrical activity in the brain corresponds with perception.
How can we study brains to link function to a specific area?
1- Studying individuals with brain damage/disease and how it affects their behaviour before and after.
2 - Imaging the human brain through PET scans
3 - MRIs
Describe what a PET scan is
Positron emission tomography
- Inject radioactive tracer and detect radiation. e.g. glucose or beta amyloid
- Binding of tracer molecules - quantify number of endogenous proteins like neurotransmitter receptors, beta amyloid, and brain activity like glucose intake.
- Most radioactive area = more radioactive glucose uptake so more brain/cell activity in that area as glucose is used for energy.
- beta amyloid = peptide that accumulates in Alzheimer’s disease.
Describe an MRI scanner
Magnetic resonance imaging
- can be used for structural or functional purposes
- uses magnetic waves that get through the different tissues in the brain differently
- when an area is more active, new blood constantly flows through it changing the magnetic properties of the are and therefore allowing it to be seen clearly.
- Can be used to see the brain structure as a whole
How is studying animals useeful for human neuroscience?
There are similar behaviours across species specifically mammals like the evolutionary preserved behaviours shown towards sweet and bitter tastes.
This is due to having the same brain areas like the hippocampus, cerebellum, etc. even if different sizes they form the same functions.
We can study their observed learning behaviour, their anatomy (cells, proteins, brain tissue etc.) & Physiology about how specific/individual cells/neurons work through electrophysiology or imaging function with calcium in neurons.
Why can we explore animal’s brains more than humans
We can manipulate their physiology ‘ethically’ as it would be unethical in humans - i.e. manipulate brain activity, study brain structure/function/behaviour.
We can modify lesions/disease model, pharmacology and genetics.
What’s one very important use of animal brain studying for humans
We can find cures of treatments for diseases through modelling the disease in animals and trying different ‘treatments’ and study its effectiveness/animal’s behaviour effect. e.g. some types of alzheimer’s disease found linked to specific genes.
