Task 8 Flashcards
The Brain (19 cards)
Ancient Egyptians
- Edwin Smith papyrus
- brought up papyrus from Ancient Egypt
- illustrates how physicians treating wounded soldiers quiete early became convinced of importance of the head/brain in controlling behavior
Ancient Greece:
- Plato
- Aristotle
- Galen
- Plato: cerebrocentric view
- soul devided in 3 parts:
(1) highest part: reasoning —> brain
(2) second part: sensation and mortality —> heart
(3) lower part: appetite —> liver
- soul devided in 3 parts:
- Aristotle: cardiocentric view
- heart as seat of soul
- brain counterbalances heat of heart
- Galen:
- brain communicates with rest of body
- sould lives in solid parts, produced ans stored animal spirits in the aperture of the middle of the brain (ventricles as most important part of brain)
Renaissance
- Vesalius and peers
- followed Galen’s belief
- Ventricles:
(1) front ventricle: receives information from senses —> “common sense”
(2) second ventricle (middle of head): thought and judgement
(3) third ventricle (back of head): memory
17th and 18th centuries
- focus on brain itself
- distinction in cerebral hemispheres (grey and white matter)
- growing interest in reflex
- Descartes: intrested in reflexive movements —> fit with mechanistic view of the body
5 Breakthroughs of 19th century
—> 1
= understanding that the spinal cord was an integral part of the CNS and was involved in the control of many bodily functions
5 Breakthroughs of 19th century
—> 2
= discovery that many processes in the CNS were reflexes that did not need voluntary initiation; question to what extent higher cognitive functions could be considered as reflexes as well
- Marshall Hall —> notion of reflex arc
- discovery of afferent and efferent nerves
5 Breakthroughs of 19th century
—> 3
= intense discussions between proponents of brain equipotentiality ( = brain functions as a whole with all parts having an equal significance; Marie Flourens; Johannes Müller) and brain localization ( = mental functions are localized in specific parts of the brain; Franz Joseph Gall; Johann Spurzheim)
- Paul Broca
- Karl Wernicke
5 Breakthroughs of 19th century
—> 4
= discovery that the brian consisted of a network of individual neurons that communicated with each other
- good microscopes and techniques to stain neurons required
- grey and white matter
- Camillo Golgi —> silver to color brain tissue
5 Breakthroughs of 19th century
—> 5
= discovery that neurons store and transfer information by means of electro-chemical signals
- Santiago Ramón y Cajal —> network of neurons
- Luigi Galvani —> evidence for involvement of electricity in the nervous system
- Emil du Bois-Raymond —> enough headway to firmly establish that nerve signals indeed involved electricity
- von Helmholtz —> measure speed of transmission in the nerve
- neurotransmitters
Emergence of Neuropsychology in the 20th century
- localization studies in the World Wars
- examination of bulet wounds
- start of neuropsychology
- neuropsychologists —> research and treatment of consequences of brain damage
- cognitive neuropsychology
- contrive psychologists —> 1970s and 1980s; study implications of brain damage for information-processing models
Brain Imaging and Turn to Neuroscience
- Single-cell recording: individual neuron; but: invasive
- EEG: Hans Berger; alpha and beta waves; summed electrical activity of groups; non-invasive
- ERP studies: responding to changes
- MEG: electical activity; added localization
- PET: which brain areas require extra blood
- fMRI: localize activity on basis of oxygen use
- TMS: interfere briefly with activity of small region of grey matter
—> cognitive neuroscience: measure brain activity while participants are performing mental tasks
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry
= states that symptoms of mental disorders (such as delusions) can be understood as the result of errors in the cognitive information-processing model that accounts for normal psychological functioning
Cognitive Neuropsychiatry
- Capgras delusion
= situation in which a person still recognizes close relatives, but is convinced that they have been replaced by look-alikes
- Freudian interpretation: conflicting feelings towards relatives
- cognitive neuropsychiatry: condition results from blocked information transfer in an unconscious, emotion-related processing route that under normal circumstances elicits an emotional response each time we encounter a familiar person; as a result: relatives feel strange, even though we recognize them
- emotion-related processing route
Historical Perspective on Cogntive Neuroscience
- Antiquity Through the 18th century
—> mind-body problem was poorly understood; focus on ventricles
Historical Perspective on Cogntive Neuroscience
- Localism/Holism Debate of 19th century
—> equipotentially theory
Historical Perspective on Cogntive Neuroscience
- After 1861: Emergence of Modern Neuropsychology
—> animal experiments; started mapping functions of the brain
Historical Perspective on Cogntive Neuroscience
- Rise of Experimental Neuropsychology
—> 1960s and 1970s: different approach to brain-behavior relations —> design experiments patterned on research methods in experimental psychology
Historical Perspective on Cogntive Neuroscience
- Cognitive Neuroscience
—> methods of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology finally combined
Arthur Ladbroke Wigan —> The Duality of Mind, 1844
—> The Duality of Mind: 1844
- stated that humans have two separate brains —> now understood as distinction between consciousness and the unconscious
- corpus callosum as division rather than a link
- dedicated to Sir Henry Holland —> never showed feeling honored
- theory went unnoticed
