1.1 2007PSY

• which mind body problem does biopsych take

  monistic perspective
• Anchient world psychologists

  -Aristotle (Heart seats emotions and cognition)

  -Hippocrates (Behaviour originates in the brain)

  -Galen (Head injuries of gladiators, father of modern medicine)
• Seventeeth-centry psychologists

  -Descartes (Studied action reflexes and proposed pineal gland theory)

  -Galvani (tested mind-body interactions via frog electrocution)
• Ninteenth-centry psychologist

  -Muller (Proposed doctrine of specific nerve energies)

  -Florens (studied behaviour after removing sections of animal's brains)

  -Broca (Behviour changes in humans after stroke)

  -Cajal (Golgi staning)
• Biological psychology


  Combines the methods of psychology, biology, physiology, chemistry and computer science to try and explain the relationship between the brain and behaviour
• Another name for biological psychology

  behavioural neuroscience
• Main goal of biopsychology

  To understand the biological processes underlying behaviour and brain
• Generalisation


  Conclusion based on many observations of similar phenomena.
• Reduction


  Breaking down complex phenomena into their most basic parts
• Mind-Body Problem (monism)


  -The mind and body are manifestations of a single substance

  -The belief that the world consists only of matter and energy and that the mind is a phenomenon produced by the workings of the nervous system.
• Mind/body problem (dualism)


  -The mind and body are seperate

  -The belief that it is a non-physical, spiritual entity and the body was a physical and fleshy structure.
• Who believed that the heart controlled thoughts and emotions

  Ancient egypt
• the bible references what as the seats of passion, courage and pity


  Liver for passion, stomach for courage and bowels for pity
• Aristotle


  Mental capacities are located in the heart. The brain cools the passions of the heart
• Hippocrates


  Not only our pleasure, but also our sorrow comes from the brain
• Galen

  • Father of Modern Medicine
  • Noticed head injuries of gladiators lead to behavioural changes
  • Dissected the brains of sheep, cattle, pigs and apes. Found that all nerves were connected to the brain
  • brain is centre of all behaviour
• Descartes


  • The behaviour of animals (and perhaps even humans) worked similarly to that of a machine.
  • studied Reflexes, where we make involuntary movements due to our environment and these reflexes did not require the mind cause they occurred automatically
  • believed in Dualism and mind body interaction, where mind controlled the movements and the body supplied the information about the environment
  • developed the Pineal Gland Theory
• Luigi Galvani


  • Empirically test ideas around mind-body interactions
  • Electrocuting frog nerves stimulated muscle contraction,
  • showed that contractions could occur when not connected to the body, thus disproving Pineal gland theory
• Johannes Müller


  • founder of experimental physiology
  • Proposed doctrine of specific nerve engines
  • each nerve in the body is designed to detect one simple thing. so when particular nerve is activated it will always send the same message to the brain
• Jean Pierre Flourens


  Removed parts of animal brains and observed behaviour
• Paul Broca


  Looked at changes in people after a stroke
• Ramon Santiago y Cajal


  Used Golgi staning to reveal the structure of neurons
• Pineal Gland Theory


  -Thought the pineal gland caused fluid to travel from the brain to an appropriate set of nerves to stimulate movement. Believed that the pineal gland was is humans and not animals

  -Proposed by Descartes
• Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies

  -All nerves send the same electrical impulse, just different parts of the brain get information from different nerve channels. Thus, different parts of the brain serve different functions.

  -all nerves send the same electrical impulse eg optic nerve sends the same signal from the eye to the brain to perceive images as the signals it also sends from the ear to the brain to hear, the difference is in the channels that the signal get's sent to
• Epigenetics


  Studies changes to gene expression induced by environmental factors
• Contemporary research/ modern neruoscience

  Where we have continuously improving methods to explore nuances of brain behaviour interactions:

  -sensitive tools to amplify electrical signals produced by the brain (EEG)

  -Neurochemical techniques to measure changes within and between cells

  -Epigenetics to study changes in gene expression induced by the environment