Transcript Brain Anatomy - Southwest High School

Biological Perspective
Behavior has a physical explanation
Biological Approach
Reductionist Assumptions:
• Behavior can be boiled down to:
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Genetics
Nervous System
Endocrine system (hormones)
Some other organic problem. (Cancer or other
disorder…)
NERVOUS SYTEM!!!! One of the keys to
the biological approach in Psychology.
Brain Research
• Brain scans (MRI
especially) show brain
activity
• Lesions are brain
injuries.
• Lesions often show
behavior changes
Brain Anatomy
• Frontal lobe (pink)
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Original thought
Decision making
Planning
Problem solving
Ability to talk is located
here too! (on the left side)
Phineas
Gage
Gage began to have startling changes in personality in mood. He became
extravagant and anti-social. Also a foulmouthed liar with bad manners. He
could no longer hold a job or plan his future. "Gage was no longer Gage", said
his friends of him. He died in 1861, thirteen years after the accident, penniless
and epileptic, and no autopsy was performed on his brain.
Others
• Egaz Moniz: Won the Nobel Prize for lobotomy
procedure… eww. (needles through the corner of
the eyes to scramble the prefrontal cortex…)
Voice in the field:
• Paul Broca found the ability to talk was
located in the left frontal lobe. He was one of
the first to show LOCALIZATION OF
FUNCTION! (The brain is divided into parts
that have specific tasks like language or vision.)
Broca’s
area
Brain Anatomy
• Temporal lobe (blue)
– Memory, emotion,
hearing, language
– The left temporal lobe
is the area that helps
you understand speech.
Brain stuff you can impress your
friends with:
• Wernicke’s area in the left temporal lobe
helps you understand speech
(understanding the talk!).
Wernicke’s area
Brain Anatomy
• Parietal lobe (yellow)
– Senses and movement
Parietal lobe up close
Paralysis is a condition of parietal
lobe damage
Brain Anatomy
• Occipital lobe (green)
– vision
Occipital lobe processes what the
eye sees. Note cat story…
Art piece called “Struck by Blindness”. Why is this a great
name for this piece?
Are you right brained or left brained?
• Left side of the brain is good at language,
math, analysis, and logic. Operates the right
side of the body…
• Right side of the brain is good at nonverbal
stuff like identifying faces, recognizing
facial expressions, music, and spacial skills.
Operates the left side of the body.
Lets review:
Left frontal lobe?
Talkin’ the talk! The ability to speak…
Left temperal lobe?
Understandin’ the talk! The ability
comprehend the speak…
Left side of the brain?
Math, logic, language, analysis…
Right side of the brain?
Music, spacial skills, ID of face and
expressions…
Other Bio biggies
• Wilder Penfield: took electronic probes and mapped
the cortex of the brain (the big thing we usually think
of as the brain.) He did this so that he could treat
epilepsy by destroying the parts of the brain that were
causing the seizures… He didn’t want to destroy good
tissue, so he would stimulate a section to see what it
was used for.
• Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga: split brain
people (again with the localization of function!)
Lobes of the brain-review
• Occipital lobe: in the back of the brain and it is
the vision center
• Frontal lobe: The front of the brain. This is
what makes you you. This is where you
interpret and control emotions, make decisions
and carry out plans. In the back of the frontal
lobe, you work the voluntary muscles.
• Parietal lobe: behind the frontal lobe.
Somatosensory (senses are here)
• Temporal lobe: ear and below. Hearing
processes. Music/tone,
Vision? Original Thought? Talking?
Hearing/Understanding? Feeling with
your fingers?
Vision = occipital lobe Original thought = frontal lobe
Talking =
frontal lobe
Hearing =
temporal
lobe
Touch of
fingers =
parietal
lobe
Lookin’ at the brain
• PET scans and MRI scans can look at the
brain while the brain is working! (MRI has
more resolution, however.)
• CAT scans are x-rays of the brain.
• EEG’s measure brain wavelengths or the
brain’s electrical activity.
What kind of scan?
PET Scan
fMRI scan of a person and a face
Looking at
a face
Asked to think
about the face
(hippocampus
–memory
thing lights
up!)
Asked to compare a new face to the face shown previously.
Flexing the
hand either
rhythmically or
rhythmically to
a metronome
and going back
and
forth…What
kind of scan?
What kind of image is this?
EEG
Red is ‘high’ activity, blue is ‘low’ activity.
1 and 2 are children without ADD, 3 and 4
have been diagnosed with ADD
It looks like
#4 isn’t
looking at
the object!
Neurons, the cells of the nervous
system
• They send chemical signals to:
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Other neurons
Muscles
Organs
glands
Neurons
• The action of a neuron is electrical, yet the
neuron sends a chemical signal called a
neurotransmitter.
neurotransmitter
Neurotransmitters:
Chemicals that neurons use to
talk to each other!
Neurotransmitter: Acetylcholine
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Works on the voluntary muscles
Also abundant in the brain.
Nicotine reacts with the receptors
that respond to acetylcholine.
Alzheimer’s patients lose neurons
that release Acetylcholine.
Dopamine
• Thought (generally) to control pleasure and
motivation
• Controls movement, so Parkinson’s patients
have benefited from dopamine-type medicines
• Too much dopamine has been linked to
psychosis… limit the dopamine, limit the
psychosis.
• Might regulate hormones through the pituitary
gland.
Serotonin
• Linked to sleep, depression, and anxiety.
• Prozac is a serotonin reuptake
inhibitor. (Not intuitive, but it is thought
that a lack of serotonin is a cause of
depression. If you keep it in the synapse
longer, it is more active.)
– Used to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder
– Used to treat depression.
Nervous System
Divided into:
Central Nervous System
Brain
Spinal Chord
Peripheral Nervous System
Nervous System