Physiology of Behavior (11th ed) Carlson

Introduction
Philosophical attempts to explain human behavior

Animism: belief that stones fell from the sky to reunite with mother

earth

Mind-Body Question
- Dualism: mind and body are separate
- Body is matter, mind/soul is not
- Monism: everything is matter and energy
- Mind consists of mechanistic workings of
nervous system

A physiological approach to explain consciousness

Consciousness: aware of our thoughts, perceptions, memories,
feelings
- Can be altered by changes in chemistry and structure, it
is physiological like behavior
- Communication with others and self
- Allows us to think and be aware of own
existence
Blindsight
Ability of one who cannot see objects in blind field to accurately reach
for them while remaining unconscious of perceiving them (textbook
anecdote: grabbing cane)
- Due to damage to mammalian visual system of the
brain
Primitive vs Mammalian visual system
- Primitive: no have connections to consciousness
(eye/head perception to hand movements)
- Mammalian: more evolved behav. mechanisms (speech
and thinking, consciousness)
Conclusion: perceptions do not have to enter consciousness to affect
behavior
- Visual info can control behavior without producing
conscious sensation
- Consciousness is not a general property of all parts of
the brain
Split Brains
Corpus callosum (tough body)
- Connects one hemisphere of brain to the other

Split brain operation: cutting of corpus callosum

- Reduces frequency of epileptic seizures
- Hemispheres are disconnected and operate
independently, no exchange of info
- Left hand has a mind of its own
Cerebral hemispheres: receive sensory info and movements from
opposite sides of the body
- Left controls producing speech, right hemisphere cannot
read
- However, left nostril goes to left brain and vice versa
Unilateral neglect
Ignoring (not conscious of) objects located toward their left and left
sides of objects located anywhere
- Most often caused by damage to right parietal lobe
- Parietal lobe puts together info about
movements and location of our body with locations of objects in
space
Cannot draw or imagine left halves of things
Perception of Self
Rubber hand illusion
- If hidden left hand and visible rubber hand are stroked
synchronously in same direction, artificial hand is experienced as own
(feeling of ownership)
- If asynchronous or different directions, does
not work
- Increased activity in parietal lobe and premotor cortex
(region involved in planning movements)
- Premotor cortex analyzed sight and feeling
of brush strokes

Biological Neuroscience

Goals of Research
- Generalization: making general conclusions based on
observations of similar phenomena
- Reduction: describing a phenomena by using
simpler/more elementary processes that underlie it
History and Philosophy
- Egyptian, Indian, Chinese cultures: thought and emotions
come from heart
- Hippocrates (460-370 BCE): thought and emotions come
from brain
- Aristotle: brain served to cool passions of heart
- Galen (130-200) disagrees: the brain is too
far from the heart
- Descartes (17th cen): the world is mechanistic, including
the animals and the human body

Reflexes do not require participation of the

mind
- Automatic, stereotyped
movement produced as direct result of a stimulus
- First to believe that mind controls the
movements of the body
- Pineal body in brain stem
causes fluid to flow from the brain to nerves
- Animated statues in royal gardens served as
a model for mechanistic behaviors
- mathematical/physical analogy
for physiological process
- Descartes model was able to
be tested and proven wrong
- Galvani (17th cen): found electrical stimulation of frogs
nerves caused muscle contraction
- Johannes Mllers (1801-1858) doctrine of specific
nerve energies
- Because all nerve fibers carry same type of
message, sensory info must be specified by particular nerve
fibers that are active
- because different parts of brain
receive messages from different nerves, brain is
functionally divided
- Pierre Flourens (19th cen): experimental ablation
(Latin ablatus carried away) in animals
- Remove parts of brain to infer the function
of missing portion
- Find out what animals can no
longer perform
- Paul Broca: applied ablation principle by observing
stroke patients
- 1861 performed autopsy on man who cant
speak: Brocas area, left side of brain
- Gustav Fritsch, Eduard Hitzig (1870): used electrical
stimulation in brain (primary motor cortex) to find specific contracting
muscles opposite side of body
- Hermann von Helmholtz (19th cen): measured speed of
conduction through nerves
- 90 feet/sec
- Slower than conduction of
electricity, means that its a physiological phenomenon,
not simple electrical one

Natural Selection and Evolution

Charles Darwin (1809-1882): founded principles of natural selection

and evolution
- Theory of evolution gave rise to functionalism
- The best way to understand a biological
phenomenon (behavior or physiological structure) is to
understand useful functions for the organism
- We cannot say that mechanisms
of organisms have a purpose, but they have functions we
can try to determine
- Moths and butterflies have wings that
resemble owl eyes to scare birds
- Cornerstone of theory of evolution is natural selection
- If individuals characteristics permit it to
reproduce more successfully, some of indiv.s offspring will
inherit the favorable characteristics and will produce more
offspring. As a result, prevalent in that species
- Artificial selection: controlled
by animal breeders
Mutations: change in genetic info contained in chromosomes of
sperm/eggs, which can be passed on to organisms offspring
- Provides genetic variability
- Variety is definite advantage for species
- A small percentage are beneficial and confer a selective
advantage to the organism
- A characteristic that permits it to produce
more than the avg. number of offspring to its species
- Traits altered are physical ones, but effects of these
alterations can be seen in behavior
- Adaptation is critical to non-extinction
Evolution of Human Species
- To evolve (Latin evolvere to unroll): develop gradually
- A gradual change in structure and
physiology of plants/animals, generally producing more
complex organisms as result of natural selection
- First vertebrates emerge from sea (360 mil years ago):
amphibians
- Reptiles appeared next (70 years later)
- Divided into three lines
- Anapsids: ancestors of turtles
- Diapsids: dinos, birds, lizards,
crocs, snakes
- Synapsids: mammals
- Cynodont: direct
ancestor of mammal after mass extinction (220 mil
years ago)
- Hominids: human-like apes
- Appeared in Africa

- Homo erectus species: first to leave Africa

(1.7 mil years ago)
- Homo sapiens species (100,000
years ago) coexisted with neanderthals
- No warlike conflict
between them, but neanderthals disappeared
(perhaps through interbreeding)
Evolution of Large Brains
- Bipedalism (walk on two feet)
- Possible to walk very long with eyes far from
ground
- Allowed for carrying with hands
- All mammals require parental care for period of time
- Evolution produced larger brains with
abundance of neurons
- Not for specialized tasks but
could be modified by experience
- Brain size
- Human brain 2.3% of body weight
- However size of brain not always
proportional to size of body
- Nerve cells available for
learning/reasoning more important
- Neurons: primate brains, especially large ones, contain
more neurons per gram than rodents
- Slowing process of brain development important:
neoteny (rough trans. extended youth)
- Allows more time for growth

Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

Pet owning causes more suffering among animals than scientific
research (Miller 1983)
- Pet owners not required to have permission from experts,
or do routine clean checkups of environment
- Dogs and cats killed 50x more by humane societies due
to abandonment than scientific research

Careers in Neuroscience

Behavioral neuroscientists study physiology of behavior

- Primarily by performing physiological and behavioral
experiments with lab animals
- Allied with other scientists in broader field of
neuroscience

Structure and Functions of Cells of the Nervous

System
Overview of Nervous System

Types of neurons: sensory, motor, interneurons

- Sensory: detects changes in external or internal
environment and sends this info to the CNS (central nervous system)
- Motor: controls the contraction of a muscle or secretion
of a gland
- located within the CNS
- Inter: neurons that lie entirely within the CNS
- Local interneurons: form circuits with
nearby neurons and analyze small pieces of info
- Relay interneurons: connects circuits of
local interneurons in one region of brain with other regions
CNS and PNS
- Central nervous system: the brain and spinal cord
- Peripheral nervous system: part of nervous system
outside brain and spinal cord, including nerves attached to the brain
and spinal cord

Cells of the Nervous System

Neuron (nerve cell): info-processing element of nervous system

- Soma (cell body): contains nucleus and machinery that
provides for life of cell
- Dendrites (Greek: dendron tree): branched, treelike
structure attached to soma
- Receives info from terminal
buttons of other neurons
- Messages that pass from
neuron to neuron transmitted across synapse (Greek:
sunaptein to join together)
- Junction between
terminal button of an axon and membrane of
another neuron
- Communication at
synapse usually proceeds in one direction
- Axon: long thin, cylindrical structure that conveys info
from soma to terminal buttons
- Often covered by myelin sheath
- Basic message it carries is action potential
- Brief electrical/chemical event
from axon to buttons
- Each branch receives a fullstrength action potential

Multipolar, bipolar, unipolar neurons

- Multipolar: neuron with one axon and many dendrites
attached to soma
- The most common in CNS
- Bipolar: neuron with one axon and one dendrite attached
to soma
- Usually sensory, detect events in
environment CNS
- Unipolar: neuron with one axon attached to soma
- Axon divides, with one branch receiving
sensory info and other sending info to CNS
- Most detect touch, temp changes, events in

joints, muscles, internal organs