PSYC10003 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Luigi Galvani, Behavioral Neuroscience, Cerebral Cortex
12 Jun 2018
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Lecture 1 - Wednesday 2 March 2016
PSYC10003 - MIND, BRAIN & BEHAVIOUR 1
LECTURE 1 - BEHAVIOURAL NEUROSCIENCE
INTRODUCTION TO BEHAVIOURAL NEUROSCIENCE
•Three main learning objectives:
‣What is behavioural neuroscience?
‣What are the important historical milestones in the development of our understanding of the
link between brain and mind?
‣What methods have been used to determine this link?
•Behavioural neuroscience is the scientific study of the role of the central nervous system in
behaviour; the changes that can occur in psychology and behaviour as a result of changes in the
brain.
‣It combines psychology and neuroscience, and has many allied disciplines:
‣Physiological psychology
‣Psychopharmacology
‣Neuropsychology
‣Psychophysiology
‣Cognitive neuroscience
THE BRAIN
•The brain continuously monitors and regulates almost all internal bodily conditions.
•It is encased in a hard, protective skull, weighs on average 1.5kg, comprises around 3% of our
body weight yet uses 20% of our energy resources.
•In the gap between the brain and the skull is a small gap filled with fluid whose function is to
protect the brain from knocks to the head.
•The brain has 100 billion neurons.
•It influences growth, mood, response/s to stress; everything we think, feel and do.
•Initially, the heart was believed to be the seat of the mind and our understanding of the brain was
limited by religious or morals views, limited research methods and science conservatism.
•In 460 BCE Hippocrates proposed that the brain is the command centre of the body.
•In 130 CE Galen used vivisection to study anatomy and distinguished between sensory and motor
nerves. He believed that spirits were responsible for function.
•1514 CE Andreas Versalius revived dissection and vivisection after the Dark Ages, made the first
careful and detailed drawings of the human brain, and substantially advanced knowledge of brain
structure. However, he failed to advance a new account of function to replace that of the ‘spirits’.
•1596 Descartes suggested that all animals act automatically (reflexes) and proposed that humans
alone possessed a mind that allowed them to perform voluntary, thoughtful, conscious acts.
•1621 Thomas Willis rejected the idea that the mind resides in the ventricles and suggested that
thought is generated by the cerebral cortex (outer tissue of the cerebral hemispheres).
‣Based on his idea on comparative anatomy and on the effects of cortex damage on behaviour,
he believed that the cortex contained animal spirits that were transported via the white matter
(the neurons & neural networks)
•1737 Luigi Galvani rejected the idea of animal spirits flowing through natural holes.
‣He found that an electrical charge applied to a frog’s leg made the muscle contract, and
suggested that nerves must be coated in fat to prevent the electricity from leaking out.
•1758 Franz Joseph Gall, influenced by physiognomy, the art of ascribing particular personality
characteristics to facial features, thought the brain was composed of several distinct ‘organs of
thought’ (or faculties) that were reflected by characteristic patterns of bumps on the skull.
‣He introduced a skull map that could be used to read a person’s character.
‣Bumps on the skull reflect relative development of underlying faculties including
‣Emotiveness
