Biology 1201A Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Muscimol, Excitotoxicity, Aphasia
2 Oct 2016
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Early methods of studying the brain: old study of phrenology thought brain areas were divided into different tasks / characteristics, and this created bumps on the skull. By studying bumps, they thought they could learn about a person. Actually walked away from the accident despite losing brain matter and lots of blood. Because strokes / accidents typically cause a lot of damage, it"s hard to tell what area is responsible for what behavioral change. But there are some areas around it: paul broca studied a patient he called tan who lost the ability to speak (except for that word), yet didn"t seem to suffer any other type of mental impairment. When the patient died, broca discovered he had damage in a very particular part of the left frontal lobe. Broca then studied autopsied brains for a number of patients with speech impairment and while the type of damage varied, it was all in this particular region.
