CAS PS 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Prefrontal Cortex, Frontal Lobe, Nucleus Accumbens

• School: Boston University
• Department: Psychological & Brain Sciences
• Course: CAS PS 101
• Professor: Natalie Emmons

Document Summary

Much of what we know about neurotransmitters has been learned through the study of the effects of drugs and toxins on emotion, thought, and behavior. Drugs and toxins can alter neurotransmitter action: Nine of them are particularly important to how we think, feel. The adult human brain is a three-pound collection of interacting neural circuits. In early 1800s, gall & spurzheim proposed their theory of phrenology. The idea that different areas of the brain can indicate different personality characteristics. If you can look at someone"s physical skull, you can determine their personality. In early 1900s, karl lashley proposed the idea of equipotentiality. The idea that any part of the brain can be responsible for any function. Every part of the brain works together equally. But this is not true either because there are specialized regions of the brain, although there is interaction between the different parts. Broca"s area is involved in language production.