PSYCH 212 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Otto Loewi, Henry Molaison, Ontogeny

• School: Northwestern University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCH 212
• Professor: Gobel

Document Summary

Biological psychology (behavioral neuroscience): study of biological bases of psychological processes and behavior. Conserved: trait that is passed on from a common ancestor to two or more descendant species. Ontogeny: process by which an individual changes in the course of its lifetime (grows up, gets old) Neuroplasticity: ability of the nervous system to change in response to experience or the environment: study: cooke et al. (2000)- took rats just bored and raised each male in cage alone or raised with other male. Reductionism: scientific strategy of breaking a system down into increasingly smaller parts in order to understand it. Levels of analysis: scope of experimental approaches (ex: molecules, nerve cells, brain regions) Consciousness: state of a(cid:449)are(cid:374)ess of o(cid:374)e"s o(cid:449)(cid:374) e(cid:454)iste(cid:374)(cid:272)e a(cid:374)d e(cid:454)perie(cid:374)(cid:272)e. Goals: systematic description of behavior, study of evolution, observing development of brain and behavior over lifespan, study biological mechanism, studying applications such as brain disorders. Compare brain image of twin a and b: larger ventricles associated with schizophrenia.