01:830:310 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Cranial Nerves, Autonomic Nervous System, Grey Matter

• School: Rutgers University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: 01:830:310
• Professor: Professor Mayhew

Document Summary

Trephination or trepanning is an ancient surgical operation that involves cutting, scraping, chiseling, or drilling a plug like piece of bone from the skill. It is the process of making a hole in the skull in order to relieve pressure in the brain. If a brain is traumatized, it swells, which can lead the patient to die. Thus, pressure must be released by making a hole in the skull. You can tell if the hole was made on purpose because there is healing around the skull so the patient survived. The two theories about the structure where behavior originates are: cardiac hypothesis and the brain hypothesis. The cardiac hypothesis was the belief that heart is the origin of behavior since it is connected to all parts of the body. Since the heart (blood) is warm, the heart does stuff, while the cold brain cools the hot blood. Aristotle held the cardiac hy- pothesis, which is false.