Techniques to Learn About the Brain and Neural Function

The Physiology of Psychology and the Concept of the Mind: LESSON 1

Science of the Brain

As technology has improved, scientists have used a wide range of techniques to learn about the brain and neural function. There are three fundamental ways to study how the brain functions: lesion, stimulation, and recording.

● Greek philosophers and physicians linked the mind with

the brain○ Hippocrates (460-377 B.C.) said that emotions, thought, and

mental health arise from the brain (Plato agreed 427-347 B.C.)

○ Galen (circa 130-200 A.D.) thought that fluids of the brain in

ventricles were responsible for sensations, reasoning, judgment,

memory, and movement

● Franz Gall (1758-1828) and Johann Spurzheim (1776-1832) incorrectly related bumps and depressions on the surface of the skull with personality traits and moral character○ This study was known as phrenology○ Later researchers explored localization of

functions in the brain with more systematic research

○ Phrenology practice-Click here for diagnosis■ We will take a moment to give it a try….

● Studying patients with brain damage linked loss of structure with

loss of function

● Phineas Gage● Paul Broca- doctor who studied

Tan● Gunshot wounds, tumors,

strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, Korsakoff’s syndrome (amnesia caused by B1 deficiency related to malnutrition or alcoholism)

Phineas Gage● Was the level-headed, calm foreman of a

railroad crew (1848) until an explosion hurled a tamping iron through his head. After the injury destroyed major parts of his prefrontal lobes, thereby severing connections with his limbic system, Gage became volatile

● His localized brain injury and subsequent change in behavior helped researchers identify areas of the frontal lobes as being instrumental to the mediation and control of emotional behavior

● Harvard video link- please write any questions or comments you may have in your notes

Paul Broca (1824-1880)● Performed an autopsy on the brain of a patient named

Leborgne (aka Tan) who had lost the capacity for speech with no paralysis of the articulatory tract and no loss of verbal comprehension or intelligence

● Tan’s brain showed damage to the left frontal lobe, as did the brains of several similar cases, relating destruction of “Broca’s area” to expressive aphasia (1861)

● Carl Wernicke (1848-1905) similarly found that an area in the temporal lobe of the left cerebral hemisphere is important for language comprehension

● Gunshot wounds, tumors, strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, Korsakoff’s syndrome (amnesia caused by B1 deficiency related to malnutrition or alcoholism), and so on enabled further mapping of the brain