What is behavioural neuroscience as a study?
This studies the relationships between behaviour and the body, specifically the brain.
What is behaviour defined in observation?
It is made of both overt and covert activities or demonstrations.
What is the mind-brain problem?
This asks what the mind is, and the relationship between the mind and the physical brain. It asks if they are same or separate.
What is dualism?
The idea that the mind and brain are two separate things. Meaning that studying one would not tell us about the other.
What is monism?
The idea that the mind and body are dually connected and that they are the same thing. The brain can be studied to learn about the mind.
What did Descartes believe?
That the mind and brain were not the same thing, but could communicate via the pineal gland.
What did Descartes argue about communication between the mind and brain?
That they can communicate to each other because the mind is located “in the head” in the pineal gland. The purpose was to communicate to the rest of the brain and control what it does.
Which do we believe more? Monism or dualism?
We do not have evidence against dualism nor in support of monism, but we have been able to test that monism is more true than dualism.
What is a model in neuropsychology?
A proposed mechanism for how something works, often labelled as theories or hypotheses. This is how we propose how something works and our confidence in truth of that theory.
What is empiricism?
When we gather information through models through observation to determine. We observe and write what we see, and based off of that, we draw conclusions after gathering that information.
What did Luigi Galvani propose and demonstrate?
He used electricity to stimulate the nerves, and proposed that nerves use electricity and that it is flowing through our body and the main component of what controls our body.
What did Fritsch and Hitzig find?
They produced movement in dogs by electrically stimulating their brain instead of the nerve connected to the muscle which suggested that brain travels from the brain and all the way down.
What did Hermann von Heimholtz demonstrate?
That we do not use literal electricity, but the chemical polarity moving between the axon and surrounding space. He demonstrated that nerves do not behave like conducting wires.
What is localization?
The general term for the idea that different areas of the brain have different functions.
What is phrenology?
The untrue finding that there are different “faculties” of emotion and intellect found in precise areas of the brain (the locality).
What is equipotentiality?
The idea that the brain can function as an undifferentiated whole, that there is no localization.
Founded from early evidence that different parts of the brain do the same thing, and that there are different parts of the brain involved in the same thing.
(There could be no localization but instead that we have backup areas for specific functions)
What is the nature vs nurture debate?
Focused on the importance of heredity to environmental influences in shaping behaviour, we argue over whether this is determined by biology or experience.
What is a gene?
A biological unit that directs cellular processes and transmits inherited characteristics.
What is DNA?
Deoxyribonucleic acid, a double-stranded double helix chain of chemical molecules.
What is a zygote?
A fertilized egg which will go under rapid cell division to develop as a functioning organism. 23 chromosomes from each the egg and sperm, 46 in total.
What is an embryo?
A new organism that develops over 8 weeks from the zygote. After those 8 weeks, it becomes a fetus.
What is the difference between a phenotype and genotype?
A phenotype is an observable characteristic. A genotype is the actual genetic allelic combination.
What are polygenic characteristics?
Characteristics determined by several genes.
What is the genome?
All the genes in our chromosomes.
