MODULE 1

Introduction To Physiological
Psychology

BIOPSY
PHYSIOLOGICAL
PSYCHOLOGY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

to your first module!

KARL MICHAEL M. VALDULLA, CHRA

Course Instructor/Professor

BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN PSYCHOLOGY

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE

Gen. Luna St. Guitnangbayan I, San Mateo, Rizal No part of this module may be reproduced,
Tel. No. (02) 997-9070
www.smmc.edu.ph distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any
means without the prior permission of the instructor.

© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

MODULE ONE
INTRODUCTION TO
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
“The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of
the things we know best.”
Paul Valery

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

INPUT INFORMATION

MODULE ONE
INTRODUCTION TO PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

WHAT IS BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY?

Biological psychology is a field of psychology that connects human

behaviors and mental processes to bodily processes, and to the
functions and actions of the brain.

BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY: THE INTERACTION OF

BIOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY
Psychology is the scientific study of behaviors and mental processes
in animals and humans. Modern psychology attempts to explain
behaviors and the mind from a wide range of perspectives. One
branch of this discipline is biological psychology which is specifically interested in the biological causes of behaviors
and mental processes. Biological psychology is also referred to as biopsychology, behavioral neuroscience, physiological
psychology, neuropsychology, and psychobiology. The focus of biological psychology is on the application of the
principles of biology to the study of physiological, genetic, evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior
in humans and other animals. It is a branch of psychology that concentrates on the role of biological factors, such as
the central and peripheral nervous systems, neurotransmitters, hormones, genes, and evolution on behavior and mental
processes.

Biological psychologists are interested in measuring biological, physiological, or genetic variables in an attempt to
relate them to psychological or behavioral variables. Because all behavior is controlled by the central nervous system—
brain and spinal cord—biological psychologists seek to understand how the brain functions in order to understand
behavior and mental activities. Key areas of focus within the field include sensation and perception; motivated behavior
(such as hunger, thirst, and sex); control of movement; learning and memory; sleep and biological rhythms; and
emotion. With advances in research methods, more complex topics such as language, reasoning, decision making,
intelligence, and consciousness are now being studied intensely by biological psychologists.

BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR

The most important organ controlling our behavior and mental processes is the brain.
Therefore, biological psychologists are especially interested in studying the brain, its
neurochemical makeup, and how it produces behavior and mental processes.

Earlier researchers used to perform post-mortem examinations to investigate if specific

psychological and behavioral processes are localized to specific regions and networks of
the brain.

Today, modern technology through neuroimaging techniques has given us the ability to
look at living human brain structure and functioning in real time. Neuroimaging tools,
such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, are often used to observe which areas of the brain are
active during particular tasks in order to help psychologists understand the link between brain and behavior.

THREE APPROACHES IN RELATING BRAIN AND BEHAVIOR

Biological psychologists used three (3) approaches in order to investigate on the relations of the brain and behaviors.

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

Somatic Intervention
Alteration in brain’s structure or function to see how it will affect behaviors.

Behavioral Intervention
Intervention in behaviors to see how brain’s structure and function is altered.

Correlation
Measures how much a body measure varies with a behavioral measure.

BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS OF BEHAVIOR

Biological explanations of behavior fall into four categories: physiological, ontogenetic, functional, and evolutionary.

Type of Explanation Description Example from Songbird

Physiological Explanation
Ontogenetic Explanation
Relates a behavior to the activity of brain
and other organs.
Describes how a structure or behavior
develops, including roles of genes,
nutrition, experiences, and their
interactions.
An area of their brain grows under the
influence of testosterone; hence, it’s
larger in breeding males.
Young male bird learns its song by
listening to adult males.

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

Functional Explanation
Evolutionary Explanation
Describes why a structure or behavior
evolved as it did.
Reconstruct the evolutionary history of a
structure or behavior.
Male birds sing during reproductive
season and only in his territory. The
functions of the song are to attract
females and warn away other males.
Certain pairs of species have similar
songs. It suggests that the two evolved
from single ancestor.

THE BRAIN AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE

Dualism
The belief that minds and body are
different kinds of substance that exist
independently.

Monism
Alternative to dualism, the belief that
universe consists of only one kind of
substance.

FORMS OF MONISM

Materialism Mentalism Identity Position

The view that everything that exists The view that only the mind really The universe has only one kind of
is material or physical. exists. substance, which includes both
material and mental aspects.

BRIEF HISTORY OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

While physiological psychology might seem like a fairly

recent development thanks to the introduction of advanced
tools and technology for examining the brain, the roots of
the field date back thousands of years to the time of the early
philosophers.

While we now consider the mind and brain synonymous,

philosophers and psychologists long debated what was
known as the mind/body problem. In other words,
philosophers and other thinkers wondered what the
relationship was between the mental world and the physical world.

PHILOSOPHER’S VIEWS ON PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

One important thing to remember is that it is only fairly recently in

human history that people have come to understand the actual
location of the mind. Aristotle, for example, taught that our thoughts
and feelings arose from the heart. Greek thinkers such as Hippocrates
and later Plato suggested that the brain was where the mind resides
and that it served as the source of all thought and action.

Later thinkers such as Rene Descartes and Leonardo da Vinci

introduced theories about how the nervous system operated. While

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

these early theories were later proven wrong, they did establish the important idea that external stimulation could lead
to muscle responses.

It was Descartes who introduced the concept of the reflex, although later researchers demonstrated it was the spinal
cord that played a critical role in these muscle responses.

LINK BETWEEN PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR

Researchers also became interested in understanding how different parts of the brain control human behavior. One
early attempt at understanding this led to the development of a pseudoscience known as phrenology. According to this
view, certain human faculties could be linked to bumps and indentations of the brain which could be felt on the surface
of the skull.

While phrenology became quite popular, it was also soon

dismissed by other scientists. However, the idea that certain
parts of the brain were responsible for certain functions
played an important role in the development of future brain
research.

The famous case of Phineas Gage, a railroad worker who

suffered a devastating brain injury, also had an influence on
our understanding of how damage to certain parts of the
brain could impact behavior and functioning.

NEWER PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH

Since those early influences, researchers have continued to make important discoveries about how the brain works and
the biological underpinnings of behavior. Research on evolution, the localization of brain function, neurons, and
neurotransmitters have advanced our understanding of how biological processes impact thoughts, emotions, and
behaviors.

KEY CONTRIBUTORS IN PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

HEROPHILOS AND ERASISTRATOS

During the 3rd Century B.C., two neuroanatomists, Herophilos and
Erasistratos, contributed to our knowledge of the human brain.

Herophilos was the first person to distinguish the cerebellum and the
cerebrum. He hypothesized that since the cerebellum was denser than the
other parts of the brain, it must control the muscles—a guess of impressive
accuracy. He also provided the first clear description of the cavities within
the brain known as ventricles.

Erasistratos continued the work of Herophilos and proposed that human

intelligence was related to the number of convolutions in the brain—the more convolutions
an individual's brain had, the more intelligent that person would be.

GALEN OF PERGAMON

During the Roman Empire, Claudius Galenus or Galen dissected the brains of non-human
mammals and hypothesized that the brain was the site of sensation and thought, and the

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

controller of movement. He also stated that the spinal cord was an extension of the brain and chronicled the
relationship between the spinal nerves and specific muscles each controlled.

AVICENNA AND THE CANON OF MEDICINE

During the 11th Century, Avicenna wrote a book, The Canon of Medicine, where he discussed
phenomena such as schizophrenia, insomnia, mania, hallucinations, nightmares, dementia,
epilepsy, stroke, paralysis, vertigo, melancholia, and tremors, and was the first person to
associate these mental deficits with deficits in the brain’s middle ventricle or frontal lobe.

Avicenna also discovered the cerebellar vermis and the caudate nucleus, and he presented
detailed knowledge about skull fractures and their surgical treatments.

VESALIUS AND THE ANATOMY OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

By the beginning of the 16th Century, Andreas Vesalius published seven books, with the fourth
and seventh books devoted to the nervous system. Vesalius outlined seven pairs of 'brain
nerves', each with a specialized function. In his seventh book which was solely devoted to the
brain, he successfully describes the cerebral membranes, the ventricular system, and the
cerebrum.

DESCARTES, THE REFLEXIVE THEORY, AND THE THEORY OF DUALISM

In 1649, René Descartes proposed the reflexive theory, which explained reflexive behavior as
an external stimulus that would move the skin, in turn moving the filaments, releasing the
animal spirits and innervating the muscles.

He also studied the physiology of the brain, proposing the theory of dualism—the view that
mind and brain are separate—to tackle the issue of the brain's relation to the mind. He
suggested that the pineal gland was where the mind interacted with the body after recording
the brain mechanisms responsible for circulating cerebrospinal fluid.

LEGALLOIS AND THE LOCALIZATION OF RESPIRATION

In 1811, Jean-Cesar Legallois discovered that when he destroyed tissue in the medulla, a procedure called lesioning,
there was an immediate cessation of respiration.

BELL, MAGENDIE, AND THE BELL-MAGENDIE LAW

In the early 1800s, Charles Bell and Francois Magendie discovered the
different function of spinal cord nerves where the ventral roots transmitted
motor impulses and posterior roots received sensory input, also known as
the Bell-Magendie Law. The law also state that the movement of the nerve
impulses is only in one direction. Given the specialization found in spinal
cord nerves, Bell recommended that further investigation of the entire
nervous system should examine functional and anatomical segregation.

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

GALL AND THE THEORY OF PHRENOLOGY

In the late 1700s, Franz Joseph Gall formulated phrenology where measurement of the skull
was used to determine personality characteristics of an individual. Gall made the claim that
there were twenty-seven distinct cognitive abilities that could be localized on the cortex of
the human brain.

He believed that the design of the brain changed as each of us developed certain
characteristics and this resulted in corresponding changes in the skull. Where the skull rises,
one can see excellence in the human qualities associated with the underlying brain and
where there were depressions in the skull, human defects were represented.

Measuring the skull by using a technique called cranioscopy would allow the scientist to
detect deformation and bumps on the skull which would outline the person's personality.

HARLOW AND THE PHINEAS GAGE CASE

In 1848, John Martyn Harlow treated Phineas Gage and documented his case. Gage, a railroad
worker, had his frontal lobe pierced by an iron tamping rod in a blasting accident. He survived
the trauma but suffered extensive damage to his left prefrontal cortex. Through this case study,
Harlow showed the connection between the prefrontal cortex damage, executive functioning,
and personality changes.

BROCA AND THE BROCA’S AREA

In 1861, Paul Broca presented a case where a young man had sustained damage to the left
frontal lobe and as a result was unable to produce spoken speech.

After the young man’s death, Broca performed an autopsy and determined that the patient
had a lesion in the frontal lobe in the left cerebral hemisphere. Broca collected similar cases
of damage to the left frontal lobe with the patient losing their ability to speak. Broca
published his findings from the autopsies of twelve patients in 1865.

Today, we recognize Broca's Area in the frontal lobe as a critical region in speech
production.

WERNICKE AND THE WERNICKE’S AREA

About ten years later after the discovery of the Broca’s area, Carl Wernicke identified a similar
type of problem in which patients were able to speak but were not able to actually comprehend
speech.

Wernicke examined brains of patients suffering from this speech problem and discovered
lesions at the posterior portion of the left temporal lobe. He then concluded that people who
had lesions on this area could speak, but their speech was often incoherent and made no sense.

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

BRODMANN AND THE BRODMANN AREAS

In 1909, Korbinian Brodmann detailedly studied the cerebral cortex, observing how its layers,
tissues, neurons, and other cells varied in structure and size. This led to him identifying and
numbering different areas of the cerebral cortex into fifty-two (52) distinct regions based on
their cytoarchitectural organization.

Brodmann’s areas have been widely discussed, debated, and refined throughout the years and
remain the most widely known and most frequently used mapping of the cortex.

GOLGI AND THE GOLGI STAIN TECHNIQUE

During late 1873, Camillo Golgi developed a staining technique using a silver chromate salt to
reveal the intricate structures of single neurons. Through this technique, he was able to reveal that
the neuron has three distinct structures: dendrite, cell body, and axon. Furthermore, he revealed that
the axon can be short or very long, enabling the cell body to send messages to neurons far away.
Therefore, the axon must be the output carrier for the neuron. This technique is called the Golgi
stain, named in his honor.

CAJAL AND THE NEURON DOCTRINE

The Golgi stain technique was used by Santiago Ramón y Cajal to outline the neural
connections in the brain. While Golgi believed that neurons were fused together to form a
continuous circuit, Cajal demonstrated that neurons are not physically connected but do have
a mechanism for communicating. This led to the formation of the neuron doctrine, the
hypothesis that the functional unit of the brain is the neuron, also known as a nerve cell.
Today, the field accepts neuronal theory which states that the nervous system is made up of
individual nerve cells called neurons.

OLDS, MILNER, AND THE REWARD CENTERS

In the 1950s, James Olds and Peter Milner implanted electrodes in the
brains of rats and allowed the animals to press a lever to receive a mild
burst of electrical stimulation to their brains. Olds and Milner discovered
that there were certain areas of the brain that rats would repeatedly press
the lever to receive stimulation to. They found a region known as the
septal area, which lies just below the front end of the corpus callosum, to
be the most sensitive.

SHERRINGTON AND THE SYNAPSE

Charles Scott Sherrington accepted Cajal's neuron doctrine and set out to discover the point of
functional contact between neurons. He called this connection point the synapse, which means
"binding together". His discovery was made by studying spinal reflexes in dogs. Confirming
Luigi Galvani's electrical theory, he demonstrated the electrical transmission between neurons.

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA
© San Mateo Municipal College All Rights Reserved

BERNSTAIN AND THE ACTION POTENTIAL

In 1902 and again in 1912, Julius Bernstein was the first researcher to discover the action
potential—the unique electrical signal traveling the length of an axon. Additionally, he
demonstrated that this electric conduction was due to change in ionic concentration of the cell's
intracellular fluid.

LOEWI AND THE ACETYLCHOLINE

In 1921, Otto Loewi performed an experiment on frog hearts to investigate chemical
communication between neurons. He removed the heart of two frogs and placed them in
separate containers, each one filled with a chemical solution that allowed the hearts to
continue to beat. He stimulated the vagus nerve of the first heart which slowed down its
beating. He shared the solution from the first heart's container with the second heart and
the beating of the second heart also slowed. He concluded that when he stimulated the
vagus nerve of the first heart, a chemical was released to slow down its beating and when
the solution from the first heart's container was shared with the second heart, the chemical
directed the second heart to also decrease its beating. He originally called this chemical
vagusstoff, referring to its secretion after the stimulation of vagus nerve. This chemical was
later identified as a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine (ACh). ACh was originally identified in 1915 by Henry Hallett Dale.
However, Loewi is credited with establishing its role in chemical communication between nerve cells.

SAN MATEO MUNICIPAL COLLEGE PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Bachelor of Science in Psychology Karl Michael M. Valdulla, CHRA