Physiological Psychology

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

• What is physiological psychology?

• What are the historical roots of PP?
• What methods and techniques are used in to study the physiological
basis of behavior and mental functioning?
Physiological psychology defined
• Physiological psychology, biological psychology, or behavioral
neuroscience is a field of psychology that connects behavior and
mental processes to bodily processes
• Studies the functions & actions of the brain and how the brain in turn
affects behavior and mind.
What is the relationship between mind and
body?
• Two major views of the mind-body problem:
•“Dualism”: mind and body are separate but interacting
•“Monism”: mind is a property of the physical nervous system
(body)
• Two major forms of explaining the mind-body relationship
• Generalization- developing laws and principles based on
specific observations and experimentation
• Reduction- explaining complex phenomena in terms of
simpler, basic processes
How are mind-behavior relationships
studied?
• Three general approaches
1- Somatic Intervention
Somatic Intervention Behavioral Change

Lesion Brain Behavioral deficit

Stimulate a brain
Motor movement
region

Administer a Change in mating

hormone behavior
How are mind-behavior relationships
studied?
2- Behavioral Intervention

Behavioral change Effect on Brain

Put a male rat with a

Change in hormone
female

Present a visual
Record brain activity
stimulus

Anatomical change in
Give Training
brain
How are mind-behavior relationships
studied?
3- Correlation

Somatic Variables Behavioral Variables

Brain Size Learning Scores

Hormone Levels Mating Response

Enlarged Ventricles Schizophrenia

Historical Backgrounds
• Very old awareness about mind-body r/ships (such as cave drawings).
• Trephination
 medical reason
 ‘magical’ healing
Ancient Greeks
• Heraclitus - mind an enormous space with boundaries that we could
never reach
• Pythagoras - the brain is at the center of human reasoning the brain
hypothesis
• Hippocrates - all thoughts and emotions originated in the brain
• Plato - the three parts of the soul : appetite, reason, and spirit. the
rational part lay in the brain
• Aristotle - the heart is the source of all mental processes b/c the
heart is warm and active. It is the location of soul. The brain is a
“radiator,” cooling hot blood.
• René Descartes (1596–1650), a French philosopher - the mind and
body are separate, but interact with each other. This view is called
dualism.
Biological Roots

• Franz Gall (1758–1828) – Phrenology

Localization…
• Paul Broca (1824 – 1880), -
performed autopsy of the brain
• Posterior, inferior region of the left
frontal lobe is the center for speech.
• Broca’s area and an inability to talk
due to damage to this area is
• Broca’s aphasia. Speech disorder
due to damage to Broca’s area
Localization…
• Carl Wernicke (1848–1904) identified
the location of the understanding of
speech.
• Superior, posterior aspects of the
temporal lobe.
• Wernicke’s area - damage to this area
disrupted the ability to understand
speech.
• The patient was still able to talk, but
the speech made no sense and
sounded like some unknown foreign
language.
• Such speech was called fluent aphasia.
Experimental physiology
• Luigi Galvani found that electrical stimulation of a frog’s nerve
caused contraction of the muscle to which it was attached.
• Johannes Muller found that although all nerves carry the same basic
message – an electrical impulse – we perceive the messages of
different nerves in different ways. He called this phenomenon
Doctrine of Specific Nerve Energies.
Direct experimentation on brain
• Pierre Flourens - removed various parts of animals' brains and
observed their behavior, experimental ablation.
• Using experimental ablation, Flourens claimed to have discovered the
regions of the brain that control various functions.
• Hermann von Helmholtz - was the first scientist to attempt to measure
the speed of conduction through nerves.
• He found that neural conduction was much slower (about 90 feet per
second).
• This proved that neural conduction was not the same as a simple
electrical message.
Methods of studying mind-brain
relationship
• Experimental Ablation - ablatus, "carrying away“
• The removal of a brain area or creating lesions in the brain
and observing subsequent changes in behavior
• Histological Studies: examining thin slices of brain tissue under a
microscope. Involve:
• Removal of animals’ brain,
• Fixation - preserving and hardening
• Sectioning - making thin slices
• Staining brain tissues and
• Examining under microscope
Studying the Living Human Brain
• Brain imaging techniques used to study the live brain.
• computerized tomography (CT scan)
• magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
• Positron Emission Tomography (PET scan).
• Tracing Neural Connections: to study which parts of the brain send/
receive messages to /from which other parts,
• Recording and stimulating neural activity: the electrical events
produced by neurons can be recorded
• single unit recording using microelectrodes
• large area of brain using macroelectrodes
• the whole brain. Electroencephalogram (EEG)
• Neurochemical Methods: analyzing and localizing different
neurotransmitters and neuromodulators released by neurons
Methods… EEG