BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

LESSON NO.1 | INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY • Evolutionary Explanation

- reconstructs the evolutionary history of
• The study of the physiological, evolutionary,
a structure or behavior. The
and developmental mechanisms of
characteristic features of an animal are
behavior and experience almost always modification of
Synonymous with the terms: something found in ancestral species

- Biopsychology Example: Bat wings are modified arms, and

- Psychobiology porcupine quills are modified hairs
- Physiological Psychology • Functional Explanation
- Behavioral neuroscience - describes why a structure or behavior
evolved as it did
• Biological Psychology – emphasizes that - is that camouflaged appearance makes
the goals is to relate biology to issues of the animal inconspicuous (not visible)
psychology to predators. Some species use their
behavior as part of the camouflage
• Neuroscience – includes much that is - Many species have an appearance that
relevant to behavior but also includes more matches their background
detail about anatomy and chemistry RESEARCH

THE USE OF ANIMALS IN RESEARCH

BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF BEHAVIOR
Reasons for Animal Research:
Even humans don’t always know the reason for
their own behaviors. Yawning and laughter are 1. The underlying mechanisms of behavior are
two examples. You do them, but can you similar across species and sometimes easier
explain what they accomplish? Intentions are, to study in a nonhuman species
at best, a weak for of explanations 2. We are interested in animals for their own
sake
In contrast to common-sense explanations, 3. What we learn about animals’ sheds light on
biological explanations of behavior fall into human evolution
four categories: 4. Legal or ethical restrictions prevent certain
kinds of research on humans
• Physiological Explanation
- relates behavior to the activity of the RESEARCH METHODS
brain and other organs
We shall consider many methods of relating the
brain’s structure to its function:
• Ontogenetic Explanation
- describe how the structure or behavior 1. Examine the effect of brain damage
develops, including the influences of - After damage or temporary
genes, nutrition, experiences, and their inactivation, what aspects of behavior
interactions are impaired?
Example: The ability to inhibit impulses
develops gradually from infancy through 2. Examine the effects of stimulating a brain
the teenage years, reflecting gradual area
maturation of the frontal parts of the brain - Ideally, if damaging some area
impairs a behavior, stimulating that
area should enhance the behavior
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.1 | INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

• Sham lesion - the name given to a control

3. Record brain activity during behavior
group procedure during a lesion
- We might record changes in brain
experiment
activity during fighting, sleeping,
- Performing all the same
finding food, solving a problem, or any
procedures except for passing the
other behavior
electrical current
- Any behavioral difference between
4. Correlate brain anatomy with behavior
the two groups (control and
- Do people with some unusual
experimental) must result from the
behavior also have unusual brains? If
lesion and not the other procedure
so, in what way?
RECORDING BRAIN ACTIVITY

EFFECTS OF BRAIN DAMAGE • Supposed damage to some brain area

impairs a behavior (eating, for example)
• French neurologist Paul Broca found that
and stimulation of that area increases the
a patient who had lost the ability to speak
behavior. We can further confirm the
had damage in part of his left frontal
connection if we demonstrate that the
cortex. Additionally, patients with loss of
activity of that area increases during
speech also showed damage in and
occurrences of the behavior
around that area, known as Broca’s Area

• Few people have damage confined to just Studies of human brains almost always use
one brain area, and no two people have noninvasive methods —that is, methods that
exactly the same damage. Therefore, record from outside the skull without inserting
researchers often turn to producing anything.
carefully localized damage in laboratory
animals.
• Electroencephalograph (EEG) – a device
that records electrical activity of the brain
- Ablation – removal of brain area,
through electrodes —ranging from just a
generally with a surgical knife
few to more than a hundred—attached to
the scalp
- Lesion – meaning damage
- Stereotaxic instrument – researcher
use this to damage a structure in the
interior of the brain. A device for the
precise placement of electrodes in the
brain

➢ Suppose a researcher makes a lesion

and reports some behavioral deficit. You
might ask, “How do we know the deficit
wasn’t caused by anesthetizing the
animal, drilling a hole in its skull, and
lowering an electrode to this target?”
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.1 | INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

EFFECTS OF BRAIN DAMAGE - PET scans use radioactive chemicals with

a short half-life, made in a device called a
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) – the
cyclotron.
application of an intense magnetic field to a portion
- It is only available in research hospitals due
of the scalp, temporarily inactivates neurons below
cyclotrons are large and expensive
the magnet
- PET requires exposing the brain to
- to stimulate nerve cells in the brain to radioactivity
improve symptoms of major depression. - PET scans have been replaced by
functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI), which less expensive and less risky
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• When a brain area becomes more active;
two relevant changes occur

1. Blood vessels dilate to allow

more blood flow to the area.
2. As the brain area uses oxygen,
the percentage of hemoglobin
- During a TMS session for depression, an without oxygen increases.
electromagnetic coil is placed against the
scalp of your head. This coil delivers An fMRI scan records both of these
magnetic pulses that stimulate nerve cells processes and temporal resolution of
in the region of your brain involved in mood about a second
control and depression. It's thought to --------------------------------------------------------
activate regions of the brain that have • Researchers asked which brain areas
decreased activity during depression. become more active when your “mind
wanders.”
RECORDING BRAIN ACTIVITY

Magnetoencephalograph (MEG) – measures the - Posterior cingulate cortex – show

faint magnetic fields generated by brain activity increased activity during times when
people have no particular task to do.
Positron-emission tomography (PET) – provides a
high-resolution image of activity in a living brain by
Later, when researchers watched
recording the emission of radioactivity from
people’s performance on a task requiring
injected chemicals
constant attention, they saw
performance decline whenever activity
increased in these mind-wandering
areas.
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• If we think we know what a given fMRI
pattern means, we should be able to use
that pattern to identify what someone is
doing or thinking. In other words, we
should be able to use it to read
someone’s mind, to a limited degree.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.1 | INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

- fMRI used to monitor people’s intentions. COMPARISONS OF MEN AND WOMEN

In each trial, a participant was to decide
- Men on average have larger brains than
freely whether to add or subtract without
women but equal IQs
telling anyone.
Example: More men become grand masters in
➢ A key point is that the number and their chess, only because more boys than girls
positions were unpredictable. During the start playing chess, whereas more girls
delay, the person could think “add” or focus playing dolls.
“subtract” but could not choose a
➢ The difference pertains to interests, not
particular
abilities
➢ fMRI recordings from the prefrontal -------------------------------------------------------------
cortex enabled researchers to predict
people’s behaviors with 71% accuracy How can we explain why men and women
are equal in intellect, but men have larger
------------------------------------------------------------- brains? One potentially relevant factor
pertains to relative amounts of gray matter
- Computerized axial tomography, known
(cell bodies) and white matter (axons).
as CT/CAT scan – used by researchers
Women average more and deeper sulci on
to examine detailed brain anatomy in
the surface of the cortex, especially in the
living people
frontal and parietal areas.
- CT scans help detect tumors and other Because the surface is lined with neurons
structural abnormalities (gray matter), the sexes have about the
same number of neurons, despite
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differences in brain volume
- Heschl’s gyrus
RESEARCH METHOD SUMMARY
➢ part of the temporal cortex in
the left hemisphere 1. One way to study brain-behavior relationships is
➢ Known to be important for to examine the effects of brain damage. If
hearing, especially as it relates someone suffers a loss after some kind of brain
to language damage, then that area contributes in some way to
➢ This area is larger than average that behavior.
in people who are especially
good at learning to identify 2. If stimulation of a brain area increases some
foreign-language sounds that behavior, presumably that area contributes to the
are not part of their own behavior.
language 3. Researchers try to understand brain-behavior
relationships by recording activity in various brain
- particular brain area is enlarged in people areas during a given behavior. Many methods are
who have special skills. available, including EEG, MEG, and fMRI.
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
LESSON NO.1 | INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

4. People who differ with regard to some behavior

sometimes also differ with regard to their brain
anatomy. MRI is one modern method of imaging a
living brain. However, correlations between
behavior and anatomy should be evaluated
cautiously.

5. Research using modern methods to measure

brain size suggests a moderate positive
relationship between brain size and intelligence,
although many puzzles and uncertainties remain.

6. Men and women are equal in IQ scores, despite

men’s having larger brains.