...Chapter 2: Neuroscience & Behavior * Neurons * Nervous system cells * Highly specialized cell that communicates information in electrical and chemical form * Types: * Motor- signals muscles to relax and contract * Sensory- conveys information to the brain * Interneurons- communicates information from one neuron to the next * Parts of Neurons * Dendrite- receives information from other cells * Soma (Cell Body)- contains the nucleus * Axon: carries information * Glial Cells * Another cells in the nervous system * Outnumber Neurons * Provide Nutrition * Structural Support * Aid in Neural Transmission * Remove Waste * Produce Myelin Sheath * Myelin Sheath * A white fatty covering wrapped around axons of some neurons that increases their communication speed * Damage to the Myelin related to Multiple Sclerosis * Node of Ranvier * The “naked” portion of the axon between myelin sheaths * Communication within Neurons * Action Potential- a brief electrical impulse transmitting information along the axon of a neuron * Action potential travels along axon of presynaptic neuron; triggers release of neurotransmitters from synaptic vesicles * Axon membrane is semi-permeable * The axon membrane opens and closes ion channels that allow ions to flow into and out of the axon * Ions- electrically...
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...Evolutionary cognitive neuroscience Evolutionary Psychology – ISSN 1474-7049 – Volume 5(1). 2007. -233- Keywords: evolutionary cognitive neuroscience, modularity, evolved cognitive adaptations ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ Introduction Evolutionary Cognitive Neuroscience (ECN) integrates comparative neuroscience, archeology, physical anthropology, paleoneurology, cognitive primatology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive, social and affective neuroscience in an effort to identify and describe the neural mechanisms that have been forged by selection pressures during human evolutionary history that define the human mind, as well as identify comparative neural mechanisms for cognition. In its simplest form, evolutionary cognitive neuroscience is the merging of the fields of evolutionary psychology and cognitive neuroscience using methodology from both disciplines and guidance from evolutionary meta-theory. In this coalescence, the identification of neural substrates of psychological adaptations is paramount. A recent volume (Platek, Keenan, and Shackelford, 2007) presents the first comprehensive overview of this emerging discipline, which is briefly reviewed here (see also Platek and Shackelford, under contract). This article consists of three major sections: 1) historical antecedents to and current state of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience, 2) a brief introduction to methods available to the evolutionary...
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...as behaviorism, focusing on the observation of people's behaviors. * Humanistic psychology, led by Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow, countered behaviorism during this period by focusing on the personal growth and well-being of people. * In the 1960's, psychology shifted back towards a focus on how the brain approaches information. Recently, cognitive neuroscience studies how brain activity causes mental activity. * To combine the study of both the internal mental activities and observable human behaviors, psychology became the science of behavior and mental processes. TERMS * ------------------------------------------------- cognitive neuroscience An academic field concerned with the scientific study of biological substrates underlying cognition, with a specific focus on the neural substrates of mental processes. It addresses the questions of how psychological/cognitive functions are produced by the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both psychology and neuroscience, overlapping with disciplines such as physiological psychology, cognitive psychology and neuropsychology. Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neuropsychology, and computational modelling. * ------------------------------------------------- behaviorism An approach to psychology focusing on behavior, denying any independent significance for the mind, and assuming that behavior is determined by theenvironment. * ------------------------------------------------- ...
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...the scientific study of the biology of behavior. It is a branch of psychology that analyzes how neurotransmitters and the brain influences our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. It draws together knowledge and other neurosciencefic disciplines and applies it to the study of behavior. 2. What is the historical development of biological psychology? .The Bio psychological approach is to look for causes of behavioral problems within the influence of the brain, nervous system, endocrine glands, genetic DNA, or any physical element. The history can be traced back as far as Avicenna (980-1037 CE). H was a physician who seen that the treatment involving emotions and are attributed to creating a method in which there is a correlation between the heart rate and inner feelings. This discipline continued throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. William James (1890) stated that an understanding of psychology is something that includes an understanding of biology (New World Encyclopedia, 2007). 3. Name one to three important theorists associated with biological psychology. One important theorist that can be associated with biological psychology is Rene’ Descartes. He was the first to clearly identify that the mind has a consciousness and is self-aware leaving the brain to be a tool for intelligence. He also elaborate on a theory in which the pneumatics of bodily fluids could explain reflexes and other motor behavior. Donald Hebb and Charles Darwin are also...
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...processes. In other words, cognitive psychology is a scientific approach to studying the mind. The main focus of cognitive psychology is on how an individual acquires, processes, and stores information, and it studies how individuals view and comprehend the world around him or her. Cognitive psychology also focuses on trying to identify behavior through characteristics other than its obvious properties (Willingham, 2007). Cognitive psychology rose to the top due to top in response to the flaws in other methods of studying the mind. Key Milestones in the Development of Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology developed primarily from the inability of the behaviorist approach to fully explain every form of behavior. While there were many things that drove its development, there were four main milestones in the development of cognitive psychology: the inadequacies of behaviorism, the information processing model and computer metaphor, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience. Each of these four milestones contributed significantly to the search for a better model and the development of the cognitive approach, which is currently used today. Neuroscience One key milestone was...
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...The Fluidity of Neuroscience Gender Norms & Racial Bias in the Study of the Modern "Neuroscience" Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, medicine and allied disciplines, philosophy, physics, and psychology. The term neurobiology is usually used interchangeably with the term neuroscience, although the former refers specifically to the biology of the nervous system, whereas the latter refers to the entire science of the nervous system. The scope of neuroscience has broadened to include different approaches used to study the molecular, cellular, developmental, structural, functional, evolutionary, computational, and medical aspects of the nervous system. The techniques used by neuroscientists have also expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of individual nerve cells to imaging of sensory and motor tasks in the brain. Recent theoretical advances in neuroscience have also been aided by the study of neural networks. Given the increasing number of scientists who study the nervous system, several prominent neuroscience organizations have been formed to provide a forum to all neuroscientists and educators. For example, the International Brain Research Organization was founded in 1960, the International Society...
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...psychology was introduced when there were flaws found in the areas of behaviorism (Galotti, 2014). The field of behaviorism began moving their concerns towards observable behaviors instead of focusing on the mind (Galotti, 2014). Since this was occurring cognitive psychology was born. This aspect of psychology began emphasizing on how the mind thinks and functions (Galotti, 2014). For instance, cognitive psychology encompasses areas of learning, memory, attention, perception, reasoning, language, conceptual development, and decision making (Galotti, 2014). It is defined as the scientific study of mental processing (Galotti, 2014). Cognitive psychology concentrates on how an individual stores, processes, acquires, and interprets the world around them. And it also tries to classify certain behaviors that are presented through different characteristics (Willingham, 2007). Once this area of psychology was introduced it brought back the importance of studying the mind. In the next following sections they will cover the key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology and the importance of behavioral observation in this field. Key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology There were four key milestones that had a hand in developing cognitive psychology. The milestones were: neuroscience, information processing model, artificial intelligence, and the criticism of behaviorism (Carley, 2012). The criticism that behaviorism received was a key milestone...
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...In today’s society psychologist base their thinking and assessment of people off of five different perspectives that were developed years ago. The five different perspectives are neuroscience, psychodynamic, behavioral, cognitive, and humanistic. Let’s go through the perspectives to distinguish each of their features and compare them to each other. The first of the five perspectives is neuroscience. According to the Understanding Psychology textbook by Robert S. Feldman, neuroscience is based on the brain, nervous system, and other biological functions. These are the things like the traits of our parents in us. The second perspective is psychodynamic. This perspective is the belief that our behavior is motivated by inner forces and we have...
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...February A R T I C L E S Leadership and Neuroscience: Can We Revolutionize the Way That Inspirational Leaders Are Identified and Developed? by David A. Waldman, Pierre A. Balthazard, and Suzanne J. Peterson Executive Overview Recent advances in the field of neuroscience can significantly add to our understanding of leadership and its development. Specifically, we are interested in what neuroscience can tell us about inspirational leadership. Based on our findings, we discuss how future research in leadership can be combined with neuroscience, as well as potential neurofeedback interventions for the purpose of leadership development. We also consider ethical implications and applications to management-related areas beyond leadership. L eadership development is a multibillion-dollar industry, with in-house as well as external consulting groups offering leadership development techniques and programs for their clients. The efficacy of traditional leadership development methods, however, has recently been called into question (Haines, 2009), with many researchers recognizing the need to go beyond traditional leadership assessment methods, which typically involve evaluating leader behaviors and qualities through some sort of survey process through which followers or peers rate a leader’s effectiveness. In particular, recent advances in neuroscience are expanding our understanding of behavior and learning (Boyatzis, Smith, & Blaize, 2006). Specifically...
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...addresses mental processes such as thinking, problem solving, remembering, believing, and speaking, and seeks to identify behavior by characteristics other than its obvious properties (Defining Cognitive Psychology 2011). It includes mental representation and the use of abstract constructs to find relationships between brain structure and their functions (Willingham, 2007).This area of psychology is important in order to acquire knowledge and gain an understanding on how a person’s mental process works. Four Key Milestones in Cognitive Psychology There are at least four key milestones in the development of cognitive psychology as a discipline and they are as follows: the failure of behaviorism, the computer metaphor and information processing, abstract constructs of artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Behaviorism was similar to cognitive psychology but it failed to identify mental processes. Freud’s psychoanalysis required that mental processes be identified in the study of cognitive psychology but behaviorism failed to meet this need. All aspects of the human psyche needed to be accommodated especially in the area of language and memory. This lead psychologists to really rethink behaviorism and gave support for the development of another area of science that would focus attention on the processes that could be observed in a person’s behavior thus giving birth to cognitive psychology. The human mind was seen as a processor in the beginning and this was a major...
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...Neuroscience Leadership Aleksander Varga USASMA Abstract In the last decade scientists have made huge progress in the neuroscience field, which has had a tremendous impact on leadership development studies. Knowledge gained through brain observation helps us to understand how the brain responds during certain activities and how some processes in the brain are connected to each other. One important part of our brain is the limbic system, a primitive system responsible for our long term memory, how we build relationships, and how we create patterns based on experiences. Another important part is the prefrontal cortex, which is evolutionarily younger than the limbic system and responsible for more sophisticated processes in our brain, such as our working memory with which we plan, react and judge. Connection between the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex determines our response to certain situations. If we know that the brain cannot use both with the same power in certain situations, and that our brain is plastic and has the ability to change if influenced by certain exercises, this could be very useful information for leaders. We can use this knowledge to improve many fields from how to build empathy to how to change our and others’ behavior in accordance to make better organization, which will consequently make us better leaders. Neuroscience Leadership Leadership is probably as old as humanity. As a matter of fact, we can find some sort of leadership also in...
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... • Behavior (p.4): The means by which organisms adjust to their environment. Example: smiling, crying, running, hitting, talking, and touching. • Behavioral data (p.5): Are reports of observations about the behavior of organisms and the conditions under which the behavior occurs. • Behavioral neuroscience (p.14): Neuroscience is the study of brain function; behavioral neuroscience attempts to understand the brain process underlying behaviors such as sensation, learning, and emotion. • Behaviorism (p.13): Has yielded a critical practical legacy. Its emphasis on the need for rigorous experimentation and carefully defined variables has influenced most areas of psychology. The principles of behaviorism have been widely applied to human problems. • Behaviorist perspective (p.12): Seek to understand how particular environmental stimuli control particular kinds of behavior. First, they analyze the antecedent environmental conditions; then they look at the behavioral response, which is the main subject; finally, they examine the observable consequences that follow from the response. The behaviorist perspective was pioneered by John Watson, who argued that psychological research should seek the laws that govern observable behavior across species; and B.F. Skinner extended the influence of behaviorism by expanding its analyses to the consequences of behaviors. • Biological perspective (p.13): Guides psychologists who search for the causes of behavior in the...
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...biological basses of behavior and mental events Key question: how does the nervous system produce behavior in mental events Assumptions: there must be a relationship between nervous system behavior and mental events. What is biopsychology? * The branch of psychology that studies the relationship between nervous system activity and behavior and mental events. * A new branch of neurosciences. * Makes use of the findings discovered by other branches of psychology. Brain consists of neurons and glia. Other branches of the neurosciences are 1. Biological psychiatry is interested in treatment of biological treatments of 2. Developmental neurobiology is interested in how the nervous system changes and develops 3. Neuroanatomy is interested in the structure of the nervous system and hw the different areas are connected to one and another 4. Neurochemistry is interested in how the neurons work and how they communicate with one another 5. Neurobiology is interested the structure and the mechanics of the nervous system. Biological psychology focuses on behavior (the observative behavior and the unobservative behavior) Biopsychology has six branches 1. Physiological psychology the study of neural mechanism of behavior through the manipulation of the nervous system in controlled experiments either surgically, electrically or chemically. 2. Psychopharmacology concerned with the effects of drugs on brain and behavior. Research may involve...
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...as known neuroscience has immeasurably developed to not only the level of a better understanding of mental disorders, but also the level where can read human’s minds by a phenomenal technology in scanning, such as MRI (magnetic resonance imaging). By this technology, neuroscientists are capable of having information about different realms of public and private people’s lives. For example, they can know data about person’s personality, behavior, and even history. However, such a technology could be an invasion of privacy, an organized group of philosophers, neuroscientists, lawyers, and psychologists formed the Neuroethics Society, which they discuss the ethical and philosophical dilemmas that the advances in neuroscience have created. Hence, all of us who will be affected by this technology have the right to access to information about it, and have a judgment about. It believed that by interpreting images of a person’s brain, employer or court officials could use it as a creditable evidence for his/her behavior, personality, etc. Henceforth, it could be a feasible method of lie-detection. However, this kind of system is still imperfect and the information produced is erroneous because it requires human interpretations of sophisticated and variable brain functions. Thus, it is very difficult to verify if someone is lying or not. This kind of technology could be an earth-shattering breakthrough, if it were existed. It is true though that neuroscience has now...
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...Marie C. Pacius It’s a good read, which lists the major insights of studies that examined the adolescent brain. The development of the adolescence brain has been instructive to cognitive neuroscience. Adolescents are healthy, but show some weird behavior, which is nice if you want to correlate behavior to physical processes in the brain. As such, the studies have been worthwhile to neuroscience as a whole. Yet, we shouldn’t accept any of the neuroscience stories as a full explanation for the behavior of adolescents. It’s true that if the rewiring and maturation of the brain is part of some inescapable, timed cascade of chemical reactions, this program could be at the foundation of adolescent behavior. In every age of history, the unfolding brain would have been noticeable through different sorts of behavior, but its biology would have been the same. However, we don’t know what drives the rewiring and maturation of the brain. It may be that these carefully documented rear-to-front brain that is uncultured in our society and in our society alone. It may be that the way we treat kids is reflected in their own behavior is. Without knowledge on the mechanisms through which brain maturation works, it can’t be accepted as a causal explanation for adolescent behavior. It just allows us to take all these psychological observations that we’re familiar with lack of planning, novelty-seeking and rephrase them as neutral processes. That’s useful to science, but doesn’t answer any questions...
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