1. Biology/Psychology 2606
Dr. David Brodbeck

2. History and Origins of the Study of Brain and Behaviour
The course is about the relationship between brain and behaviour
This is a question that has involved many people, philosophers, physicians, psychologists and neuroscientists
Once we define a couple of terms (notably ‘brain’ and ‘behaviour’) we can look at how these different groups of people have looked at the relationship

3. What is brain? Well you can kick it Tissue Organ
Is it just that wrinkly thing in your head?
Technically yes
However, you cannot do certain behaviours without say a spinal cord

4. Brain brain brain
So, while the definition of brain really means just the thing in the head, we will have to concentrate not only on the brain itself but on the cerebellum, spinal column and indeed other parts of the nervous system if we want to relate the brain to behaviour.
The ‘Mind-body’ problem

5. The Nervous system Central Nervous system (CNS)
Brain, spinal column, cerebellum
Communication is neural
Peripheral Nervous system (PNS)
Nerves that make you move basically

6. How does it work? Bicep curl for example
Muscle needs an agonist and an antagonist
Motor neuron sends message to bicep to curl up
Sensory neuron tells you when to stop
Simple behaviour LOTS of neurons

7. In a Moth’s Ear…. Moth Ear basically has two neurons A1 and A2
They are not frequency sensitive, but do not respond to low frequencies

8. Those would be some tiny Q tips…..

9. Do Moths Have Ear Wax? A1 is responsive to intensity
More firing with closer bat
A2 only fires with very loud sounds
A2 fires, bat must be very close

10. Moths and Bats, Charts and Graphs
A1 on the left fires, opposite wing beats faster
Moth’s course corrects to 180 degrees from bat
So very and totally cool
A2, go crazy
2 neuron ear can encode where a predator in in 3 dimensional space!!!

11. Autonomic Nervous System
Different communication than in the CNS and PNS
Not neural, more chemical
Hormones secreted into bloodstream by ‘ductless glands’
Pituitary gland is the master gland
Example, pituitary controls release of pitocin and oxytocin which start labour
Another example, effects of testosterone on spatial ability
psychoneuroendocrinology

12. Behaviour And you thought our brain definition was amorphous…
What is behaviour?
1 : the manner of conducting oneself
2 a : anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation b : the response of an individual, group, or species to its environment —be·hav·ior·al or chiefly British be·hav·iour·al /-vy&-r&l/ adjective —be·hav·ior·al·ly or chiefly British be·hav·iour·al·ly /-r&-lE/ adverb

13. Hmmmmmmmmmm Action and response to stimuli eh
Stimuli, well, we tend to think of those as being external things
But we can oh imagine pizza, and then have a reaction….
An organism, so a plant can behave?
As a rule, dictionary definitions suck.
Behaviour is some observable reaction that has no obvious substance

14. OK Mr. smart guy what does behaviour mean?
That’s Dr. Smart Guy to you….
Action of an organism having cause and function
So, in the moth example, the cause is the sound, the function is evasion
This will include both learned behaviour and inherited stuff
Not all behaviour has an obvious function

15. Some history
First the earth cooled, then the dinosaurs ruled the world, then they died cuz of some big meteor, then the people showed up…
Even early humans probably wondered about why we do what we do
Then we started hanging around in towns

16. Aristotle Believed that the heart was the seat of behaviour
He noted the importance of the brain (but it was for cooling blood he figured)

17. British Empiricists Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
Contents of mind rest on experience
John Locke ( )
‘white paper’ or tabula rasa

18. Rene Descartes Descartes said that we were machines with a soul
The notion was that the mind and the body were separate
Animals have no soul

19. And yadda yadda yadda….
By the 19th century people were talking about psychology
Still the philosophers held sway
Last half of the 19th century changed this
The zeitgeist of the time changed

20. What the hell does zeitgeist mean?
I don’t speak freaky deaky Dutch Mr. Goldmember
The spirit of history
The enlightenment of the 18th century was affecting the common person
Science and technology could explain everything

21. Gesundheit
Even the origins of humanity could be explained without appealing to religion!
Charles Darwin and the Origin of Species
So like you could figure out anything with science!!

22. Natural Selection
The Theory of Natural Selection is so simple that anyone can misunderstand it…. (Anonymous)
Charles Darwin ( ) saw three problems in need of a solution.
Darwin was not the only one to see these problems BTW
Other ‘Naturalists’ were struggling with the same issues

23. Problem the First
There is change over time in the flora and fauna of the Earth
What we would commonly call ‘evolution’ today
The fossil record showed this to be pretty clear, even to people in the mid 1800s
This was not controversial in Darwin’s time, and is not now.

24. The Second Problem
There is a taxonomic relationship among living things
People were big into classifying stuff
It was pretty obvious that there was a relationship between different species
Different birds, different grasses, different cats etc

25. The Third Problem Adaptation
Different kinds of teeth for different animals, say carnivore ripping teeth and herbivore grinding teeth
Different tissues within species
Heart vs. eye etc.

26. The Solution!
Natural Selection provides a mechanistic account of how these things occurred and shows how they are intimately related.
It is one of those ‘oh man is that ever easy, why didn’t I think of that?’ type things.

27. How’s it work? There is competition among living things
More are born or hatched or whatever, than survive and reproduce
Reproduction occurs with variation
This variation is heritable
Remember, there was NO genetics back then, Chuck knew, he just knew….
Realized that is wasn’t ‘blending’

28. How’s it Work?
Selection Determines which individuals enter the adult breeding population
This selection is done by the environment
Those which are best suited reproduce
They pass these well suited characteristics on to their young

29. How’s it Work? REPRODUCTION is the key, not merely survival
If you survive to be 128 but have no kids, you are not doing as well as I am
I have reproduced…
Assuming the traits that made me successful will help them then I amore fit NOW than the 128 year old guy

30. This lecture keeps evolving…..
Survival of the Fittest (which Chucky D NEVER said) means those who have the most offspring that reproduce
So, the answer to the trilogy of problems is:
‘Descent with modification from a common ancestor, NOT random modification, but, modification shaped by natural selection’

31. So cause and function
The causal part of the behaviour definition refers to the immediate cause, stimuli, that sort of thing
Function is over evolutionary time usually
What does the behaviour accomplish
How does it increase fitness

32. Human evolution We split from the chimps about 5 million years ago
For a long time we were basically not so hairy short apes
What happened?
Diet change, maybe
Standing up was key
You have to pump blood up

33. Our Brains make us us
If you get a heart so powerful that it can pump blood up, well you have lots of extra Oxygen and sugar you can use
So get a bigger brain!
See we don’t have big teeth
We can’t run that fast (without steroids…)
But, we can outsmart our prey

34. Ok so…. So you are saying that big brain means big smarts right?
Sorta, encephalization quotient idea
Food storing vs non storing birds and Hp volume
Within species?
Harder to tell