Lärandet and evolution.
 Det flesta komplexa organismer kan lära sig, and måste





lära sig minst 3 viktiga saker:
De måste veta vilka händelser är and inte är viktig för dess
överlevnad and välbefinnande.
Vilken stimuli signalerar att en viktig händelse ska ske
Om dess responsen producerar positiva eller negativa
konsekvenser
Habituation: (tillvänjning): Minskad styrka på en respons
från en återupprepad stimulus.
Lärandet kan inte överföras till nästa generation, men en
lärd behavior kan leder till en mer framgångsrik behavior
som främja en art.
Klassisk Betingning
 Ivan Poflov
 Klassisk Betingning: Att associera en stimuls med en
annan.
 En stimulus framkallar en respons som tidigare hade
bara kommit från en annan stimulus.
Biological Perspective
 How the brain and other physiological processes affect
and govern behavior.
 Neuroscience: (Physiological Psychology): Studies
how the brain’s processes and other physiological
functions are the basis for our behavior, sensory
experiences, emotions and our thoughts.
 Genetics and behavior
 Evolution and behavior
Evolution and behavior
 Question: How much of our behavior is
preprogrammed to ensure our survival?
 Evolutionary Psychology: How behavior and abilities
have developed to adapt us to our environment in a
way that ensures our survival.
 Biologically based mechanisms: take in information,
processes it, and creates a response.
 I.e. speech, emotions, mating, aggression, altruism
Evolution of adaptive mechanisms
 Evolution: A change over time in the frequency of
certain genes in a given population (and the
characteristics they produce).
 Natural selection: properties that raise the possibility
of survival (and subsequent reproduction) have a
greater probability of remaining in a population. With
time the characteristic becomes more and more
common within the population.
 Adaptation : Makes it possible for an organism to meet
the demands from the environment and as a result
raises the chances of survival and reproduction.
Adaption
 Broad adaptation: Learning a language, continuing
behavior that is rewarded and avoiding behavior that
is punished. (it’s not the behavior that is important ,
but the fact we are hard wired to work in this manner).
 Specific adaptations: Exist to solve environment
specific problems such as securing safe food, avoiding
spiders and snakes, cooperating with certain people.
Adaptations that make people
people
 Language: everyone has an inborn ability to learn a
language...even deaf people.
 Language is central to human thought and communication.
 We are programmed to recognize and respond to human
faces arranged in a specific way. (Frantz 1961).
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK3ebhSmC4A
 When only a week old, babies can differentiate between 2
and 3 objects (indicates a primitive mathematic ability
(Geary 1995)
 Social anxiety (fear of social disapproval) can be seen as an
adaptive Mechanism (Baumeister and Tice, 1990)
Adaptations cont.
 Cooperation and “belonging” to a group is central for
our survival. We have an exceptionally strong need to
belong to a group and are afraid of being rejected or
cast out of the group.
 Altruism: People have a tendency to help others
(especially younger people). This tendency increases
with closer relations.
 Basic emotions are universal to all human culture.
 Violence: A man’s game? Man-man violence 30-1
compared to woman-woman violence. Hunting,
sexual etc.
Adaptations continued
 Altruism: Helping others with little obvious benefit to
one self (Bernstein Et. Al 1994).
 Increases with relatedness
 More prevalent when the target of the altruism is a child
 Reasoning s that by helping the in-group it secures one’s
own gene pool
 Universality of Emotion such is smiling, expression of
anger etc.
 Violence: A man’s game? Man-man violence 30-1
compared to woman-woman violence. Hunting,
sexual etc.
Problem with this theory?
 Circular reasoning.
 Minimizes the influence of the social environment on
the individual.
 Non-falsifiable.
 Can be used as an excuse for non-adaptive behaviour.
Genetics and behavior
 How much of our behavior is hereditary?
 Genotype: genetic programming of a organism
 Phenotype: an organisms observable characteristics
Studying behavior and genetics
 Premises: 50% genetic material from each parent.
 Siblings: 50% possibility of having the same gene
 Half-Sibling: 25% possibility
 How do genetic make-up and environment affect our
behavior?
 Problem: How do we distinguish between genetic
influence and environmental influence?
Adoption and Twins
 Heritability coefficient: estimates the extent to which the
differences, or variation, in a specific characteristic within a
group of people can be attributed to genetic factors.
 Adoption studies: when people who were adopted early in
life are compared on some characteristic with both their
biological parents and with their adoptive parents (with
whom they sharn no genetic material).
 Twin studies: compare trait similarities in identical and
fraternal twins.
 Monozygotic twins share 100% DNA, Dizygotic 50% like
normal siblings
Results of studies:
and…
Good Sites
 http://psyc150allen.class.arizona.edu/content/biologic
al-bases-psychology
 http://netstof.dk/artikler/drugs-and-the-brain
Axon
Crucial Terminology
 Resting Potential: negative ions inside cell compared
to positive ions outside the cell.
 Neurons special in that sudden extreme changes can
occur in the inside-outside voltage differential
 Action Potential: The inside differential shifts from -
70 millivolts to +40 millivolts. This shift is termed AP
 Threshold: To cause this action the stimulus must
reach response threshold.
Neuroscience Terminolgy
 Neurons and axons
 Signals
 Synapse
 Neuro transmitter (NT)
 Threshold
 Inhibitory and excitatory
 MAO
 Specific NT and behavior
 Effects of drugs
Action Potential
Terminology contd
 Synaptic Space: The space between terminal buttons
 Neurotransmitters: chemical substances carrying
messages
 Synaptic vessels: where the molecules are stored in the
terminal buttons.
 Receptor site: where the molecules are picked up,
which continues the impulse.
Neurotransmitters and behavior
 Acetylcholine – Excitatory at synapses involved in
muscular movement
 Too much acetylcholine is related to depression,
undersupply produces memory loss in Alzheimer’s
disease; absence produces paralysis.
 Dopamine – Excitatory, involved with voluntary
movement, emotional arousal, learning, memory, and
experiencing pleasure and pain.
 Undersupply: Depression and Parkinson’s disease.
Oversupply related to Schitzophrenia.
Neurotransmitters and behavior
 Norepinephrine – associated with Excitory and inhibitory





functions at various sites; involved in neural circuits related
to controlling memory, learning, wakefulness, and eating.
Too little associated with depression, too much associated
with schizophrenia.
Serotonin – Significant for moods, sleep, eating and
arousal. May be related to relaying pleasure and pain.
Too little serotonin is related to both depression and panic
illnesses as well as OCD. Some anti-depressants raise
serotonin levels at the receptor sites.
GABA- Inhibitory transmitter in the motor system
Undersupply: tremors and loss of motor control as well as
personality changes
Biological methods of studying the
brain
 Invasive and Non-invasive
 2 important categories to keep in mind
 Invasive: going into the brain physically
 Destruction and Stimulation techniques
 Non-Invasive: scanning in other ways
 EEG:electroencephalogram
 Brain Imaging such as:




Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
CAT/CT
Radioactive labeling
PET (Positron emission tomography)
MRI
PET SCAN
A good video
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMKc8nfPATI
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esPRsT-lmw8
 Video 1 Bozeman video 2 daniel amen brain imaging
The Brain and behavior
 Brain stem: Supports vital life functions i.e. Medulla:
which runs the heart and respiration.
The brain Continued:
 Pons: a ”bridge” of sorts that sends nerve impulses




between the higher and lower parts of the nervous system.
Cerebellum : Muscle movement and coordination, but also
plays a role in learning and memory.
Midbrain: Clusters of sensory and motor neurons.
Thalamus: a “switchboard” that organizes input from sense
organs and routes the input to appropriate areas of the
brain.
Hypothalamus: A smaller group of neurons that partially
control emotion and motivation, sex drive, temperature,
sleeping patterns, eating, drinking, and aggression.
The cortex
 Motor Cortex: Controls more than 600 voluntary
muscles
 Somatosensory cortex: receives sensations in form of
nerve impulses. Also coordinates movement and
balance
Motor Cortex
Somatosensory cortex
Localisation of function and the
split brain
 Sperry Experiment
 http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/split.html
Left hemisphere
 Language
 Mathematics
 Logic
 Etc.
Right Hemisphere
 Spatial understanding and ability
 Facial Recognition
 Musicality
 Mental images
Split Brain. När man klippa Corpus
Callusum
Se ”split brain”länken på itslearning
Paul Broca (Broca’s Area)
Broca’s Area responsible for the
production of speech.
 1860’s in France
 Rises out of the concepts of Phrenology
 Based originally on case studies of 2 patients
 Leborgne no intelligible speech.

One syllable (Tan)
 Lelong 84 yo suffered stroke

Could say “oui, non,tois (misspoken trois)
Tourjours,lelo (misspoken name)
 Upon autopsy, both have lesions in above areas of the
brain
Broca’s Aphasia
 Symptoms: can include problems with fluency,
articulation, word-finding, repetition and producing
and comprehending complex grammatical structures,
both orally and in writing.
Good Links for Broca’s
 http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/130/5/1432
 Paul Broca's historic cases: high resolution MR
imaging of the brains of Leborgne and Lelong
 N. F. Dronkers, O. Plaisant, M. T. Iba-Zizen, E. A. Cabanis
 Findings briefly: that damage in other areas also contribute
to the absolute lack of speech production.
 “Therefore, it is possible that the aphemia characterized by
Broca as an absence of productive speech was also influenced
by the lesions in the region of the superior longitudinal
fasciculus. Damage to Broca's area in both cases may, in
isolation, have resulted in milder speech deficits, but would
not likely have caused the complete and persisting disruption
of productive speech in these cases.”
The Brain Continued: Language
 Broca’s area: In the frontal lobe. Connected to the
motor cortex and significant for speech formation.
 Wernicke’s area: Speech comprehension. Called
Receptive Aphasia
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTdMV6cOZw&
noredirect=1
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVhYN7NTIKU&l
ist=PLzsjWkh3G2DbdebFNfHItKWgFP0xCdCVS
 Sara scott broca’s aphasia
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zNKz7YoUao
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9z6eX85Zn4 6
years on
Glands
 Endocrine System
 Releases hormones
 Made up of cells and neurons which
react to specific hormones
 Much slower than nerve impulses
 Stays in the blood system a longer
 amount of time
Basics
 The endocrine system—the other communication system
in the body—is made up of endocrine glands that
produce hormones, chemical substances released into
the bloodstream to guide such processes as metabolism,
growth, and sexual development. Hormones are also
involved in regulating emotional life.
Glands in the endocrine system
 Thyroid: Releases Thyroxin, a hormone that can
decrease concentration and lead to irritation when the
thyroid is overactive. When underactive it causes
drowsiness and a slow rate of metabolism.
 Parathyroid: Within the thyroid are four tiny peashaped organs, the parathyroids, that secrete
parathormone to control and balance the levels of
calcium and phosphate in the blood and tissue fluids.
This, in turn, affects the excitability of the nervous system
Endocrine contd
 The Pineal Gland:The pineal gland is a pea-sized
gland that apparently responds to exposure to light and
regulates activity levels over the course of the day.
 The Pancreas: The pancreas lies in a curve between
the stomach and the small intestine and controls the level
of sugar in the blood by secreting insulin and glucagon.
 The Gonads: These reproductive glands—the testes in
males and the ovaries in females, and, to a lesser extent,
the adrenal glands—secrete androgens (including
testosterone) and estrogens.
More endocrine system
 The Adrenal Glande
 The two adrenal glands are located above the
kidneys. Each has two parts: an outer covering, the
adrenal cortex, and an inner core, the adrenal
medulla. Both influence the body's responses to
stress. For example, in response to a stressful
situation, the pituitary gland may release beta
endorphin and ACTH, which, in turn, prompt the
adrenal cortex to release hormones. Meanwhile, the
autonomic nervous system stimulates the adrenal
medulla to secrete hormones such as epinephrine
into the bloodstream.
Cortisol and Memory. Functions of
hormones on human behaviour.
 Cortisol: produced by the adrenal cortex in response to
stress.
 Prolonged stress may caused prolonged cortisol
secretion.
 Can lead to damaged immune system, impairment of
learning, impairment of memory.
 High amounts results in the atrophy of the
hippocampus.
Newcomer et al. Experiment on
cortisol and memory.
 http://www.thinkib.net/psychology/page/3430/newco
mer-et-al simple version
 http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articlei
d=1673779#tab4 actual journal article
Oxytocin and Trust: Baumgartner
Oxytocin and Trust: Baumgartner
 More precisely, the bilateral amygdala and functionally connected brainstem
effector sites showed significantly increased activation in the placebo
compared to the OT group in postfeedback trust periods.
 Moreover, both human neuroimaging (Domes et al., 2007a and Kirsch et al.,
2005) and animal studies (Huber et al., 2005) have shown that the
neuropeptide OT decreases fear responses by modulating activation in the
amygdala and brainstem effector sites.
 Finally, it has been reported that the amygdala shows increased activation
during viewing faces of people that look untrustworthy (Winston et al., 2002)
and that patients with bilateral amygdala damage judged other people to look
more trustworthy and more approachable than did normal viewers or other
patients with brain damage in other areas (Adolphs et al., 1998).
 Taken together, these findings are consistent with the view that OT reduces
fear responses during the trust game by reducing activation in the amygdala
and connected brainstem effector sites, which in turn enhances subjects' ability
to trust in situations characterized by the risk of betrayal.
Neuroplasticity and its implications
 Environmental factors that influence the brain’s
physical structures.
 Dendritic branching
 Enriched environment provides stimulation


Social interaction
Learning
 Experiences processed by the brain resulting in an
increased number of synapses
 animal research
 Case studies on neglected children
Dendritic Branching
Rozenweig, Bennet, Diamond 1972
 “The role of environmental stimulation on brain




plasticity”
Rats placed in enriched or deprived environment
Enriched Condition (EC): 10-12 rats in cage with things
to explore and play with
Impoverished Condition (IC): One rat per cage and no
stimulation.
30-60 days in each condition
Results
 Anatomy of brains different for IC and EC
 Brains of EC rats had:
 Increased thickness and higher cortex weight
 EC rats had developed more Acetylcholine receptors
which are important for learning and memory.
Evaluation of the study
 Well controlled lab study
 Animal models present problems for validity to
humans
 Follow up research showed 2 hours per day in EC
produced same changes as EC group
 Ethical issues?? Justified?
Discuss two effects of the environment
on physiological processes
 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC32291
01/
 Above is Bremmer article about ptsd/childhood abuse
 Info about the function of the hippocampus in simple
language
 http://psycheducation.org/brain-tours/memory-
learning-and-emotion-the-hippocampus/
Perry (1997)
 Read Article and make some notes about the
interesting points.
 http://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/perry199
7.pdf
Implications
 Learning can produce new synaptic connections
 Environmental stimulus actually changes the
physiology of the brain
Case study, Alzheimer’s disease
 https://www.alz.org/braintour/3_main_parts.asp
Examine one interaction between cognition and
physiology in terms of behaviour.
 Basically this question is asking how thinking and
physiology (biological structure) are interrelated.
 Such as how biological structures affect thinking and
cognitive reality.
 And how thinking (cognition) can affect biology.
 Cognition can be defined as internal mental
processing.
Amnesia and relevant case studies.
 Amnesia: The inability to learn new information or
retrieve information that has already been stored in
memory.
 Amnesia is the condition in which people lose their
ability to memorize/recall information.
Connection to topic 2.6
 There is an interaction between biological and
cognitive factors in amnesia
 Amnesia has a biological cause (e.g. brain damage) and
affects cognition (e.g. memory)
 In amnesia patients, episodic memory is affected to a
greater extent than semantic memory.
 Episodic memories are memories linked to a certain
time and place.
 Semantic memories are memories for the meaning of
information.
Causes
 Amnesia can be caused by brain damage through:
 injury
 strokes
 infections
 specific drugs – usually sedative
 Closed head injuries
 Bilateral strokes
 Chronic alcoholism leads to Korsakoff’s syndrome
 Alzheimer’s disease
Regions affected
 Diencephalon (subcortical)
 Medial temporal lobe (cortical)
 Hippocampus
2 major types of amnesia
 Anterograde Amnesia
 Impairment in ability to recall new information after the
onset
 Inability to form new memories
 Antero = new
 Retrograde Amnesia
 Impairment in ability to recall old information before
the onset
 Inability to recall old memories
 Retro = old
Supporting Study 3: Milner &
Scoville (1957) – HM
 Background:
 H.M first fell off a bicycle at 9 years old resulting in
brain damage.
 Epileptic seizures started at age 10
 Major seizures happened since age 16
 Drugs failed to control seizures
HM continued
 Method:
 At age 27 (1953) H.M had brain surgery to control his
epilepsy and to stop seizures.
 He had a bilateral medial temporal lobectomy.
 They removed tissue from the temporal lobe, including
the hippocampus.
 H.M. was studied extensively for 40 years.
 In 1997, researchers used an MRI scan
HM continued
 Results:
 After the operation, HM had anterograde amnesia – he was
unable to create new memories
 Nothing could be stored in his long-term memory (LTM).
 His childhood memories were intact
 Memories immediately before the operation were lost.
 His working memory was intact.
 MRI Scan Results (1997) –
 Brain damage was pervasive and included the hippocampus,
the amygdala, and other areas close to the hippocampus.
HM
 Conclusion:
 The hippocampus is needed for memories to be
transferred to long-term memory.
 Connection of study to question
 The case of HM reveals the interaction of cognition
(memory) and physiology (brain damage in the
hippocampus) in amnesia.
 Brain damage in relevant areas caused memory
impairment
 This study suggests that certain brain regions are
responsible for the cognitive process of memory
Supporting Study : Sacks – Clive
Wearing (2007)
 Another significant individual who suffered from a
severe and rare case of amnesia is Clive Wearing,
studied by Oliver Sacks (2007).
 Background:
 Clive Wearing was a musician who got a viral infection -
encephalitis.
 This left him with serious brain damage in the
hippocampus (biological cause), which caused memory
impairment (effect on cognition)
 He suffered from anterograde and retrograde amnesia
 Results:
 He could not transfer information from STM to LTM.
 His memory lasted 7-30 seconds, and he was unable to
form new memories.
 Wearing still had the ability to talk, read, write, conduct
and sight-read music (procedural knowledge)
 Wearing’s episodic memory and some of his semantic
memory were lost.
 MRI scans of Wearing’s brain showed damage to the
hippocampus and some of the frontal regions.
 Conclusion:
 The case of Clive Wearing provides insight into the
biological foundation of different memory systems,
which is a cognitive process.
 Wearing’s case highlights the interaction between
cognition and physiology as it establishes the link by
illustrating the effect of physiological causes in the brain
(brain damage occurring in hippocampi region, on the
social and cognitive interactions of the individual.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c62C_yTUyVg
Concluding thoughts about
amnesia and the topic.
 In amnesia patients, damage to certain brain areas
impaired the patients' memory, therefore supporting
the idea of the interaction between the physiology (of
the brain) and cognition (of memory) in amnesia.
 Therefore, amnesia has a bidirectional relationship
between its physiological cause occurring in the brain
and the cognitive process of memory.
The effect of meditation on brain structure:
cortical thickness mapping and diffusion tensor
imaging. Hyung-Kang et.al 2013
 METHODS
 A total of 46 meditation practitioners (16 men and 30
women) and 46 control subjects (17 men and 29 women)
participated in the study.
 Most meditation practitioners were individuals trained
with BWV, a meditation practice that combines ancient
Eastern philosophy with modern scientific methods to
elevate human awareness
 The mean duration of meditation practice was
41.23 ± 27.57 months.
 Control subjects had no previous experience with
meditation or similar practices.
Study continued
 Brain imaging
 Data acquired using MRI
Findings
 Meditators had thicker cortex in the anterior portions
of the brain, located in the frontal–temporal region,
including bilateral ventromedial PFC, superior frontal
cortex and middle and interior temporal cortices than
controls
 Meditators compared with controls had thinner cortex
in the posterior portions of the brain, located in
parietal–occipital region, including bilateral
postcentral and inferior parietal cortices and left
posterior cingulate cortex.
EVALUATION OF STUDY: Cons
 Vague grouping of term Meditation Practitioner.
 Varied times of meditation.
 Not a well controlled group
 I.e. hours per day, thoughts during meditation and so
on.
 Correlational, not causational.
 Are their brains different so that is why they seek
meditation?
 Or does Meditation cause the difference. If so, how?
Eval: Pros
 Well organized Lab study
 Precise with MRI
 Probably repeatable, but the participants poses a
problem
 Ethical guidelines followed (volunteers) , etc
Tie to 2.6
 A link shown between thinking (cognition) and
actually changing the physiology of the brain.
 Thus proof of and interaction between cognition and
physiology
Weaknesses with the Biological
Perspective
 Reductionistic: We are bio-machines.
 Difficult to differentiate between natural and cultural
factors when considering behavior.
 A lot is based on tests on animals. Brings into
question the validity to humans.
 Treatment is first and foremost medical.
 (often effective…but there is more)
Strengths with the biological
perspective
 Scientific
 Dependable
 Practical
 Clearly proven to a certain extent. Clear and obvious
connections between our biological functions and our
behavior.
 Effective in a wide range of treatments.