Chapter 1: Biological Psychology: Scope and Outlook

Overview
Introduction: What is Behavioral Neuroscience?
Biological Explanations of Behavior
Understanding Human Consciousness
Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

Introduction: What is Behavioral Neuroscience?

The mobile juvenile sea squirt.

Introduction: What is Behavioral Neuroscience?

The sedentary adult sea squirt.

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 Introduction: What is Behavioral Neuroscience?

Behavioral Neuroscience: the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and

developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience.
- This study focuses on the functioning of the nervous system and its
reciprocal interactions with the rest of the body to control behavior:
- central nervous system (CNS)
- peripheral nervous system (PNS)
- hormones
- cytokines
Normal: Pathology:
arousal addiction
aggression ADHD
anxiety/fear Alzheimer’s disease
ingestive behavior brain/spinal injury
language depression
learning and memory developmental disorders
motivation obsession/compulsions
motor behavior Parkinson’s disease
parental behavior phobias
sensation psychiatric disorders
sexual behavior schizophrenia
stress responses, etc. sleep disorders
sociopathy 4

Introduction: What is Behavioral Neuroscience?

Where do Behavioral Neuroscientists work?

1) University - basic research and teaching
2) Research Institute - basic research
3) Pharmaceutical or Biotechnology Industries
– applied (preclinical and clinical) research

What other disciplines contribute?

1) CLINICAL: Neurology, Endocrinology,
Psychiatry
2) BASIC RESEARCH: Neuroanatomy,
Neurochemistry, Electrophysiology,
Developmental Biology,
Molecular Biology

- integrative function of Behavioral

Neuroscience

Introduction: What is Behavioral Neuroscience?

- The Human Genome Project
- structure of DNA published April 25, 1953
- human genome draft sequenced June, 2000
- human genome completely sequenced April 14, 2003
- > 99.99% accuracy (<1 error per 10,000 bases)
- highly contiguous (gaps = sequences cannot be reliably resolved with current
technology)
- only 1.1 – 1.4% of 3.2 billion base pairs encode proteins
- 19,000 – 20,000 genes (current estimate 19,599)
- single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) and other gene variants
AAGGCTAA to ATGGCTAA
- Behavioral Neuroscientists study functions of mapped genes and their
products, interactions of resulting biochemistry with environmental
events… as they relate to behavior.

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 Introduction: What is Behavioral Neuroscience?
- The Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) Project
- functions of the entire genome

- The Human Proteome Project

- functional activities and interactions between proteins
- The Human Connectome Project
- connections between brain regions and their functions

Biological Explanations of Behavior

Simplification: procedures to reduce complexity of experimental analysis
without altering level of analysis
Generalization: general conclusions based on many observations

Biological Explanations of Behavior

Reductionism: the process of analyzing a complex behavior into elementary
components, an attempt to find brain, neuronal and molecular mechanisms
of behavior; shifts in the level of analysis from the behaving organism to its
neuronal system, circuit, cellular and molecular components
Explanatory Reductionism: the process of ascertaining knowledge of the
components of a system that will ultimately explain properties of the system
as a whole… leading to partial and heuristic explanatory reductionism

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 Biological Explanations of Behavior
Four categories of biological explanations of behavior (Tinbergen, 1951)
- Proximate Explanations
- PHYSIOLOGICAL: relationship between behavior and activity of brain
- portion of male songbird’s brain grows under influence of testosterone during
mating season, and enlarged brain area enables mature male songbird to sing
- ONTOGENETIC: development within individual (genes, nutrition, experience, etc.)
- immature male songbird must hear appropriate song during sensitive period
early in life, even though he cannot sing until he is at least a year old
- Ultimate Explanations
- FUNCTIONAL: purpose served by particular behavior (adaptation for survival)
- in most species, only male sings, only during mating season,
and only in his territory; song functions to attract females and
defend territory, improving odds of successful mating
- PHYLOGENETIC: evolutionary organization of the capacity for
particular behavior
- species that are closely related exhibit similar songs;
suggests that these species evolved from single common
ancestor

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Understanding Consciousness
The Problem of Mind - Brain - Behavior Relations
- Mentalism: the philosophical position that an immaterial
mind is responsible for behavior
- Aristotle (384-322 BCE) “All human intellectual functions are
produced by person’s mind, or psyche”
- Problem: How does an immaterial mind influence a material brain?

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Understanding Consciousness
The Problem of Mind - Brain - Behavior Relations
- Dualism: belief that body is physical but mind is not; mind and brain are
separate but interacting
- René Descartes (1649) “Pineal gland is the seat of the soul”
- Problem: How does an immaterial mind influence a material brain?

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 Understanding Consciousness
Why reject the idea that an immaterial mind controls a material brain?
- Mentalism and Dualism are not scientific perspectives
- Physics, Law of Conservation of Energy: The only way to accelerate
any matter or to transform any energy is to act upon it with other matter or
energy.
- Need for Heuristic Approaches - fruitful research strategy

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Understanding Consciousness
Why reject the idea that an immaterial mind controls a material brain?
- Monism: belief that world consists only of matter and energy and the mind
is part of it; mind is really activity of brain
- Hippocrates (460-370 BCE) “Men ought to know that from nothing else but the
brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, sorrows, griefs, despondency, and
lamentations…”
- William James (1890) - observation that chemicals, injuries, etc. severely alter
behaviour

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Understanding Consciousness
Continuing Problems
- Easy Problem: identification of which brain activity relates to which
experience or behavior.
- Hard Problem: Does consciousness emerge from brain activity, and if so -
how does this occur?

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 Understanding Consciousness
Continuing Problems
- Easy Problem: identification of which brain activity relates to which
experience or behavior.
- Hard Problem: Does consciousness emerge from brain activity, and if so -
how does this occur?

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Understanding Consciousness
Blindsight
- 2 visual systems: primitive (found in fish, reptiles, etc.)
complex (both systems found in mammals)
- after damage to brain, apparent blindness in portion of visual field, but subject can
accurately reach and grasp object without seeing it
- illustrates that portions of brain function in absence of conscious awareness
- primitive visual system does not have connections with parts of the brain that
participate in conscious processing, but does have connections with parts of the
brain that participate in control of hand movements
primitive behavioral
person is not aware of mechanisms
visual information received
eye/head movements
by this system

primitive reaching movements

visual system with hands

other simple behaviors

more recently evolved

behavioral mechanisms
mammalian speech and thinking in
visual system words (& consciousness)

damage abolishes perception other complex behaviors

and awareness of visual stimuli 17

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Understanding Consciousness
Split Brains
- surgical transection of corpus callosum to control intractable epileptic seizures
- odor presented to right nostril only
- odorant cannot be named because information does not reach left hemisphere
- yet, person can use left hand to reach for source of odor

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 Understanding Consciousness
Unilateral Neglect
- damage to right parietal cortex
- lack of awareness of left half of objects (including self)
- not blind or numb
- tests reveal awareness

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Understanding Consciousness
Unilateral Neglect
- damage to right parietal cortex
- lack of awareness of left half of objects (including self)
- not blind or numb
- tests reveal awareness

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Understanding Consciousness
Wilder Penfield (1930s - 1960s)
- Penfield electrically stimulated brain sites during surgical ablations
(interventions to remove epileptic foci)
- occasionally, electrical stimulation evoked visual or auditory
hallucinations that were sometimes described as memories,
especially when stimulation was administered to temporal lobe sites
- repeated stimulation at same site often evoked responses in
same sensory modality, but in different contexts

“Whoa! That was a good one!

Try it, Hobbs - Just poke his brain
right where my finger is.” 21

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 Ethical Issues in Research with Animals
What is an animal with rights?
- approximately 1 million species in 15 phyla of animal kingdom
- divergent views on what constitutes an animal with rights
- different groups oppose different kinds of animal use

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Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

How are animals used by humans?
- animals have been traditionally hunted by humans for food and clothing
- modern man uses animals for more purposes than ever before:
pets/companionship, guide dogs, search and rescue, research, vaccines
- modern societies differ in their use of animals.

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Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

How are animals used in research?
- studying physiology and behaviors of animals contributes
to health and well-being of humans & animals
- many questions cannot be answered by human experiments
- animal research has led to development of conservation programs

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 Ethical Issues in Research with Animals
What are the arguments against using animals in research?
“Scientific” Arguments
- some claim that animals are too different from humans to yield useful biological
information about human function and disease
- thalidomide
- some claim animal research has not cured all disease and is therefore ineffective
- “If [animal experimentation] were such a valuable way to gain knowledge, we should have
eternal life by now.” (Ingrid Newkirk, 1985)
- millions of mice (referred to as “preclinical models”) have suffered and lost their lives to futile
cancer research (PETA Media Center, www.peta.org)

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Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

Animal Rights Activists
Abolitionists - Demand cessation of animal captivity, slaughter of animals for food
etc., use of animals for work, and all animal research - as a moral imperative.
Minimalists - Desire reduction in animal research and controls on type of research,
distress to animals, and species used.

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Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

Animal Rights Activists
Refinement – alternative techniques or procedures to minimize potential pain, distress, or
discomfort to those animals which must be used,
Reduction – alternatives or methods which allow you to minimize the number of animals used
to obtain significant results,
Replacement – alternatives to the use of live animals for this research.

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 Ethical Issues in Research with Animals
Animal Rights Activists
Refinement – alternative techniques or procedures to minimize potential pain, distress, or
discomfort to those animals which must be used,
Reduction – alternatives or methods which allow you to minimize the number of animals used
to obtain significant results,
Replacement – alternatives to the use of live animals for this research.

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Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

Animal Rights Activists
Refinement – alternative techniques or procedures to minimize potential pain, distress, or
discomfort to those animals which must be used,
Reduction – alternatives or methods which allow you to minimize the number of animals used
to obtain significant results,
Replacement – alternatives to the use of live animals for this research.

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Ethical Issues in Research with Animals

Legislation and Official Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research
Federal:
- Animal Welfare Act
- Health Research Extension Act
- Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals
- Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care (AALAC)
- Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW)
- United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
Funding agencies (grants):
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Private Foundations
University of Florida:
- Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC)
Professional societies (presentation and publication
of findings):
- Society for Neuroscience (SFN)
- American Psychological Association (APA)
- all scientific journals, etc….

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 Ethical Issues in Research with Animals
Conclusions
- Human use of animals will continue for the foreseeable future.
- Ongoing efforts/dialogue will continue to assure humane treatment.
- “Middle ground” can be found by reasonable people in this debate.

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