What I would like you to do is to find a topic from section chapter 3 that you were interested in and search the internet for material on that topic. You might, for example, find people who are doing research on the topic, you might find web pages that discuss the topic, you might find youtube clips that demonstrate something related to the topic, etc. What you find and use is pretty much up to you at this point. Please use 3 or more resources.
Once you have completed your search and explorations, I would like you to say what your topic is, how exactly it fits into the chapter, and why you are interested in it. Next, I would like you to take the information you found related to your topic, integrate/synthesize it, and then write about it. At the end, please include working URLs for the three websites. Keep in mind that it will be easier if you keep it to one topic.
By integrating/synthesizing I mean to take what your read/experienced from the internet search (and from chapter 1 if you like) organize the information into the main themes, issues, info, examples, etc. about your topic and then write about the topic in your own words using that information. This is hard for some people to do - many students write what we refer to as "serial abstracts." They are tempted to talk about the websites rather than the topic proper and this what you DON'T want to do! They will talk all about website #1, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #2, start a new paragraph and talk all about web site #3, and then write some kind of conclusion. Serial means one after the other...again, this what you DON'T want to do! If all three sites are on the same one topic it will be easier.
At first it is a real challenge to get out of the habit of writing "serial abstracts," but I assure you once you get the hang of it it is much easier to write using the integration method. And besides this is the way researchers and scientists write their technical reports and findings - many of you will have to be able to do this for other classes and for jobs that you may eventually be hired for so now is a good time to learn this skill. At this point don't worry about a grade, worry about doing your best to have fun with the topic and then integrate it into your own words to share what you found and now know. We will work on citing the sources later....
Let me know if you have any questions.
I wanted to do my topical blog more on the concept and topic of ablation. I just find it so interesting how you can remove a part of the brain to help certain aspects of diseases. Even though ablation was first used to discover what parts of the brain control what, today ablation of the brain can help to reduce symptoms or help certain medical problems or diseases.
I found it very interesting how Flouren’s went about researching how removing parts of the brain can help us to discover which parts of the brain control what aspects of our functioning. Flourens discovered that the cerebellum is the center for all of our motor coordination. He also found out that the cortex is responsible for the functions of perception, intelligence, and the will to live and do things. It was so interesting to me the differences with a pigeon without a cerebellum and one without a cortex. The bird without a cerebellum would attempt to fly but couldn’t, while the second bird wouldn’t even know that it could fly or even knew flying existed.
When doing more research over this topic, I came across the medical problems that ablative brain surgery is helping currently. This surgery has been known to help Parkinson’s disease, cluster headaches, and psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia. I began to get really interested in how ablative surgery works with Parkinson disease. Ablative surgery is used in Parkinson’s disease to destroy certain tissues in the brain. The surgery’s goal is to destroy the tissues that cause tremors and dyskinesias in people with Parkinson’s disease. The three main types of ablative surgery for Parkinson’s are Pallidotomy, Thalamotomy, and cyrothalamotomy. Pallidotomy is the removal of the globus pallidus of the brian. Thalamotomy is the removal of the some of the tissue in the thalamus and cyrothalamotomy is the freezing of the area of the thalamus to destroy certain areas that cause tremors. The strangest thing about these procedures is that I can’t believe that the patient is awake the whole time. A general andesitic is used to numb the outer part of the brain by the skull, but he brain does not feel pain so the patient can stay awake. Plus doctors want the patient awake to see if tremors and dyskinesias has been removed. I found ablation very interesting and complicated. It is just baffling to think that our bodies can work with parts removed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablative_brain_surgery
http://www.neurologychannel.com/parkinsonsdisease/surgery.shtml
http://artsci.wustl.edu/~bio3411/starr.pdf
I decided to do the study of phrenology for my topical blog because I found it to be pretty interesting, and pretty bizarre. It was one of history’s first attempts at trying to decipher the different pieces and sections of our brain rather than just attributing our brain’s functions as merely providing consciousness. The basic gist of Phrenology was that you could understand and read a person’s personality and character from the shape and particularly different peaks and valleys on their skull. Although it eventually was proved to be a pseudo-science, it remained enormously popular because it was something that the common man could do and understand because it wasn’t that technical.
Although Gall is credited with the official discovery of the science, it actually had a mild and less detailed presence from back in the time of Aristotle, who apparently linked some skull shapes to certain personal characteristics. However, Gall took the science to a new level while promoting the fact that the brain was the home to all mental activities. His most famous work was “The Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and of the Brain in Particular” where he proposed that the shape of our skulls directly is related to the shape of our brain, therefore we can see which parts of the brain are more developed and vice versa, resulting in us being able to determine one’s specific characteristics.
Racism was prominent during these times, and phrenology didn’t discriminate in that area either. According to the followers of the science, skull shapes and sizes differed among the races, and corresponded with their assumptions of mentality differences. For an example, the caucasian’s forhead would usually be more prominent and tended to be stronger in mirthfulness, ideality, and conscientiousness. They also pointed out the obvious stating that men’s skulls were typically larger than female’s therefor men “must” be smarter.
One of the reasons phrenology died out though, besides it being obviously wrong, was that they really never proved any contradictory findings wrong, and would simply come up with rash and not well thought out excuses as to why it didn’t work out in their favor.
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/phrenology/index.html
http://www.seanet.com/~raines/phrenology.html
I decided to write about the topic of ablation from chapter 3. When I first read about it I found it interesting that they discovered more about how the brain worked by taking it apart or studying victims of brain injury.
While I was reading more about ablation I found it was being used to treat Parkinson’s disease. My family has a history of this disease and my grandpa currently has Parkinson’s disease so I wanted to learn more about that. Sine the 1940’s, ablation has been used to destroy the part of the brain that has been affected by Parkinson’s. The goal is to destroy tissue that is abnormally creating electrical/chemical impulses that cause the patients problems like tremors. Only about 10% of patients with Parkinson’s qualify for this surgery and it is rarely done now that Deep Brain Stimulation has been introduced. Surgery is used as a last resort when medicines stop providing relief.
To perform the surgery a heated probe is inserted into the tissue and it the tissue is destroyed. They try to only remove a small part of the brain at a time to avoid paralysis or strokes for the patient. There are three different types of ablative surgery: Pallidotomy, thalamotomy, and crythalamotomy. The first two types target different areas of the brain to control either diskenisias or tremors. Crythalamotomy uses a supercooled probe (instead of a heated one) to freeze and destroy tissue. The really interesting thing is that patients have to remain awake during this procedure to determine whether they are destroying the right area of the brain. If the tremors cease then the doctors did their job.
The fact that patients have to remain awake during the procedure is not that far off from ablation that was done a long time ago, when parts of the brain were destroyed and the animals’ behaviors were observed. Initially I was surprised that it was even being done today, but it's cool to see that a surgery that was used long ago has evolved to help people today in a different way.
http://www.neurologychannel.com/parkinsonsdisease/surgery.shtml
http://www.webmd.com/parkinsons-disease/pallidotomy-posteroventral-pallidotomy-for-parkinsons-disease
http://books.google.com/books?id=tE6VgburpxkC&pg=PA1&lpg=PA1&dq=parkinson's+disease+ablation&source=bl&ots=dl4vgmJ-N1&sig=_cEfADb1Y06tTxz9m9zT9aIUV00&hl=en&ei=-01ATYaoFIH78AbBnZC4BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&sqi=2&ved=0CEgQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=parkinson's%20disease%20ablation&f=false
After hearing Tuesdays lecture, the thing I found most interesting was the invention of the guillotine. Back then, the law came up with ways to kill criminals quickly, rather than hanging or burning, so they decided to use a sword. But then this was a problem as well because it took skill and perfect aim to chop off a head. Finally, Dr. Guillotine thought of a better device known as the guillotine. There were other devices back in the 1200s that resembled the guillotine, like the Halifax Gibbet, but the device we know today was invented in 1791 and came into law around 1792, around the time of the French Revolution.
It's silly now thinking about how it's not at all humane, but back then it was suppose to be the quickest way to die. How horrible that would be to watch someone get their head decapitated or even worse, having mine cut off (if I were a criminal back then). Apparently after the head is cut off, a person is still alive for a maximum thirteen seconds, depending on their size, weight, ect. which was interesting! Victims of the guillotine die because of lack of oxygen in their bloodstream, not because it kills the brain directly. This is why a person is able to still blink their eyes and function for a small amount of time! The last known year the guillotine was used apparently was in the 1960's, which amazes me. I'm glad I live in a time where there are now actual humane ways to die, but I'm sure in the future they won't think our ways are so humane because there will be more successful and less painful.
http://boisdejustice.com/History/History.html
http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/guillotine.html
http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/thefrenchrevolution/a/dyk10.htm
One thing that I have always been interested in is the concept of Contralateral function. Basically the book states that it is the notion that each side controls the opposite side of the body. Gall was one od the first people who called it cranioscopy. This was the first serious theory of localization of brain function. What we could find from this is that each part of the brain has a certain function. It may be difficult to imagine because the brain looks like one giant wad of pink goopy stuff. Now when I search for contralateral function I find more with the word lateralized, meaning that the right or left side of the brain. Some left side functions include numerical computation, and direct fact retrieval. While on the right side is more with approximation and contextual language. The right brain is more about feelings and intuitions along with more imagery. I decided to see what sided brain that I was so I found a quick quiz from this link: http://www.web-us.com/BRAIN/braindominance.htm and i found that I am more right brained person. Some of the factors stated say that I process information from a whole to part, I see the bigger picture first not the details, I jump from one task to another, I can process things that can be seen or touched easier, I process thought as illistrations, and I process information with creativity. I completely agree with all of these. I have been told forever that I am right brained, probly because I am and Art major. When I take notes I find that if I draw a map or an image of what they are describing I can remember what they were talking about better than just reading words. I frequently need people to draw out what they are tryign to tell me so that I can follow along instead of just spacing off. Gall thought that each side controlled the other phsycially and I found that was not the case. Though the website determined how I proccess things correctly it does not prove galls point correct. You would think acording to Gall that if I was right brained I would be left handed, and that is not the case. According to another website hand dominance is not directly related to brain dominance. It would be like saying if you only moved one side of your body you would only use one side of your brain but because we use both sides then that’s how we get differences. I could do quizes day and night to see which side of brain I am to see if any tests tell me I am opposite. All in all just because you may process things with more left or right side of the brain it does not control what motions you do. Gall was on the right track in knowing there were two speres that tended to be directed with different part, but the parts were not as pysical as he thought.
http://painting.about.com/library/blpaint/blrightbraintable.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateralization_of_brain_function
http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Diagram+of+Brain+Functions&view=detail&id=CFCC449567D79E41891DA1674D4DA51F43780011&first=1&FORM=IDFRIR&qpvt=Diagram+of+Brain+Functions
I decided to explore phrenology. This is the brain mapping used to predict different things about your brain It has evolved from the 19th century from deciphering one’s personality characteristics to now, looking at memory, pain levels, facial recognition, examining differences in the mentally ill and other things. During this process they use a MRI machine to look at the activity in the brain. In the articles I read they use fMRI, which stands for Functional magnetic resonance imaging. Some argue that this cannot be fully accurate because the people that are reading these scans are doing essentially the same thing that Gall did. They are saying okay this part of the brain is responsible for this and only this and because this part of your brain is lighting up when I show you this picture you must be thinking this. They argue that the brain is too inter-connected to be able to pin-point exactly what someone is thinking based on a scan.
They give the fMRI strategy some credit in certain areas but overall they discredit the technique implying that the brain is too complex to be able so say one way or the other. I have the same opinion abut this as I did about the phrenology of the 19th century. It is cool that people are curious about it and are trying new things to learn about the brain. That is how discoveries are made. Even if they are wrong it may lead them to discover something they didn’t really mean to. It is good to be curious.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-phrenology
http://rsl.stanford.edu/nis/deb_articles/Uttal_article.pdf
http://rsl.stanford.edu/nis/deb_articles/vishton_uttal_tics.pdf
One particular topic I became interested in, especially after class on Tuesday, is the Trichromatic Theory (AKA Young-Helmholtz theory of color vision). This theory explains how we are able to see different colors. The theory states that three receptors in the retina of the eye are responsible for the perception of color by the brain.
It was Thomas Young who first hypothesized that the eye has different types of cells that sense different wavelengths of light. These cells are known as cones. Young proposed that color vision was the result of the action of three different color receptors/cones. Later on, Hermann von Helmholtz discovered that three wavelengths of light were needed to create different colors. He found that people could see any color of the spectrum by mixing the 3 wavelengths: blue, green, and red.
There were many experiments that helped lead to the formation of this theory of color vision. An example of an experiment performed is that participants were given a color sample to match by altering three different wavelengths of light. The participants could not match the colors when only two wavelengths of light were used, but could match the colors when three wavelengths were used. Years of research have been done to help us understand how our eyes decipher colors.
The Trichromatic theory of color works, however there is a little bit more to it than that. More recently, scientists have come to realize that the sensitivity of these photoreceptors/cones is much more complicated that it was thought. Studies have shown that there are indeed three kinds of cones in the human eye, but they are not most sensitive to the colors blue, green, and red. Instead, these colors just tend to be at the peaks of the short, medium, and long wavelengths.
The Trichromatic theory of color has been around for a long time and has also contributed to more ways in which we can explain how the brain receives color images. The opponent process theory is one example. Another example is that this theory has helped us to understand color blindness.
This topic ties in with the chapter because it has to do with brain functioning. It allows us to understand more about how our brain receives signals in order for us to see the colors we do. So much of psychology is based on the brain and how it works.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5494302_trichromatic-theory-color-vision.html
http://www.ehow.com/facts_6727910_young_helmholtz-theory-color.html
http://www.ehow.com/facts_6765711_trichromatic-theory-color-vision.html
The idea I decided to research was Gall’s idea of phrenology. The idea emerged in the 18th Century and was made popular by Johann Spurzheim and the publishing of his book, Outlines of Phrenology.
Phrenology is considered to be the first attempt to identify the functions of the brain. Phrenology states that the brain is the organ of the mind. It also states that the mind is composed of a large number of ‘faculties’ and these are either cognitive or emotional. Each faculty is associated with a specific brain location and some people are said to have more than others. Examples of faculties are: time, self-esteem, spirituality, and secretiveness.
Doctrine of the skull is a phrenological belief that the skull contour reflected brain shape. This enabled measurement of faculties by measuring the contour of the skull.
To me, the theory of phrenology truly shows how history’s psychologists didn’t fully understand how the brain works but put much time and effort into understanding how the brain works and how it affects our personality.
http://www.phrenology.com/phrenology.html
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/phrenology/intro.html
http://www.historyofphrenology.org.uk/overview.htm
I thought it was really interesting reading Helmholtz theories on reflexes and neural impulses when I talk about similar issues in almost all my other classes. It really opened up my eyes when they started talking about du Bois Reymond and how he suggested that the impulse would create an electrochemical process that would be slower than a pure electrical transmission. During my readings in my U.S History class they spoke about how du Bois urged broader education and was also one of the founders of the NWACP. I always think its interesting when talking about the same subject and matter in multiple classes. I feel it gets my attention a lot more. It was fun to know that while Helmholtz performed his experiment he found out that the neural impulses moved much slower than he had had thought, moving anywhere between fifty and one hundred meters per second. As chapter 3 goes on and talks about mainly the brain, its clever how Helmholtz’s experiment was able to fit like as if it was a timeline. Going from the Bell-Magendie Law all the way to the localization of brain function, the author made it clear what they were talking about. Learning about how the neurons are sent deals with a lot more than what people may think. You need sodium, potassium, neurotransmitters, and the neuron in order for neuron transmission to take place. It all depends on how the sodium and potassium charge the neuron. I figured the transmission of neuron was really fast, but when comparing to electricity at 3 million times slower when it is going through a wire. I realize that just reading a little bit out of the text doesn’t make me perfectly aware of what is going on in my head; however I do know that I know a lot more now than what I did 6 days ago.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2002/DavidParizh.shtml
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j3_b5NVBiE
http://www3.wheatonma.edu/kmorgan/brainmindbehavior/NerveImpulse.html
My topic is over how Flourens used the method of ablation to scientifically debunk phrenology, how it evolved into the clinical method, and how it could describe problems for individuals such as Phineas Gage.
Flourens used a method called ablation to approach the problem of localization and figure out what parts of the brain do what. He would remove or destroy a certain part of animal brains and see how their behavior changes consequently. Although he couldn't find any indication of specific parts of the cortex removed in having different outcomes, he did find that removing larger quantities of the cortex caused the problem of pigeons not being able to learn from their experiences.
The method of ablation did not always give consistent results and because it was unethical to perform on humans. As such, another method of studying brain injuries came into being known as the clinical method.
Instead of destroying the persons brain, they look at how a persons behavior changes after some sort of brain injury or see if people's brains had abnormalities who acted behaviorally "abnormal."
Using the clinical method, they were able to determine why Phineas Gage, a fairly normal man before his incident changed so radically in behavior after having a a railroad spike shot through his head. The spike destroyed a significant portion of his left frontal cortex causing his behavior to become irresponsible and his ability to self-regulate reduced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ablation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Pierre_Flourens
During the period of enlightenment, there were many questions about the role of our brain. One issue was whether the brain was the center of the consciousness and controller of voluntary movements. After the invention of the guillotine, these questions began to be investigated. Theodore Bischioff conducted tests on decapitated criminals after execution to see if consciousness remained. Unfortunately his tests did not work leading him to conclude that involuntary actions were unrelated to consciousness. But can life still remain unconsciously?
In class we talked about chickens with their head cut off. It made me wonder how long a chicken can still be “living” after decapitation. According to research, a completely beheaded chicken moves around because the muscles in the body are moved by random impulses from the nerves. Typically activity in most chickens lasts no longer than a minute sometimes more. In one extreme case where the head was not completely taken off, the chicken survived for 18 months! The axe had missed the jugular vein and a clot prevented him from bleeding to death. So if this chicken can live that long without a head, what about humans?
Supposedly life can survive for about thirteen seconds, varying on the victim's build, health and the immediate circumstances of the decapitation. Removing the head is not what kills the brain; it is the lack of oxygen and other important chemicals in the blood stream. While the brain remains chemically alive, consciousness can cease immediately because of the loss of blood pressure.
http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/thefrenchrevolution/a/dyk10.htm
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Is_it_possible_for_a_chicken_to_live_without_a_head
http://www.miketheheadlesschicken.org/story.php
I chose to do my topical blog for chapter 3 on the practice of ablation that was introduced by Jean Pierre Flourens. This is one topic that I found very incredible and feel like it was a major break through in science and the study of how the brain works today.
Something new that I learned about ablation is that it is now not just used on the brain. It is used on the heart as well. Doctors put a tube into the heart, pump fluid into different sections of it to create an irregular heartbeat, this interacts and causes the before heartbeat to be off so the heart can still function properly. Also today, doctors make cuts in certain spots of the heart to get the same results.
Today doctors also use ablation to get rid of brain tumors. They do this in the same way that Flourens did by removing parts of the brain. Although this is obviously more dangerous on the use of humans, much research is performed to create as little flaws as possible. Brain tumors are common so ablation is a common practice to remove them. Many of the patients lose common mobilities, sensitivities and other associations that come with the brain just as Flourens found when he removed parts of the brain.
The technology and tools Flourens had when he was alive makes it amazing to believe that he was able to perform such a procedure. Today lasers and highly technological tools are used to remove sections of the organs. The legacy in neuroscience that Flourens left is astounding. Without his study of ablation who knows where we would be today with the study of brain tumors, and other problems we have with our vital organs. Flourens will never know, but he contributes more to neuroscience than he could ever have imagined in his day. Ablation is an astounding and amazing practice still today, let alone in the beginning of the 19th century.
http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/treating-arrhythmias-ablation
http://www.visualaseinc.com/
http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=fulltext&file=000206858
The concept of understanding what parts of the brain control what was something that fascinated me. It has certainly had an interesting history; beginning with Phrenology, getting a surprise with Phineas Gage and Tan, and onto a more modern understanding through science. I am curious to understand where we are at today concerning brain mapping. How sure are we that our frontal lobe controls our consciousness and emotion, or that our occipital lobe controls vision? Right now in history we laugh at Gall and Spurzheim for their ridiculous methods, we may want to be careful in our judgment, because someday that same judgment will be held up to us as well.
Currently, scientists think they have a pretty good grasp of the brain. Even though the brain does not look like much, like lower intestinal organs, it is what ultimately controls everything in our bodies. This particular organ is very unlike any other organ in our bodies when it comes to its functions. It does not have joints, valves, or clear cut divisions, other than the left and right hemispheres. How can we possibly hope to discover everything that this amazing part of our body does? Scientists think they have. They have split it up into various sections such as the frontal lobe, cerebellum, and parietal lobes. Not only have they split up the brain into sections but they have assigned basic functions to these divisions as well. The frontal lobe controls our basic consciousness and habitual memory, the cerebellum controls our balance and voluntary movements, and our parietal lobe controls a lot concerning our perception and senses. Right now we also have a lot of different technologies that can test what areas of the brain are stimulated by certain activities like speaking, listening, and thinking. Machines such as CT scans and MRI give us functioning picture of the brain and tell us which areas of the brain are involved in which processes. However, these images show an interesting picture. Although we would like to have a one to one ratio of one area of the brain to one reaction/responsibility there is a lot of overlap shown by these imaging devices. For example, if an individual experiences a stroke sometimes another part of the brain will take over some of that function. Examples like this make the subdivisions that scientist have created very blurry. Although cases like these do tend to be the exception it does raise some general concerns about our current mapping of the brain.
A new mapping technique has developed among the medical field for those individuals with brain tumors. Doctors say that MRIs and CT scans are a great tool for them to use but it still only gives them a general direction of where they’re going. They get a much clearer image of what’s going on in a patients’ brain once they open it up. Once inside they’ve begun to use a new technique that can be utilized whether the patient is awake or asleep. They have a metal prod with an electrical current running through it and they will prod the areas around where the tumor has developed. With this they can decipher what areas will be affected by removing the tumor. One doctor said it is very much like a ticket to a baseball game. The MRI or CT scan gives them the general area to the ballpark but once inside the electrical prod tells them where their specific row and seat are located. With these advances in technology we may be able to further experiment with the brain and be able to better map and understand the specific functions of certain areas of the brain.
http://www.neuroskills.com/brain.shtml
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1580416,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrGAY8GVIL4
One topic that I found really interesting in Chapter 3 was how the guillotine raised the question of whether the brain was the center of consciousness or not. I found this to be a fascinating topic because it seems like something that was done so long ago. I have watched movies that involve someone getting beheaded and never thought that it could raise so many questions and lead to so many findings. I found that guillotines were commonly used in the 1700’s and thought of as a more humane way to murder criminals. After numerous decapitations people began to notice twitches in the person’s limbs and facial expressions after they had been killed, which raised the question of where ones consciousness actually comes from.
During the French Revolution, the most common way of beheading someone was simply doing it by hand. This process would sometimes take several swinging attempts to actually decapitate the person. The guillotine was created to make executing someone as quick and clean as possible. The French physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin convinced The French National Assembly to look into a new type of machine to create a more humane type of capital punishment and make it available to people of all social standings. He originally wanted to abolish the death penalty completely, but at this point in time, it was more likely a new machine would be invented to make the job quicker and easier for everyone. From this accomplishment, he will always be thought of as inventing the guillotine.
Capital Punishment was designated to criminals guilty of crimes ranging from murder to stealing something close to no value. Depending on one’s social status, he or she would be executed honoring their standing in the community. Guillotines became one of the most common tools used throughout Europe. The more they were used, the more people began to notice the decapitated body twitching and the head changing facial expressions. Scientists looked further into this study of consciousness that supposedly followed after decapitation. Three French doctors observed the beheading of Monsieur Theotime Prunier in 1879. After this man’s head was removed from his body, the three doctors quickly scurried to retrieve his head and test it for signals of consciousness. They shouted in his face, stuck pins in his head, applied ammonia under his nose and flames close to his eyeballs. The head showed no response.
The guillotine is discussed in Chapter 3 and is a significant topic because it addresses the question of where consciousness comes from, which is an important finding. In Chapter 2 from the text, Descartes’ mind-body question helped develop one of the first models of the nervous system functioning. Over the next few centuries reflexes were investigated even further. In the 1700’s Robert Whytt researched the physiology of the reflex and found that the spinal cord played a vital role in reflexive behavior.
http://www.essortment.com/all/guillotinehisto_rgxj.htm
http://www.crimecasefiles.com/forum/life-on-death-row/359-the-guillotine.html
http://inventors.about.com/od/gstartinventions/a/Guillotine_2.htm
In Chapter 4 one thing that I found kind of interesting was Helmholtz’s invention of the ophthalmoscope. Of course, Helmholtz called it something different, an “eye-mirror.” The ophthalmoscope is a device that is used for examining the retina of eyes. Doctors still use it to this day even though it was created in the 1850s! It has been modified quite a bit since the original creation that Helmholtz had made. The instrument was even used as a model for later forms of endoscopy. An ophthalmoscope helps an optometrist view things like the optic nerve, which can be viewed as a large yellow disc, the arterial and venous arcades, and the macula. The optometrist should also be able to see a “red reflex” of the patient’s fundus, which would look a lot like red eye.
http://www.ehow.com/how_5063498_use-ophthalmoscope.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/430075/ophthalmoscope
http://www.mrcophth.com/Historyofophthalmology/ophthalmoscope.html
I decided to look up some more information on the subject of phrenology. Phrenology was a theory that says one can look at the shape of the skull and be able to tell what that person’s personality is. The reason this is important to the chapter is because this is one of the first ideas that certain areas of the brain did certain things, called localization. There are people today who still believe this to be true even though scientists discarded the idea a long time ago. There were a couple of websites these people created stating that, “Phrenology is a true science, which is there to benefit humanity.” This actually surprised me that some people still use it today. Even though several scientists have proven it to be wrong, these people state reasons as to why there may be miscalculations. Some of these reasons were people’s hair may have made their skull look different than it actually was, or the person observing the skull did not think of how all of the different attributes of the person worked together and therefore judged the personality wrong. There is also another science related to phrenology called physiognomy. Physiognomy looks at facial features though, instead of the skull, but these two can be used together to get a more accurate description of what the personality is. One thing people use these for can be to justify racism because they say there are actual reasons why some races are smarter than others and the reasons can be found in the shape of the skull. I was also able to find a few maps of what the different sections are, where they are located, and what they mean. What surprised me is that there is a very large amount of different sections. I thought there were only about ten or so, but in reality there are thirty-seven, and there are five in the small eyebrow area alone! The people who still use phrenology talk about different shapes and how they relate to careers that certain people would be good at. They also took the shape of a skull from “many thousand years ago” and came to the conclusion that these people were very destructive and sexual. What I do not understand is how they can stereotype an entire group of people when they have only studied one skull. There are people today who are destructive and sexual but that does not mean that everyone who is living today is the same way. After reading all of this information I still do not think that phrenology actually works. It seems to me that it has been proven wrong, even more so today by modern science, but there are people out there who will believe whatever they want to and not look at the facts around them.
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/phrenology/phrenology_frames.html
http://www.phrenology.org/index.html
http://www.seanet.com/~raines/phrenology.html
I wanted to further my research for the week on the topic of phrenology. Since I am probably one of the last, if not the last, person to be posting for this week I figured instead of focusing on the history of phrenology I would research how it was used later on in history rather than when it first came about. First of all I figured I would state a brief history of phrenology and why it is interesting to me. Phrenology was discovered by Franz Gall, which is the study of a person’s character and the shape of their skull. Gull was also the first to present the idea that the brain is the center of mental functions. He stated that the form of the head and the skull is representation of the brain itself and therefore can reflect the character of a person. Since different components make up the brain and each is different in every person, he figured that by examining one’s skull or head shape would provide insight to his or her personality and character.
Phrenology sparked a new interest in the 20th century by going somewhat hand in hand with other scientific theories and research going on at that time. It was stated that phrenology was incorporated into some theories on Evolution, as well as thoughts on criminals and criminal anthropology. Although it benefited these particular studies in science it was once again criticized by skeptics just like when Gall had had his ideas brought forth earlier on. Mostly brought on by the development of psychoanalysis, phrenology was pushed to the wayside as individuals began being evaluated based on the psychotherapist and his particular views rather than objective approaches to the science. Now a days phrenology can have a positive handle in scientific studies of psychology such as education, human resources, and law enforcement.
http://www.phrenology.org/
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/phrenology/phrenology_frames.html
http://www.seanet.com/~raines/phrenology.html
I realize many people have probably wrote about this, but I chose to write about phrenology because of the journal my dad gave me.
Phrenology is a pseudoscience that focuses on the measurements of the skulls and that the brain has localized and specific functions. It was a popular idea in the early 1800s and was developed by Franz Joseph Gall. The idea was that brain organs which were used got bigger and those which were not used shrunk, causing the skull to rise and fall with organ development.
Phineas Gage was one of the only "solid" pieces of evidence that discredited phrenology. Most phrenology cases were "thrown out" by the researchers if they didn't actually support the science. So it was very biased.
Phrenology did gain rapid popularity- it was an easy science to love and use on people because it didn't require any types of surgeries or biopsies or anything.
This topic was important to our chapter because phrenology presented the idea of localization and that the brain is the center of mental functions (as discussed by Gall)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
http://www.phrenology.org/intro.html
http://www.skepdic.com/phren.html
Helmholtz and the problem of perception was something that stood out to me in chapter 3 as being interesting. It is talked about in chapter 3 how Helmholtz felt that the sensory system for sight and hearing are remarkable but he felt they had many flaws and asked the question "what accounts for the quality of our perception". our experiences in life is thought to be central to perception. our perception of our world with experiences we have in it allow it to make sense of perceptions according to Helmholtz. for instance he talked about unconscious inference and distance. this is us as humans being able to determine how far away different objects are because of other events that have been associated with distance. those experiences enable us to perceive many different things around us. another example that was listed in chapter was as a person comes closer to you the retinal image of that person enlarges. we perceive that person getting closer but that person does not expand in size. Helmholtz says this is due to the fact we have had experiences with people coming and leaving our presence. we know from that, that these people do not shrink or grow in size just because they are coming closer.
As Helmholtz has talked about however there senses can be terribly flawed. he himself faced these problems when he had double vision after a fall down a set of stairs. problems of perception can occur as a result of damage to the brain like this or because of other problems such as hallucinations caused by imbalances in the brain. damages and hallucinations can cause a persons perception to change forever and not see the world the same again.
i found this part of the chapter interesting for many different reasons. the first is that i think the experiences are very important for us to learn about things that could happen in the future. i tend to agree with his way of thinking that our experiences shape us and our learning for these future events. what i also found interesting was the short part of the chapter that talked about damage to the brain and its effect on perception. as a former student coach at this university and hopefully a future high school coach, damage to the brain and the affect it has on people is something that is important to me as we learn more about the effects of damage to the brain during athletics.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/perception
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/helmholt.htm
http://bjps.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/3/235.full.pdf
sorry forgot to put this at the bottom
In researching for this topic, I looked up phreneology. I remember hearing about this in my Intro and Social Psychology classes and thinking about how weird it was. I had the same teacher for both classes and consequently heard the same thing twice, but did not learn much about it. I knew from the book that the bumps on the head were thought to correspond with different areas of the brain but in my research I learned a few more details.
One interesting thing I found was that Professor Paul Bouts used phreneology in the study of pediology and combined the two to become psychognomy. Around the time he was studying this psycho-analysis was also being developed so it is believed by some that the down fall of the objective science of phreneology is due to the development of this subjective science called psycho-analysis. I can see where phreneology had its place, and how continued research about different areas of the brain and how the brain works and communicates with the rest of the body or with other areas of the brain is important. Phreneology was the beginning of all this, but I also feel that psycho-analysis has its place and has been very helpful as well.
I also found a list of phreneology organ categories: Domestic, and selfish propensities, aspiring and governing organs, Moral sentiments, and perfective, perceptive, literary and reasoning facilities. Under each category there were a number of things that made up each organ depending on its category.
The thing that interested me most was reading about the different areas that were believed to be in the brain. It was said that murderers have a ‘murder organ’ in the brain. In one graph I found a ‘friendship organ’ right next to the ‘conjugal love organ’ and the ‘firmness organ’ right by the ‘self-esteem organ.’ I think these theories, however ridiculous they may sound now, actually would have made a lot of sense back when phreneology got its start. At the time they could only look at brains of the dead and it was a while before they started looking at people with brain damage. So these theories would have made perfect sense and I can see why they caught on.
http://www.phrenology.org/
http://www.skepdic.com/phren.html
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/fnart/phrenology/phrenology_frames.html
Phrenology is a topic that I have heard of, know that it's considered a pseudo-science, but haven't really done any further research on why it was deemed as such.
Phrenology is an early attempt at neurology. Gall believed that character, thoughts, and emotions were all located in the brain. This was an important discovery because it maintains merit today. However, it has since been determined that there isn't a correlation between the size of an area in the brain and that person's character traits and qualities. Some people believe that Phrenology spread as fast as it did initially because it had a simplistic structure, had sound logic, and was easy to learn overall. Eventually Phrenology lost credibility because its findings didn't tend to have solid evidence supporting their results.
Though we now know that brain shape and size has very little to do with psychology and how characteristics are developed, it made early psychologists take a closer look at biological reasons for behavior and characteristics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology
http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n01/frenolog/frenologia.htm
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-phrenology.htm
The topic that i have decided to write about is the law of mass action and equipotentiality. The reason that i decided to write about this subject is that it didn't seem to be covered very much in the book, and I'm interested about it for that reason.
In the book both of these topics were introduced talking about Lashley's work with rats by damaging their brains and then testing them on various mazes increasing in difficulty. The test for the rats were if they could learn the mazes, and to consider them learned, they had to complete the maze 10 times in a row without error.
Through his experimentation Lashley came up with two different principles. The first was the law of equipotentiality, which says that the rate of learning is independent of the combination of stimuli used in conditioning, which means that all of your brain works as one when learning, and so no stimuli necessarily works better than another. This is used in conjunction with the law of mass action, which means that the amount of damage done to the brain has direct effects on how well the subject can learn. The more damage there is in the brain the more mistakes the subject will make, and vice versa.
The biggest reason i had chosen these is because i didn't feel i understood them from what i was able to find in the book, and while i hope that i have them correctly, i couldn't find very much information and an still not entirely sure that i understand equipotentiality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Action_Principle_%28neuroscience%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equipotentiality
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Karl_Lashley
Phrenology deals with different areas of the brain defining different faculties. The areas where someone exuded more traits associated with the faculties would be more defined and would thus protrude out into the skull, and people could be studied based on the shapes of their heads. One could determine attributes of an individual or even personality traits by studying the bumps and flat spots on a person’s forehead, and eventually to specific attributes of the head as a whole. This lead to brain mapping and other areas in psychology. This has been mostly been put down as an errant form at studying the human brain and mind, especially with the help of psychoanalysis and introspection. The argument that Phrenology stems leads back to Descartes with his thoughts of the mind being localized, and the counter that the brain is actually compartmentalized with different areas leading to different faculties. Even though Phrenology has been pretty much debunked, there is a still a field dealing with Phrenology today. Though it has been adapted, it shares similar principals as that of Gall and Spurzheim’s theories. Phrenolgy.org is a website dedicated to these studies and describes traits associated with head shapes. It also analyzes famous figures of the past and uses their heads to lend credibility to their arguments. For example they take Julius Caesar’s head which was wide, even at the eyes, and a well developed forehead base. According to the theory these attributes lead to his Individuality and Constructiveness which attributed to his rise to power and cunning in battle. In researching modern day phrenology I also came across a video of a Hollywood casting director from what appeared to be the 1980’s who claimed to use Phrenology as a way to determine if an individual would be right for a role.
http://www.phrenology.org/
http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/courses/classes/NE-24%20Olander/Phrenology.htm
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x179xn_the-hollywood-phrenologist_fun