BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW:Roots of Behavioural Neurosciences

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Neurological Basis of Behavior (PSY - 610)

LESSON 02

BRIEF HISTORICAL REVIEW

Objectives:

To orient students towards its historical and scientific roots.

To relate it to other areas of specialization in Psychology.

Behavioural Neurosciences is as wide as the fields within the scope of its domain and every single

aspect of brain/behavior relationship of any organisms comes under its purview. This has extended more

recently to a point where disciplines such as neurophysics have emerged, and mathematical modeling of

neural connectivity and communication as well as computer simulation of complex experiences ( and

neural networks) is very much part of robotics.

Roots of Behavioural Neurosciences

Basically the roots of experimentation in psychology emerge from adaptation of methods of Physics.

The well known psychophysical methods were developed by Weber who experimented on relationships

of stimulus and responses. Relating experiences to the brain has its origins in the work of William

James, Karl Lashley, Sherrington and Pavlov. To put forward the view that biological functions and

experiences are related to the brain, two names stand out, that of Lashley and Pavlov.

Experimentalists believe that uncontrolled observation is nonscientific; there are too many uncontrolled

variables in behaviors for us to draw any conclusions.

Experimentalists such as Pavlov believed in controlling all possible conditions to study behavior.

According to this view, unless all conditions are controlled, studies of behavior would be unscientific.

As we all know, Pavlov the Russian physiologist accidentally discovered a different route to studying

brain behavior relationship. He was also one of the first to connect physiology with abnormal behaviors

and gave the concept of experimental neurosis. This was a condition of extreme emotional reaction

which he saw in his laboratory dogs which were required to make finer discriminations beyond their

capacity.

Ethologists and naturalists on the other hand believe that when behavior is controlled and studied

under laboratory conditions what we see is not "real" behavior but a construction in the laboratory.

Ethology studies behavior of organism as it occurs in nature, under natural conditions. Ethologists such

as Konrad Lorenz (imprinting), Niko Tinbergen (aggression, biological basis), contributed important

findings regarding expression of behavior. Imprinting has had a strong impact on child and

developmental studies. The belief that controlling and restructuring behavior led to unnatural situation,

unnatural response offered another methodology of studying behavior as well as theoretical inputs. The

Yerkes Primate Institute (Georgia: Chimp language studies) and Wisconsin Primate Center ( Wisconsin:

Harlows' Chimpanzee studies), Bar Harbor Maine (Sociobiology) emerged out of this tradition.

Neurophysiology was another input and came through the work of Sir Charles Sherrington, and Charles

Bell's research on the reflex systems. An excellent book on the nervous system functioning and

integration and the reflexes systems was published as a consequence. Thus, providing the beginnings of

the study of nerve cells, their development, and mechanism and functioning.

Apart form the input from the major names, if we look historically there are three major inputs into this

discipline--from Europe, Russia, and the US.

Neurological Basis of Behavior (PSY - 610)

The European inputs are from Germany (Weber, Fechner, Helmholtz,), France (Broca), Britain (Bell,

Sherrington), Russia (Pavlov) and America (William James, Lashley, and Watson). There are the

strands which reflect the scientific culture of the region as well as the thinking and working of the

scientists at the time.

Germany: The emergence of Psychophysics (S-R relationships) from Weber's labs, Fechner's work

relating of experiences/ physiological responses to physical stimuli are well documented as the

beginning of psychological experimentation.

Helmholtz, another important contributor from Germany, measured for the first time the speed of nerve

impulses. His main contribution was in the area of vision and analysis of the visual apparatus and

processes. His contribution of the study of emotional/physiological states is also well known and studied

even today. The two important names of Fritz and Hitzig emerge for relating the brain to motor control

of functions.

Johannes Muller's famous "Law of Specific Energies of Nerves" (1838) was given after an experiment

demonstrated that the stimulation resulted in a response by the nerve.

France: Flourens work on phrenology (areas of brain and behavior) is also well known. Marc Dax is the

first one to note that right side paralysis affect speech as well. Broca located the motor control of speech

known as Broca's area. Later Jouvet's contribution to sleep research is also well known.

Italy: Camillio Golgi is the first one to selectively stain the cell bodies. This stain is now known as

Golgi Stain.

Source:www.neurostructural.org/images/eleven.jpg Source:www.coloradocollege.edu/.../14.golgi2.JPG

Above you can see the images of Golgi stain .Towards the right is an image of a Golgi Stain of

astrocytes at higher magnification.

Spanish: Ramon Cajal in 1889 anatomically studied synapses and individual neurons. He also studied

cells and their interconnections.

Russian: Pavlov's major contribution in connecting physiology and behavior. His work was very much

focused on experimental studies. Luria is known as the father of Neuropsychology and his studies were

on gunshot wounds of WWI head injured soldiers.

Britain: Same time as Americans studying brain substrates of behavior, the Germans studying the S-R

relationships, the British studying the basic properties of the brain, physiology, anatomy and Chemistry.

Sherrington, Father of Neurophysiology, prepared a report on the nervous system as acting in an

integrated coherent manner. The Reflex system was clearly analyzed (reflex arcs) and laid down the

basis of studying the neuron.

Neurological Basis of Behavior (PSY - 610)

South America: The first systematic attempts at human psychosurgery occurred from 1935, when the

neurosurgeon Egas Moniz teamed up with the surgeon Almeida Lima at the University of Lisbon to

perform a series of prefrontal lobotomies --a procedure severing the connection between the prefrontal

cortex and the rest of the brain. Psychosurgery is a term for surgeries of the brain involving procedures

that modulate the performance of the brain, and thus effect changes in cognition, with the intent to treat

or alleviate severe mental illness. It was originally thought that by severing the nerves that give power to

ideas you would achieve the desirable result of a loss of affect and an emotional flattening which would

diminish creativity and imagination; the idea being that those are the human characteristics that are

disturbed. Historically, the procedure typically considered psychosurgery, prefrontal leukotomy is now

almost universally shunned as inappropriate, due in part to the emergence of less-invasive or less-

objectionable methods of treatment such as psychiatric medication and modified electroconvulsive

therapy. In modern neurosurgery however, more minimally invasive techniques like gamma knife

irradiation and foremost deep brain stimulation have arisen as novel tools for psychosurgery.

American: William James made the first ever laboratory in US. He studied the role of brain as basic to

all behavior and experience. Karl Lashley worked on learning and its brain substrates. He also worked

on the distribution of information circuitry. There are integrated circuits which connect the various parts

of the brain. His student was Hebb, one of the foremost names in neurosciences, whose book,

"organization of behavior" in 1949 actually triggered the involvement of psychology in brain science.

Some of his studies on sleep and motivation are also a landmark. James Watson, a behaviorist, stated

that behavior can be measured through cause-effect sequence relationship. Bigelow (1850) first reported

case of Phineas Gage in relation to the change in personality with brain injury. Later many names in the

US such as Valenstein, Gazzaniga, Sperry, Rakic, Merzenich etc. worked on the brain behavior

relationship

Table 1: Important Contributors To Neurosciences

Nobel Prizewinner

Year

Contribution

Ivan Pavlov

1904

Digestive systems and their physiology

Camillo Golgi and Ramon 1906

Histological identification of the structure of

Cajal

Neurons and their connections

Charles Sherrington

1932

Discoveries of neuronal functioning and reflex

and Edgar Adrian

systems

Walter Hess

1949

Control of brain in behavioural expression

Egas Moniz

1949

Development of the prefrontal lobotomy

technique

John Eccles Alan Hodgkin 1963

Ionic basis of neuronal conduction

and Andrew Huxley

Bernard Katz, Von Euler 1970

synaptic transmission

and Julius Axelrod

Karl Von Frisch, Konrad 1973

Contribution to studies of animal behavior

Lorenz, and Nikolass

Tinbergen

Roger Sperry

1981

Brain Hemispheric differences

David Hubel and Torsten 1981

Information processing

within the brain

Weisel

structures of visual system

Rita Levi Montalcini and 1986

Discovery of the Nerve growth factor

Stanley Cohen

Erwin Neher and Bert 1991

Ionic Channels

Sakman

Alfred Gilman and Martin 1994

Discovery of G-protein receptors

Rodbell

Arvid

Carlsson,

Paul 2000

Elaboration of Synaptic transmission

Greengard,

and

Eric

Kandel

Neurological Basis of Behavior (PSY - 610)

Source: From Pinel (2002) p 8.

Sub Specializations

Areas of sub- specializations within the neurosciences;

1. Biological psychiatry: studies biological basis of psychiatric disorders and treatment utilizing

brain manipulations.

2. Biopsychology: Focuses on biological basis of behavior i.e. how brain and other biological

processes affect psychological behaviors. This has very strong laboratory based studies.

3. Neurobiology and Developmental neurobiology: Biological systems (especially animals) are

the focus for this area. The development and maturity of the nervous systems and the processes

involved are studied in detail.

4. Neuroanatomy: This entails study of the structures and systems of the brain and how they control

and modulate behavior.

5. Neurochemistry: The area investigates neurochemical modulations of behavior, especially

synaptic transmission (intra and inter neuronal).

6. Neuroethology: Study of the brain and biological basis of behavior as it occurs in the natural

environment basically how behavior evolves changes (using an evolutionary perspective).

7. Neuroendocrinology: studies hormonal influences within the brain and modulation of behavior

by hormones.

8. Neuropathology: The focus of this area is disorders of the brain, how and why these occur.

Neuropharmacology: studies the drug interactions within the brain and their effects on neuronal

transmission and subsequently behavior.

10. Neurophysiology: is the study of the electrical signals/impulses; both interneuronal and

intraneuronal and related changes in behavior.

11. Neuropsychology: studies brain and behavior correlates especially for higher order brain

functioning and assessment rehabilitation of patients.

Behavioral Neurosciences aims to study and understand the neurobiological, neuroanatomical,

neurochemical substrates of behavior. It aims to understand the brain substrates, modulators and

precipitators of behaviors. This is wide ranging and includes an understanding of a large number of

related disciplines, keeping in view the complexity of the organ and behaviors involved.

References:

· Carlson N.R. (2005). Foundations of Physiological Psychology (5th Ed.) Allyn and Bacon, Boston

· Kalat J.W (1998). Biological Psychology (Ed.) Brooks/ Cole Publishing

· Pinel, John P.J. (2003). Biopsychology (5th Ed.) Allyn and Bacon; Singapore

· http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychosurgery

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