AP Exam Review Lectures

Biological Approach

4-11-06

Evolutionary Biology

• Suggests that behavior is a result of success in Natural Selection

• Remember that in the game of Natural Selection, only the fittest will survive and reproduce offspring that will survive and reproduce!

• Those best fit for the environment will reproduce! Otherwise your genes will not survive the gene pool.

Evolution as it relates to psychology:

• Populations evolve, not individuals.• People that have the opportunity to save

someone will save a young relative over a close friend.

• Our behavior relates to perpetuating our genes!

• We are successful if we reproduce fertile offspring!

• Charles Darwin!

Neuro-Biology• Explores the relationship between the

brain/nervous system and behavior

Voice in the field:

• Paul Broca found the ability to talk was located in the left frontal lobe. He was one of the first to show LOCALIZATION OF FUNCTION! (The brain is divided into parts that have specific tasks like language or vision.)

Broca’s area

Brain stuff you can impress your friends with:

• Wernicke’s area in the left temporal lobe helps you understand speech.

Wernicke’s area

Are you right brained or left brained?

• Left side of the brain is good at language, math, analysis, and logic. Operates the right side of the body…

• Right side of the brain is good at nonverbal stuff like identifying faces, recognizing facial expressions, music, and spacial skills. Operates the left side of the body.

Lets review:

Left frontal lobe? Talkin’ the talk! The ability to speak…

Left temperal lobe? Understandin’ the talk! The ability comprehend the speak…

Left side of the brain? Math, logic, language, analysis…

Right side of the brain? Music, spacial skills, ID of face and expressions…

Other Bio biggies• Wilder Penfield: took electronic probes and mapped

the cortex of the brain (the big thing we usually think of as the brain.) He did this so that he could treat epilepsy by destroying the parts of the brain that were causing the seizures… He didn’t want to destroy good tissue, so he would stimulate a section to see what it was used for.

• Roger Sperry and Michael Gazzaniga: split brain people (again with the localization of function!)

Lobes of the brain• Occipital lobe: in the back of the brain and it is

the vision center• Frontal lobe: The front of the brain. This is

what makes you you. This is where you interpret and control emotions, make decisions and carry out plans. In the back of the frontal lobe, you work the voluntary muscles.

• Parietal lobe: behind the frontal lobe. Somatosensory (senses are here)

• Temporal lobe: ear and below. Hearing processes. Music/tone,

Vision? Original Thought? Talking? Hearing/Understanding? Feeling with your fingers?

Vision = occipital lobe

Original thought = frontal lobe

Talking = frontal lobe

Hearing = temporal lobe

Touch of fingers = parietal lobe

Lookin’ at the brain

• PET scans and MRI scans can look at the brain while the brain is working! (MRI has more resolution, however.)

• CAT scans are x-rays of the brain.

• EEG’s measure brain wavelengths or the brain’s electrical activity.

What kind of scan?

PET Scan

fMRI scan of a person and a face

Looking at a face

Asked to think about the face (hippocampus –memory thing lights up!)

Asked to compare a new face to the face shown previously.

Flexing the hand either rhythmically or rhythmically to a metronome and going back and forth…What kind of scan?

What kind of image is this?

Red is ‘high’ activity, blue is ‘low’ activity. Numbers 1 and 2 are normal children, 3 and 4 have been diagnosed with ADD

Nervous System

Central Nervous System Peripheral Nervous System

Divided into:

Brain

Spinal Chord

Nervous System