CHAPTER 3: BIOLOGICAL PROCESS

*The central nervous system, as you can see, is comprised of the brain and spinal cord. The central nervous system is involved in sensation, perception, motor movement, learning, thinking, etc The brain is typically about 2 percent of your body weight (average is about 3 pound) though it uses about 20% of your resources with regards to things like oxygen consumption and other nutrients. The brain is composed of collections of neurons, which are a type of cell, which form nerves. The spinal cord provides means of communication between brain and body. It is a complex tangle of nerves that stretch from your brain to the tailbone. The spinal cord collects and transmits information between the brain and the peripheral nervous system (which well get to in a minute). The spinal cord also initiates reflexes which are automatic responses to an event. Your brain is not at all involved in the process of reacting to a reflexive stimuliits all done in your spinal cord, with the nerves that are located there. As you might imagine, an injury to your spinal cord is seriously bad for ya. The typical reaction to a spinal cord injury is to lose sensation and movement below spot on spinal cord that corresponds to particular area.

*The peripheral nervous system links the central nervous system to the organs, muscles, and glands of the body. The peripheral system has two main parts (but four parts in all, well get to that in a minute). The first major dichotomy is that of the Somatic and Autonomic nervous systems. The somatic nervous system controls voluntary muscle movements (so it controls your hand as it writes all this down, your feet as you tap them on the floor, and your jaw as you yawnis this really that bad?) The autonomic system controls your glands, organs, and blood vessels. It also has two parts the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is what reacts to dangerous stimuli it prepares your body for the fight or flight responses when you are startled or in danger. You typically see an acceleration of your heartbeat, slowing your digestion, dilating your arteries, and an increase in sweat (to cool you off and provide your hands with a little traction should you have to grab onto something). The parasympathetic system slows the body down to reserve energy, typically after the stress subsides. So it produces the opposite effect it slows your heartbeat, constrict your arteries, and stops perspiration. This system is in place when you come down from an adrenaline high.

*Weve talked about the larger structures in place in your body now were going to shrink down to the cellular level. The neuron is the basic unit of the nervous system its what keeps it all working. All brain activity originates with the neuron. Neurons are the cells that allow your body to work they are the messengers of the brain world. They receive signals from other neurons or sense organs, process the signals, and send them to other neurons, muscles, or organs (including the brain).

There are three types of neurons, based on the functions that they serve. The sensory neuron responds to input from sensory organs. The motor neuron sends signals to muscles to control their movement. And interneurons are all the neurons in between the originating neuron and the ending neuron they are the go-between between sensory and motor neurons. We all have about 100 billion neurons, most of which can be re-grown if they are damaged, but some of which we have a limited supply of. Neurons range in length from .1mm up to 3 feet long. Neurons really are the work-horse of the body think about common behaviors like writing, typing, or walking. Do you have to mentally tell yourself Okay, I want to move my right hand up a little to the p key, okay, now move my left hand to the t key.no, your neurons move so quickly and effectively that a lot of our repetitive behaviors occur without conscious thought. I say conscious thought because, obviously, some part of your brain is thinking and sending neurons out all over the place to get these motions going, but you arent aware of the process. Thats pretty impressive!!

*Okay, so heres what a neuron looks like. The areas that we will be focusing on are the cell body, the dendrites, they axon, myelin sheath, axon hillock, and the axon terminals. Were not going to examine the nucleus thats beyond the scope of this class but if you take a sensation and perception class, its likely that you would delve more deeply into the structure of the neuron.

*Most neurons only have one axon (thought this isnt always true). Wrapped around the axon is myelin (what we call myelin sheaths). Myelin improves speed of conduction of neural impulses. Information travels at about 60 miles per hour (can range between 2 miles per hour to 200 miles per hour, but average 60 miles per hour). When an axon doesnt have a myelin sheath, it can lead to degenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis and a complete slowdown of the communication in the brain. The points just between the myelin sheaths are called the nodes of Ranvier.

*Okay, so how do neurons communicate? Its a process called action potential. It starts with a neural impulse (received from another neuron) which starts a brief electrical charge that travels down the axon. This electrical charge cant go anywhere unless the axon hillock says so. The axon hillock is the gatekeeper it determines who is the correct size for this type of messenger. When a hillock receives a go signal, it will then release potential into the axon. The electrical charge, then travels down the neuron and at the axon terminal, neurotransmitters (which well talk about in more detail later) are released by the terminal buttons. The neurotransmitters cross the synaptic cleft to the dendrite of the receiving neuron, which starts the cycle all over again. This is one-way street the action potential cant decide halfway through that it is going to change direction - it aint goin back because of a refractory period and that gatekeeper the axon hillock. Thus, next node is activated, and the next.

*Humans have long been fascinated by the brain. Prior to the mummification process, the brain (and other organs) were removed from the body by ancient Egyptians. Ancient Egyptians, falsely, believed that the heart was the center of intelligence and thought, and so discarded the brain once it was removed from the body (thinking it useless). The cringe-inducing process was done by using a special hooked instrument, putting it up the nose, and pulling out bits of brain. This was done very delicately as disfiguring the face was to be avoided at all cost. Skip forward a few thousand years to 16 and 1700s, and while doctors have learned that the brain does have a very useful function, they are very limited in their ability to learn about the brain. The only method they have to study it is to examine the brains of dead people so they are still very much intrigued by how it works. Enter Franz Joseph Gall and phrenology. Gall was a Viennese phsycician in the late 1700s and early 1800s. He was an advocate of the use it or lose it school of thought when it comes to the brain. He thought that brain organs which were used got bigger and those that were not used shrunk, causing the skull to rise and fall with organ development. These bumps and indentations, according to Gall, reflect specific areas of the brain that determine a persons emotional and intellectual functions. This became known as phrenology the study of the structure of the skull to determine a persons character and mental capacity. Gall believed that there were 26 organs on the surface of the brain, including cautiousness, hope, immorality, self-esteem, time, and murder. Now, with all our advanced technology and knowledge, we now know that this is all a bunch of malarky and it sounds ridiculous. But at the time, this was the most sophisticated theory of the brain and it wasnt totally wrong.

Phrenology advanced the correct notions that the human brain is the seat of character, emotions, perception, intellect, etc., and that different parts of the brain are responsible for different mental functions. Gall is responsible for our understanding that the brain has very localized functions.so he contributed quite a bit to the field.

*In stark contrast to Galls study of phrenology, Flourens (another physician interested in research on the brain in the 1800s) determined to study the functions of the brain strictly according to experiment that is where particular independent variables would be deliberately and systematically manipulated, and the resulting effects on dependent variables carefully observed. He did this by surgically removing specific small parts of an animal subjects brain and observing any consequent changes in the behavior or function of the animal after recovery from the surgery. He knew that brain tissue does not regenerate after removal, thus any change in the animal would be a direct result of the removal of that section of the brain. Now, Flourens did not invent this type of brain research, but he greatly refined it. He used extreme care in surgery to remove only the area of the brain he was interested in and carefully nursed all his

animals back to health before studying their behavior thus increasing their chances of survival and increasing the reliability of his findings. Flourens set out to test Galls phrenology theories on animals (for those areas that both humans and animals are expected to share), first with regards to sexual behavior. Gall had thought that part of the cerebellum was responsible for sexual behavior but Flourens found that when he removed it, the animal was no longer able to coordinate and regularize their movements, thus establishing the cerebellums role in controlling small muscular movements. This, and many other phenomenal findings, set about to demolish phrenology among sciencebut among the popular culture, phrenology would flourish and find favor until as late as the early 1900s.

*The brain has three main parts to it the brain stem, limbic system, and cerebral cortex. The brain stem is responsible for automatic survival functions (this stops working and you are screwed). The limbic system is associated with emotions like fear and aggression and drives like for food and sex. The cerebral cortex is the ultimate information-processing center (its the computer that organizes and runs the show).

*The brain stem is composed of the medulla, cerebellum, pons, reticular formation, and thalamus. Its located at the back of the neck, where the spinal cord enters the skull and swells (you can feel it). The medullar is basically an extension of the spinal cord. It regulates breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, and has pathways for motor movement. Damage to the medulla almost undoubtedly leads to death because it controls such basic survival mechanisms. The brain stem also includes the cerebellum, which is found in nearly all vertebrates (size in different species is a function of the range and complexity of their movements). The cerebellum controls learned/skilled motor movements, it provides the programs for the control of skilled movements. This is particularly true for those that are repeated and become automatic (walking, typing, talking).

*The Pons contains fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the cerebellum. It also contains fibers that transmit information from body to brain and to body. The Reticular Formation is a diffuse group of cells whose axons and dendrites course in many directions. The descending pathways modulate movement. The ascending pathways deal with sleep and attention. In the sixties, a series of studies by Moruzzi and Magoun demonstrated the importance of the reticular formation to the functioning of sleep. When the researchers stimulated the reticular formation, cats who had previously been asleep, awoke suddenly and cats that had previously been awake showed rapid arousal. When the reticular formation was damaged, the cats engaged in persistent sleep, from which they did not wake (though if youre familiar with cats, I wonder how

they noticed). They concluded that waking results from activity in the reticular formation, while sleeping results from decreased activity of reticular formation. The reticular formation is also vital in the functioning of attention. Electrical stimulation of the reticular formation leads to an increase in brain activity and damage to it leads to decreased brain activity (similar to that seen in comatose patients). It is highly susceptible to drugs and damage from drug abuse. The thalamus is shaped like two footballs, side by side, one in each half of the brain. The relay center is really a super-complex relay station. It takes in information from your senses and sends it on to the appropriate parts of the brain. There is very minimal processing done at this step its really not understanding the information but simply sending it on.

*The limbic system is a donut-shaped area in the center of the brain. This region is responsible for much of the influence on the bodys hormonal system (which in turn, controls much of our emotions such as fear and anger, as well as our basic motives for things like food and sex). There are four main parts to the limbic system the hypothalamus (which controls the pituitary gland), the hippocampus, and the amygdala). The hypothalamus is about the size of a lump of sugar in rats it is about the size of the head of a pin. The hypothalamus has three key functions: it is responsible for parts of our reproductive behavior, controlling our temperature, and our feeding behavior. It does this through its control of the pituitary gland, which monitors the secretion of hormones. Receiving certain types of sensory information triggers the hypothalamus to direct the pituitary gland to respond by secreting a particular hormone or to stop secreting a certain hormone. For example, you see a table laden with cookies, chocolate, and cake and your hypothalamus tells your pituitarty gland to secrete hormones that increases your hunger level. Similarly, the hypothalamus also influences reproductive behavior (destroying the hypothalamus ceases copulatory behavior in rats and dogs; stimulation of it will lead to increases in copulatory behavior). The hypothalamus also control your bodys internal temperature. In 1912, a researcher by the name of Barbour placed a silver wire into a dogs hypothalamus. When the wire was heated, the dogs body temperature decreased, when the wire was cooled, the dogs body temperature increased. If damage, which is also called a lesion, is done to the hypothalamus, it cant regulate increases or decreases temperature, but it can still influence shivering or vasoconstriction The hippocampus is the part of the brain that processes memory. If damage is done to this area, people are unable to create new memories. There is a very famous case that demonstrates this difficulty. A man by the initials of H. M. suffered from epilepsy as a child. In an attempt to control his epileptic seizures, doctors did surgery on his brain and removed a portion, part of which was the hippocampus. He no longer suffered from epilepsy, but without his hippocampi, everything in his memory vanished after a few minutes. He could not form long-term memories and his short-term memory only lasted about five minutes. When his family moved across town, he kept returning to old house because he didnt have the memory that they had moved.

The amygdala also has three main functions regulating feeding, memory, and emotion. Lesions to the amygdala can lead to extreme weight loss, or weight gain (destroy all leads to weight loss; destroy some, leads to weight gain). The amygdala also assists in the perception and encoding of emotion and emotional memories, specifically those associated with fear and aggression. Stimulating part of the amygdala can lead to an aggressive response in animals, while stimulating another portion can lead to a fearful response. However, there are a number of factors that influence fear and aggression, so this isnt the only place of the brain that influences those behaviors. In general, there isnt ONE part of the brain for any type of behavior/mental process. There are typically several areas that have different influences on such complex things as our behavior and thoughts.

*And just in case you were wondering humans dont have the largest brains. Porpoises, whales, and elephants all have larger brains that humans do. The cerebral cortex is the interconnected neural cells that cover the cerebral hemispheres this is the bodys ultimate control and information-processing center. The cortex is broken up into four parts, which are found on both of the hemispheres. The frontal lobe is behind the forehead and accounts for half of the volume of the cerebral cortex and is considered the seat of intelligence and abstract thinking and making judgments. The frontal lobe also houses the motor cortex. The motor cortex controls voluntary movements (like walking, talking, and chewing). There is an interesting story about the first documented case of injury to the frontal lobe (this doesnt mean it was the first time that this area of the brain was damaged in a person but that this was the first time that doctors could identify which part of the brain was injured). Phineas Gage was the foreman of a railway construction gang working near Cavendish, Vermont. On 13th. September 1848, an accidental explosion of a charge he had set blew his tamping iron through his head. The tamping iron was 3 feet 7 inches long and weighed 13 1/2 pounds. It was 1 1/4 inches in diameter at one end and tapered over a distance of about 1-foot to a diameter of 1/4 inch at the other. The tamping iron went in point first under his left cheek bone and completely out through the top of his head, landing about 25 to 30 yards behind him. Phineas was knocked over but may not have lost consciousness even though most of the front part of the left side of his brain was destroyed. Dr. John Martyn Harlow, the young physician of Cavendish, treated him with such success that he returned home to Lebanon, New Hampshire 10 weeks later. Some months after the accident, probably in about the middle of 1849, Phineas felt strong enough to resume work. But because his personality had changed so much, the contractors who had employed him would not give him his place again. Before the accident he had been their most capable and efficient foreman, one with a well-balanced mind, and who was looked on as a shrewd smart business man. He was now fitful, irreverent, and grossly profane, showing little deference for his fellows. He was also impatient and obstinate, yet capricious and vacillating, unable to settle on any of the plans he devised for future action. His friends said he was No longer Gage.

As far as we know Phineas never worked at the level of a foreman again. According to Dr. Harlow, Phineas appeared at Barnums Museum in New York, worked in the livery stable of the Dartmouth Inn (Hanover, NH), and drove coaches and cared for horses in Chile. In about 1859, after his health began to fail he went to San Francisco to live with his mother. After he regained his health he worked on a farm south of San Francisco. In February 1860, he began to have epileptic seizures and, as we know from the Funeral Directors and cemetery interment records, he died on 21st. May 1860. No studies of Phineas Gages brain were made post mortem. Late in 1867 his body was exhumed, and his skull and the tamping iron sent to Dr. Harlow, then in Woburn (MA). Harlow reported his findings, including his estimate of the brain damage, in 1868. He then gave the skull and tamping iron to what became the Warren Museum of the Medical School of Harvard University where they were much studied. They are now on display at Harvards Countway Library of Medicine. Typically, damage to the frontal lobe leads to shallow emotional displays, no decrease in IQ, but an increase in forgetfulness (especially with those tasks that need sustained attention), and impairment in goal-directed behavior. The parietal lobe contains the sensory cortex. This is where all information coming in from your sensory organs is processed, and dealt with as needed. One example of the effect of damage to this area of the brain is that people can no longer recognize an object by touch alone. Another example is the disorder known as prosopagnosia. Sometimes when damage is done to the parietal lobe, people lose the ability to recognize faces. They can look in the mirror and not recognize themselves or look at their family and friends and have no idea who these people are. Now, the ability to recognize objects is unimpaired, as is the ability to recognize people by their voice (so as soon as their wife or husband started talking, the person may recognize who they are). Another example of damage to the parietal lobe is that of unilateral neglect. Damage done to the right parietal cortex results in neglect of the left-hand side of the body (though it doesnt work the other way around). The person may disclaim such that they neglect the left side of the body (though they typically deny that they are doing this). They may only dress the right side of the body and may only shave the right side of the face. The temporal lobe includes the auditory areas, which receive auditory information (from the opposite ear). The temporal lobe also handles the storing of visual memories and language comprehension. Dichotic listening techniques (where you present different sounds to each ear) shows that right handed people recall more information that was presented to the right ear. And the occipital lobe is the portion of the cerebral cortex that includes visual areas, which receive visual information from the opposite visual field.