Surveying the Chapter: Overview

What We Have in Mind

Building blocks of the mind: neurons

and how they communicate
(neurotransmitters)
Systems that build the mind:
functions of the parts of the nervous
system
Supporting player: the slower-
communicating endocrine system
(hormones)
Star of the show: the brain and its
structures
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 Neural Bases of Psychology
Neuroscience:
interdisciplinary field
studying how
biological processes
relate to behavioral
and mental
processes

Students will demonstrate an understanding of the building blocks of the brain.

History of Mind

Ancient Conceptions About Mind

Plato correctly placed mind in the brain. However,
his student Aristotle believed that mind was in the
Today we believe mind heart.
and brain are faces of the
same coin. Everything that is psychological is
simultaneously biological.

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 History of Mind
Phrenology
1800 - Franz Gall
The study of bumps on
the skull and their
relationship to mental
abilities and character
traits.
His theory, though
incorrect, did suggest Good
that different areas of one,
Franz!
the brain did different
things. (Localization of
function.) 4
Phrenology and the psychograph
 History of Mind
Phrenology
-- Gall could not provide real scientific
proof of his theory.
-- Considered a money making fraud.

-- Best accepted in England, where

the ruling class used it to justify the
inferiority of colonial subjects.
-- Phrenology became popular in the
United States from 1820 to 1850.
-It was used to justify slavery, and
used by Nazis to justify the
superiority of the Aryan race.

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Neural Bases of Psychology

The nervous system

consists of neurons
(cells responsible for
receiving and
transmitting
electrochemical
information).
Neuron
A nerve cell, or a neuron, consists of many different
parts.

Terminal
buttons
(sends
signals to
(soma)
other
neurons)

Terminal buttons