Developmental Psychology - Textbook Notes

Section 1: Developmental Research Methods

● most developmental research focuses on childhood and adolescence because so many
fundamental changes are concentrated in the earliest periods of our lives
● developmental psychology technically concerns the entire lifespan, not just the earliest stages of
life

The Challenge of Studying Development

● Quasi-experiment - similar to traditional experimental design but lacks the random assignment of
individuals to groups
○ useful because rather than randomly assigning subjects to different levels of an
independent variable, we simply group our subjects based on their existing attributes
● Normative - investigates how things normally change as an individual ages
○ What behavioural or physiological changes should we expect to observe over the course
of an individual's normal development?
○ What specific behaviours can the individual perform at a given age?
● Analytic - research focused on the processes and variables that are responsible for the changes
in abilities and needs from age to age
● Longitudinal - a developmental research design where the same individuals are studied
repeatedly over some subset of their lifespan
○ Advantages:
■ eliminate potential extraneous variables that arise when comparing different
individuals
○ Disadvantages:
■ studies are typically time-consuming and costly
■ attrition, because subjects may be lost over time due to death, moving away, or
simply refusing to continue participating
■ practice effects; if subjects are given the same tests repeatedly over a longitudinal
study, their performance may change simply due to practice rather than age or
time per se
● Cross-sectional - a developmental research design in which individuals from different age
groups are studied at the same point in time
○ Advantages:
■ more convenient and cost-effective: we can examine differences between age
groups in a single short-term study, alleviating concerns about time, cost, and
attrition
○ Disadvantages:
■ Cohort effect - difference between age groups may be due to generational
differences and not reflect actual differences in development
● Cohort effect - a disadvantage of the cross-sectional design. Difference between age groups
may be due to generational differences and not reflect actual differences in development
Section 2: Physiological Development
Conception
● 200 million sperm cells and 1 egg
● The nuclei of the sperm and egg fuse after approximately 12 hours, creating a unique genetic
blueprint

Genetic Transmission
● one set of 23 chromosomes from your mother, and second complementary set of 23
chromosomes from your father
● Chromosome - a structure composed of acids and protein found in the nucleus of most living
cells. It contains genetic information.
● Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) - the building blocks of chromosomes. They contain the
biochemical units of heredity (genes)
● Genes - the molecular unit of heredity used by living organisms
● Genome - the complete set of instructions (genetic material) contained in every cell of an
organism
● Genotype - the genetic blueprint. Interacts with the environment to produce observable traits
(phenotype)

Genetic Expression
● Phenotype - observable traits resulting from the interaction of genes (genotype) and environment
● Dominant gene - the allele of one gene that is expressed over the second allele of the same
gene
● Recessive - the dominant allele will be expressed if present with a recessive allele in the same
gene. The recessive trait will only be expressed if both alleles are recessive
● Polygenic inheritance - trait inheritance governed by multiple genes
○ most of an organism’s traits are controlled by many genes
○ a large set of genes can control many different facets of a polygenic trait, or shape the
development of the trait at different stages
● Androgen insensitivity syndrome - when an individual is biologically male but is resistant to male
hormones (androgens). This can affect the development of male sex characteristics
○ most of the outward physical characteristics of a female but with male reproductive
organs

Section 3: Neural Development

Prenatal
● nervous system starts developing about 21 days (~3 weeks) after conception with the formation
of primitive tissue (neural plate)
● Neural plate - a key developmental component of the nervous system. It is composed of
primitive neural tissue and eventually develops into the neural tube
● Neural tube - the neural plate folds and closes to become a hollow structure known as the neural
tube
 ● the basic human brain regions of the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain are visible after about 28
days
● the brain begins to look distinctly human by 100 days after conception, it is only after about 210
days (~7 months) that it forms the sulci and gyri characteristic of the adult mammalian brain

Infancy and Childhood

● around 1 year of age up until 10 years of age, the number of synapses in the brain begins to
decrease
○ Synaptic pruning - changes in neural structures that results in a reduction in the number
of synapses
● Suggested that this synaptic pruning process is adaptive → the brain first produces an
overabundance of synapses → prunes away the unnecessary or incorrect ones to ensure that
only the strongest and most useful persist
● Throughout infancy and childhood, synaptic pruning is shaped by sensory input
○ Ocular dominance columns - columns of neurons in the visual cortex that respond
preferentially to information from one eye or the other
● the brain is not ‘hard-wired’ from birth to process all visual information
● Experience-dependent - a neural system that only develops typically if it receives the appropriate
input. A variation in input can lead to a variation in function
● Experience-expectant - a neural system whose development is critically dependent on inputs
that are stable across sources
● Critical period - time windows early in development when an organism must receive certain input
for their nervous system to develop normally
● Amblyopia (‘lazy eye’) - the loss of visual acuity in an otherwise healthy eye
● Sensitive period - a stage of development when a person is most responsive to certain inputs.
Can also represent a time when new skills, such as language, are learned quicker
○ nervous system retains some flexibility or plasticity even in the absence of sensory input
early in life
● Benefits of plasticity
○ If one sense does not receive enough stimulation, often the extra connections are left
available such that the deprived sense can be supplemented by connections to other
senses
○ Blind person’s brain can modify itself by maintaining the extra connections between
visual and somatosensory areas that might normally be pruned in a sighted person
○ Touch overcompensates for lack of sight
■ in the absence of visual input, connections formed early in life between
somatosensory and visual areas remain intact, allowing the visual cortex to be
recruited for enhanced tactile perception

Adolescence
● another wave of synapse production in early adolescence and a subsequent wave pruning
● frontal lobes (self-control, judgement, emotions, and planning) → late development explains
teenage behaviour
Adulthood
● Neurogenesis - the development and growth of neurons
○ occurs continuously in the hippocampus and the olfactory bulbs, suggesting
neurogenesis may play a role in learning and memory
● Experience-dependent plasticity also occurs in the adult brain
○ adults with amblyopia → can improve their visual acuity through extensive practice with
challenging visual tasks
● Plasticity in the adult brain helps us adapt to change, perhaps after injury or a decline in sensory
input
○ promote plasticity → must give your brain relevant things to do
■ ex: physical exercise to stimulate brain cell development and connections and
reduce neural tissue loss
○ improve memory and sharpen judgements in sedentary older adults
■ ex: aerobic exercise programs

Section 4: Cognitive Development

Infancy and Childhood
● Piaget argued a child’s cognitive development involves major changes in intellectual abilities that
are tightly linked with age → 4 cognitive stages of development
● Infants understand the concept of occlusion → surprised seeing a car pass through a solid
● Infants understand numbers → looked at 2-object slides longer than 3-object slides (habituated)

Adolescence
● beginning of adolescence is marked by an increase in the power of abstract reasoning
● early teen years → reasoning is self-focused
● later teen years → earn to focus their reasoning on the world
○ learn to reason about highly abstract concepts (human nature, logic, justice, good/evil)

Adulthood
● certain cognitive abilities tend to decline with age
● Fluid intelligence - generally involves abstract thinking and quick reasoning and tends to decline
with age
○ decline in fluid intelligence is highly variable, with some individuals maintaining their
cognitive capabilities well into their seventies
● Crystallized intelligence - an individual’s accumulated knowledge. May increase with age
● what we lose in memory and processing speed we often gain in verbal ability
○ older adults may take longer to recall a word, but have a broader mental stockpile of
words to choose from
● Memory decline is associated with aging, but some aspects of memory remain intact
● Younger adults = better at working memory and episodic memory tasks
● implicit memory shows little or no decline with age
● memory performance of older adults depends on what they are asked to recall
○ if the information asked to recall is meaningful, recall is comparable to younger adults
 Evolutionary Psychology - Textbook Notes

What is Evolutionary Psychology?

● men were given fragrance-free soap with which to shower, and plain, clean T-shirts
○ group of female students was also recruited, sniff the contents, and rate the odours with
respect to both their intensity and their ‘pleasantness’
● naturally cycling women rated the odours of men who were genetically dissimilar to themselves
as significantly more pleasant than the odours of genetically similar men
● women who were taking the pill showed the opposite effect, rating the genetically similar men’s
odours as significantly more pleasant
● Hypotheses:
○ a woman’s choice of a mate can be influenced by her affective responses to male odours
○ potential cost associated with being attracted to people whose MHC genes are similar to
your own: couples who have similar MHC genotypes have an elevated likelihood of
producing offspring with less versatile and therefore weaker immune systems
■ natural selection should have favoured preferences for partners who are dissimilar
in this aspect of their genetic make-up
○ taking oral contraceptives puts women in an infertile psychophysiological state in which
their affiliative preferences no longer reflect an evolved strategy for screening potential
mates, but instead function in the realm of social support

Section 1: Essential Facts and Ideas About Evolution

The Concept of Evolution
● Phylogeny - a pattern of evolutionary development and divergence of distinct lineage from
common ancestor
● Phylogenetic trees
○ constructed on the basis of similarities in early development
○ can also be constructed on the basis of similarities in DNA sequences, including
sequences of non-transcribed ‘neutral’ DNA
● Adaptive radiation - the diversification of a group of organisms into forms filling different
ecological niches
● Natural selection - organisms which are better adapted to their environment tend to survive and
produce more offspring thus continuing/increasing the behavioural or physical trait within the
population
● Heritable - when a characteristic can be transmissible (genetically) from parent to offspring

The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

● Descent with modification
○ explain the sequences of distinct fossils found in different geological strata, for the similar
body plans and embryological stages of what were even then referred to as related
species, and for the seemingly natural classification of animal species into families that
could be organized into branching trees
● 3 main ideas:
 ○ variation within natural populations
○ offspring tend to resemble their parents in these variable attributes to some degree
○ young are produced in excess—in any species, more young are produced than will
eventually become breeders in their turn or than would be necessary to maintain the
population
● population is well adapted to its ecological niche, then natural selection may be primarily
stabilizing—a process that eliminates harmful departures from the optimal species-characteristic
design, and thus prevents evolution

Section 2: Why Evolutionary Theory Matters

Adaptations
● Daphnia magna engages in phototactic behaviour
○ Sun visible in sky → sinks lower in the water to avoid being visually detected by fish
predators and when the sun has set, it floats closer to the water’s surface to feed
○ more likely to behave phototactically when the water contains chemicals excreted by fish
predators
○ if there is no threat of predation, are likely to stay closer to the water’s surface even
where there is light out
● Phototactic behaviour evolves as a function of the risk of predation
○ offspring hatched from eggs that were laid when there were no fish in the pond
responded less to light (i.e., they stayed closer to the surface) in the presence of fish
chemical cues
○ Daphnia with genes that caused them to behave phototactically in the presence of fish
predators were more likely to survive to lay eggs than Daphnia with genes that did not
cause such phototactic behaviour
○ when there was no threat of predation, Daphnia with genes that did not cause them to
behave phototactically in the presence of fish predators were more likely to survive to lay
eggs than Daphnia with genes that did cause such phototaxis
● Adaptation - a process by which organisms become better suited to their environment and
thereby increase their reproductive success
● Fitness - an organism’s reproductive success; their ability to survive and reproduce in a
particular environment
● Phenotype - the observable characteristics, both physical and behavioural, of an organism
resulting from the interaction of its genotype and the environment

Functionality
● The psychological trait in question should serve its purpose in an economical, efficient way, and
its purpose should have led to an increase in fitness in ancestral environments
● Psychological adaptations are harder to identify than physiological adaptations
● Selectionism is missing from the adaptationism of non-evolutionary psychologists
● Psychological adaptations serve fitness interests
○ Does NOT mean that these adaptations continue to be reproductively advantageous in
contemporary environments
Section 3: Mate Choice and Sexual Jealousy
Sexual Selection
● Sexual selection - natural selection within the mating domain, represented by preferences by one
sex for particular characteristics in the opposite sex
○ special form of natural selection
● Intrasexual selection - competition within individuals over access to the opposite sex
● Intersexual selection - competition within individuals to capture the interest of the other sex
● Mate choice - a component of intersexual selection where selection of a mate depends on the
attractiveness of their traits
● Gametes - a haploid cell that is able to unite with another opposite sex cell to form a zygote
● Females invest more in their offspring’s development than do males
● Males benefit from attempting to reproduce more often than females, because males can
re-enter the mating ‘pool’ more often than can females
○ Invest less
● Men tend to prefer younger women (who are of reproductive age) and women tend to prefer
wealthier, slightly older men
● Fertility - one's reproductive ability

Cues
● some individuals bear genes that make them better adapted to the local environment than others
○ their offspring who inherit these genes will also tend to be better adapted to the local
environment
● Fluctuating asymmetry - a measure of bilateral traits that are symmetrical over the population as
a whole, but not necessarily for an individual. Higher symmetry is considered more desirable
○ harder to maintain symmetry than it is to become increasingly asymmetrical
○ individuals better adapted to the environment should be more robust to such
perturbations and develop more symmetrically than individuals who are less well adapted
● Femininity and masculinity may also be a cue of fertility and quality
● Waist-to-hip ratio - circumference of the waist (smallest part of the torso) divided by the
circumference of the hips (largest part of the buttocks)
○ women tend to have much narrower waists, relative to their hips, than men
○ women with lower waist-to-hip ratios have more estrogen and are more fertile than
women with higher waist-to-hip ratios

Infidelity
● Men risk losing fitness when their mates have sexual relations with other men
● Women risk losing fitness when their mates take resources out of the relationship and invest
those resources into relationships with other women
● Men should be more prone than women to sexual jealousy
○ Sexual jealousy - feelings of anger and desire to guard a mate (or prospective mate) from
engaging in sexual activity with another person
● Women should be more prone than men to romantic jealousy
 ○ Romantic jealousy - feelings of anger and desire to guard a mate (or prospective mate)
from emotionally investing in a new relationship
● (1) your long-term, romantic partner forming a deep emotional attachment to another person
○ Women found this to be more stressful
● (2) your partner enjoying passionate sexual intercourse with that other person
○ Men found this to be more stressful
● Caribbean village
○ A man mated to a fertile woman leads to more conflict within the relationship—especially
if the relationship was not sexually exclusive—and more conflict with sexual rivals

Section 4: Kinship and Human Affairs

Social Behaviour
● Social behaviour - actions directed at society or taking place between members of the same
species
● If an individual performs a behaviour that improves its own fitness, then the genes promoting it
would be selected for, and the behaviour would eventually become widespread
● Eusocial - species with radical reproductive division of labour; a single female or caste produces
the offspring and sterile individuals cooperate in caring for the young
● a gene can proliferate by helping copies of itself in other bodies
○ If the cost to the gene responsible for the helping behaviour is sufficiently small and the
benefit to those gene copies receiving the help is sufficiently large, then there will be
more copies of the gene in future generations

Genetic Relatedness
● Genetic relatedness (r) - an estimate of the proportion of genes shared between individuals
○ r = the average probability that an individual might carry copies of the gene
● Positively related - r > 0; more related than we would expect by chance alone
● Negatively related - r < 0, less related than what we would expect by chance
● The greater the probability that the recipient shares copies of a gene responsible for an actor’s
behaviour → the more related the two individuals are → and the more valuable the recipient’s
reproduction is to the actor (because the recipient’s reproduction leads to more copies of the
gene being produced)
● Hamilton’s rule - rB > C, where r = genetic relatedness, B = additional reproductive benefit
gained by the recipient of the act, and C = the cost of the actor
● Inclusive fitness - an organism’s ability to pass on their genes to the next generation, taking into
account the shared genes that are passed on by relatives
○ Direct fitness - personal survival and reproduction
○ Indirect fitness - survival and reproduction of relatives

Section 5: Inclusive Fitness

Inclusive Fitness & Behaviour
● Inclusive fitness theory predicts that humans, among other organisms, should be generally
nepotistic, in accordance with the rule rB > C
 ● The relationship between willingness to help and genetic relatedness is stronger when the
consequences of the decision are more serious, as when the costs to the actor or benefits to the
recipient increase
● There is a positive correlation between the amount of help an individual provides to a
neighbouring household and the average relatedness of that household to the helping individual
● South African migrant workers tend to send more money back home to their families when the
members of their households comprise more genetic relatives
● Eugenics - the science of trying to improve the human population by controlled breeding to
increase desirable heritable traits
○ claims to promote the existence of desirable genes and traits while eliminating
undesirable genes and traits in order to transform the human species into the best state
possible

Kin Recognition
● Kin recognition - a psychological mechanism that helps an organism to distinguish between
close genetic kin and non-kin
● Cues of kinship - aspects of themselves, their environment, or others that would have been
reliably associated with actual relatedness to identify kin
● Maternal-perinatal association - older siblings learn to recognize offspring that their mother cares
for as younger siblings
● Co-residence duration - cue of relatedness; the longer two individuals lived together throughout
childhood, the more likely they are to be related
● Incest aversion - an aversion to mating with close relatives
● Inbreeding - reproduction among close relatives, especially over generations
○ increased likelihood of inheriting recessive genes (genes that are only expressed when
there are two copies, one inherited from each parent) that have detrimental effects
● Israel → communities known as kibbutzim
○ where children were often reared together
○ as the children grow older, they learn that they are not necessarily related to the other
children
○ when they reach adulthood and get married, they virtually never marry someone from the
same kibbutz
● Taiwan → ‘minor’ marriages
○ family adopts a child into their family in order to rear it as a future bride or groom for their
own children
○ the longer the adopted child lived with his or her future wife or husband, the more likely
they were to divorce and the fewer children they were likely to produce together
○ since the older children could also use maternal-perinatal association as a kinship cue,
co-residence duration predicts divorce and the reproductive behaviour only of the
younger individual in the married couple
● University students were asked about their aversions to sexual intercourse between a pair of
hypothetical siblings (not their own)
 ○ those who only had older opposite-sex siblings → co-residence duration predicted their
aversion to incest among the hypothetical siblings
○ those who only had younger opposite-sex siblings → were averse to the situation in
general, and co-residence duration did not further predict aversion
● Phenotype - the observable characteristics, both physical and behavioural, of an organism
resulting from the interaction of its genotype and the environment
● The relatedness of monozygotic twins (r = 1) is greater than the relatedness of dizygotic twins (​​r
= 0.5) or full sibling
● Phenotypic similarity caused by shared genes as well as shared environment
● Participants trust and cooperate more with face images manipulated to resemble their own faces
than with faces that have not been manipulated to be self-resembling

Section 6: Parent-Offspring Conflict

Competition for Resources
● Parent-offspring conflict - the conflict that arises from differences in optimal parental investment
from the viewpoints of the parent and the offspring
● Diminishing marginal gains - a decline in the gain a person derives from the consumption of each
additional unit of a product
○ diminishing marginal gains is actually the typical state of affairs in nature

An Evolutionary Arms Race

● Evolutionary arms race - a mutation in a gene expressed in offspring that helps the youngster
extract more maternal resource than is optimal for mom may rapidly increase in prevalence
○ gene that has a contrary effect when expressed in the mother can also spread to fixation
● Over evolutionary time, young may increasingly exaggerate their needs through louder begging,
while mothers evolve to discount the escalating signal
○ can be wasteful
 Neuroscience 1 - Textbook Notes

Introduction
● in order for you to become aware of anything out in the world, the world has to induce a certain
pattern of activity in the brain
● electrochemical processes are between your awareness and the outside world
● Central nervous system (CNS) - composed of the brain and spinal cord
● Peripheral nervous system (PNS) - composed of the nervous system outside of the brain and
spinal cord
● Brain weighs 3.0-3.5 lbs, making up about 2% of our total body weight
○ burns ~20% of our oxygen intake when we are at rest
● 2 types of cells in the brain:
○ Glial cells - most common cell type in the CNS. In general, they provide structure and
perform various ‘housekeeping’ tasks
○ Neurons - a specialized cell that transmits nerve impulses; ~100 billion neurons in the
average adult human

Consciousness and Awareness

● René Descartes was a dualist
○ suggested that the body was like a machine that followed the laws of physics, and was
distinct from the mind

Section 1: Divisions of the Nervous System

The Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems
● Nervous system can be divided into 2 parts:
○ CNS → brain (skull), spinal cord (vertebral column); all encased in bone
○ PNS → collection of nerves and peripheral ganglia (small groups of neuron cell bodies)
located outside of the CNS
● Efferent nerve fibers - fibers that carry information outward from the CNS to the periphery of the
body
● Afferent nerve fibers - fibers that carry information inward to the CNS from the periphery of the
body

The Somatic and Autonomic Nervous Systems

● PNS can be divided into 2 parts:
○ Somatic nervous system - receives sensory information from the sensory organs (eyes,
ears, sense of touch etc) and controls the voluntary movements of muscles
■ Consciously aware of this
○ Autonomic nervous system - controls muscle movement that happens outside of our
conscious awareness and control, allows for the glands to operate
● Autonomic nervous system can be divided into 2 parts:
○ Sympathetic nervous system - involved with preparing the body for emergencies (the
fight-or-flight response)
 ■ increase in heart rate, a dilation of the pupils/internal structures of the lungs, an
inhibition of digestion and an inhibition of the contraction of the bladder and the
rectum
■ nerves branch quite widely to reach a number of organs simultaneously
■ response reaches organs that are not directly connected to the nerves
○ Parasympathetic nervous system - helps to return the body to normal function after the
activation of the sympathetic nervous system
■ slowing of the heart, a lowering of blood pressure, a contraction of the pupils, an
increase in activity in the gastrointestinal tract, and the secretion of digestive
juices
■ generally conserve and increase the body's energy resources

Section 2: The Nerve Cell

● Eukaryote - organism whose cells contain a nucleus and other organelles surrounded by a
membrane
○ All animals are eukaryotes
● Organelles - specialized structure within a cell
○ Each cell has a cell body/soma
● 100 billion neurons are contained in a volume of around 1400 ml in our brain
● Brain contains only about 2% of our body mass, it consumes 20% of the calories we expend

The Neuron
● Dendrites - a branch on a neuron, dedicated to receiving information transmitted from other
neurons
○ branching dendrites converge at the cell body, receiving impulses from many other
neurons, and bring them all together at the cell body
● Axon - long threadlike part, dedicated to transmitting information to other neurons
○ axon exits the cell body and can extend for long distances, (entire spinal cord), and may
branch multiple times to carry the neuron's impulses to multiple destinations
● end of the axon, the destination of the neuron's impulse might be another neuron, or some other
sort of cell → this cell = effector
○ Effector - an organ or cell that is capable of receiving and responding to nerve impulses
● Summary:
○ information flows from the dendrites where information is gathered to the cell body
○ cell body → information from all the multiple dendrites is integrated
○ activity then flows down along the axon to other neurons
○ information is acted upon
● Dendrites:
○ Synapse - a junction between two neurons; consists of a very small gap across which
impulses pass by diffusion of neurotransmitters
○ dendrites bring together the impulses occurring across the many thousands of synapses
to their final destination at the cell body
● The cell body:
 ○ Granule cell - smallest type of neuron
○ The axon exits from the cell body from an elongated portion known as the axon hillock
● The axon:
○ Terminal bouton - location where connections to the dendrites of other nearby neurons
are made
○ Action potential - the change in electrical potential associated with the passage of an
impulse along the membrane of a neuron
■ basic message carried by the axon
○ Myelin sheath - a tube of fatty tissue that forms an insulating covering around the axon
■ serves to speed up the conduction of the AP along the axon
○ Glial cell - most common cell type in the CNS. In general, they provide structure and
perform various ‘housekeeping’ tasks
○ longest axons in the human body run all the way from the base of the spine to the toe of
the foot through the sciatic nerve

Neuron Subtypes
● Sensory neurons - these neurons transmit sensory information from the environment towards the
rest of the nervous system
○ the cells responsible for sensing pressure on the surface of the skin are a form of sensory
neuron
● Receptor cells - cells that are responsible for converting or transducing the physical stimuli from
the outside world into nerve impulses
○ cells of your inner ear responsible for converting sound vibrations into nervous system
activity
■ receptor cells connect directly to sensory neurons
● Effector neurons (most common = motor neurons) - activate the muscles of the body, controlling
movement
● Interneuron - a neuron that transmits impulses between other neurons
● Multipolar neuron - composed of multiple dendrites extending from a single axon, most common
neuron
● Bipolar neuron - has a single dendrite exiting one side of the cell body with a single axon exiting
the other
○ usually sensory neurons whose dendrites terminate at receptor cells
● Unipolar neuron - composed of one process leaving the cell body that eventually branches in
two directions

Section 3: Electrical Activity and the Action Potential

The Microelectrode
● Microelectrode is inserted through the cell membrane surrounding the cell into the intracellular
fluid contained inside the cell
○ record the electrical potential or voltage across the cell membrane and how this voltage
changes across time as the action potential occurs
The Resting Potential
● Resting potential - membrane potential when neuron is at rest (-70 mV
○ intracellular fluid of the cell is more negative than the outside of cell
○ excess of positive ions outside of the cell leads to the resting potential
● IN: A-, K+
● OUT: Cl-, Na+
● Diffusion - force that moves molecules from areas of high to low concentration
● Electrostatic pressure - the force of repulsion and attraction between ions
● Forces of electrostatic pressure and diffusion balance the relative concentrations of the ions
● A- trapped inside, cannot go out
● K+ ions are in higher con’c inside of the cell → force of diffusion tries to push them out
● Since inside more negative than the outside, electrostatic forces attract K+ into the cell
○ The two forces balance, K+ essentially stays where it is
● Potassium leak channel - a potassium-selective pore that spans the cell-membrane allowing K
but not other positive ions to pass through
○ force of electrostatic pressure pushes K+ outside of the cell
○ these two forces balance and the Cl- stays where it is
● The force of diffusion pulls Na+ into the cell, force of electrostatic pressure ALSO pulls Na+ in
○ **these forces are not in balance
● Sodium-potassium pump - an active ion transporter that pushes three Na+ ions outside of the
cell and two K+ ions into the cell with each pump
○ Uses ATP to operate

The Action Potential

● Depolarization - when the membrane potential becomes more positive/less negative
● Eventually, the potential will depolarize to a critical point, called the threshold (-50 mV)
● Potential starts to change quite rapidly towards 0 mV and briefly rises above 0 mV until the inside
of the cell is actually 40 mV more positive than the outside
● Action potential - the change in electrical potential associated with the passage of an impulse
along the membrane of a neuron
● The cell membrane (was not very permeable to Na+ ions at the resting potential), is now much
more permeable to Na+
○ Force of diffusion and electrostatic pressure cause a sudden rush of Na+ inwards
○ Cell is now more positively charged on the inside
● Voltage gated Na channel - allows Na to rush into the cell when the membrane potential is
reaches threshold (~ -50 mV)
○ membrane reaches threshold and the gate opens
○ Na+ rushes in; these gates close almost immediately
○ now the balance of the resting potential has been disturbed
● STEP 1:
○ membrane reaches threshold
○ the voltage gated Na channels open and Na rushes into the cell
○ membrane potential = goes from -50 mV to +40 mV
● STEP 2:
○ Voltage gated potassium channels - open when the membrane becomes depolarized, K+
begins leaving the cell
○ peak voltage of +40 mV reached, Na channels begin to close
○ Na channels become refractory → channel closes and will stay closed for a period of
time
○ Absolute refractory period - the interval where a second AP cannot be initiated, no matter
how large a stimulus is applied
● STEP 3:
○ voltage gated K+ channels are open, inside of the cell is more positive than outside
○ K+ continues to leave the cell
○ membrane begins to return to resting potential
○ voltage gated K channels begin to close
● STEP 4:
○ membrane reaches resting potential
○ voltage gated K+ channels are fully closed
○ K+ stops leaving the cell
○ voltage-gated Na channels reset, gates are ready to open again in the event that the
membrane reaches threshold again
○ absolute refractory period is over
● STEP 5:
○ accumulation of K+ around the outside of the membrane causes the membrane potential
to temporarily become hyperpolarized
■ Hyperpolarized - the membrane potential becomes more negative than the resting
potential
○ period of hyperpolarization lasts 2-3 ms, until the K+ ions in the vicinity of the membrane
diffuse away
○ membrane is relatively difficult to excite and will not likely fire another AP
■ Relative refractory period - occurs during hyperpolarization after an AP; a greater
than normal stimulus is required to elicit another AP
● All-or-none law - once threshold is reached and the sequence begins, the AP will occur in
exactly the same way each time. There are no larger or smaller APs—either an AP occurs or it
does not
● AP along the axon:
○ When the cell body is sufficiently depolarized by the action of the dendrites to reach the
threshold, an AP can begin
○ AP initiated, and this part of the membrane will rapidly depolarize
○ Electric currents spread out from this depolarized region to regions further down the axon
○ AP spreads down the xon
○ spread of AP = speed of ~ 1-2 m/s along an unmyelinated axon
● Myelin sheath:
○ Oligodendrocyte = CNS
○ Schwann cell = PNS
● Nodes of Ranvier - a gap in the
myelin sheath of a nerve
● Saltatory conduction - the
propagation of action potentials
along myelinated axons from
one node of Ranvier to the next
Communication Between Neurons
● Larger brains → many simple neurons are organized into vast communication network
● Neurons communicate through synaptic transmission
○ messages are carried from one neuron to another over a very thin gap between the
terminal bouton of one neuron and the dendrite of the next → synapse/synaptic cleft
○ Synaptic transmission - the process by which neurotransmitters are released by neurons
to bind and activate the receptors of another neuron
● Synapse - a junction between two neurons; consists of a very small gap across which impulses
pass by diffusion of neurotransmitters
● AP travels down the axon to its end, the terminal boutons release a neurotransmitter
○ Neurotransmitter - a chemical substance that is released at the end of a neuron; caused
by the arrival of a nerve impulse
● Neurotransmitter diffuses across the synaptic cleft and produces a postsynaptic potential at the
receiving neuron
○ Postsynaptic potential - brief depolarization or hyperpolarization of the membrane of the
receiving neuron
● presynaptic cell = sending the message
○ presynaptic membrane located on the end of the terminal bouton
● postsynaptic cell = receiving the message
○ postsynaptic membrane located on the dendrite of the receiving cell
● Synaptic vesicle - located inside the terminal bouton; stores the various neurotransmitters that
are released at the synapse
○ small rounded bundles, containing a small amount of the neurotransmitter chemical
● AP arrives from the axon, these vesicles fuse with the presynaptic membrane and release the
neurotransmitter into the synaptic cleft
○ molecules of the neurotransmitter diffuse across to the postsynaptic membrane where
they attach or bind themselves to receptor sites
● When the neurotransmitter binds to the receptor, ion channel opens and allows a flow of ions to
cross the membrane into the postsynaptic cell producing the postsynaptic potential
○ Excitatory postsynaptic potential (EPSP): A temporary depolarization of the postsynaptic
membrane potential
■ ion channel is designed to allow a positively polarized ion to flow into the cell
■ EPSPs excite the neuron, making it more likely to produce an AP
○ Inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP): A temporary hyperpolarization of the
postsynaptic membrane potential
■ an ion channel could open that allows K+ (for example) to flow out of the cell
■ IPSPs inhibit the neuron, making it less likely to fire
● 2 processes terminate the postsynaptic potential
○ Some neurotransmitters are inactivated by special enzymes that break them down into
their constituent chemicals
○ Other neurotransmitters are re-absorbed into the presynaptic cell through a process
known as reuptake
■ Reuptake - neurotransmitters are reabsorbed into the presynaptic cell
● The IPSPs and EPSPs interact with each other in a process known as neural integration
○ Neural integration - the interaction/addition of the IPSPs and the EPSPs
● 2 forms of neural integration:
○ Temporal summation - a high frequency of EPSPs by a single neuron elicit postsynaptic
potentials that overlap and summate with each other to create an AP
■ each EPSP that a neuron receives is quite small
■ this depolarization lasts for some time, and if the same presynaptic neuron causes
another EPSP before it fades away, the membrane potential will move yet closer
to its threshold
■ if the presynaptic neuron fires a burst of APs that goes on for a long enough time,
the neuron receiving these EPSPs will move all the way from its resting state to its
threshold + fire AP of its own
○ Spatial summation - several EPSPs from different presynaptic neurons occurring at the
same time sum to create an AP
■ EPSPs summate, moving the membrane potential much closer to threshold than
any single EPSP could
■ if enough EPSPs are received from different neurons at the same time, the neuron
will fire an AP
 Neuroscience 2 - Textbook Notes

Section 1: The Anatomy of the Nervous System

Structural Neuroimaging
● Neuraxis - a line drawn along the spinal cord and through the front of the brain; helps to denote
the direction in which the nervous system lies.
● Rostral - the front end of the neuraxis
● Caudal - the back end of the neuraxis
● Dorsal - above the neuraxis
● Ventral - the underside of the neuraxis
● Medial - structures closer to the centre of the brain
● Lateral - structures farther away from the centre of the brain

Studying the Brain

● Phrenology - determining character and mental abilities based on the shape and size of the
cranium
● Joseph Gall’s theory:
○ different brain functions were located in different areas
○ different mental attributes (hope, intelligence) were located in different sub-organs of the
brain, and these sub organs would grow with the use of that facility

Lesion Studies
● Pierre Florens → developed techniques for surgically removing or ablating parts of the brains of
pigeons and studying the results
● discovered that removal of the cerebellum affected the birds’ motor coordination
● removal of the medulla interfered with vital functions such as heartbeat and respiration
● Ablation studies - studies that remove part of the brain in order to study the results
 ● Humans: examine patients with accidental brain damage to determine both the site of the brain
damage (often done during autopsy after the patient's death) and the nature of the functional
changes in their behaviour
● Phineas Gage: rod destroyed a large part of his left frontal lobe
○ major personality changes after the accident
○ unable to plan his future actions and was constantly changing from one idea to the next
○ suggested that frontal lobes were responsible for functions like planning and
impulse-control

Electrical Stimulation and Single Cell recording

● Wilder Penfield performed brain surgery on epileptic patients in order to surgically remove the
focus of the epileptic activity from the brain
● Eloquent cortex
○ Penfield did not want to cut into this area
○ consists of those areas where damage would lead to paralysis, loss of language ability, or
loss of sensory processing
● Used an electrical probe to stimulate various parts of the brain, asked patients what they were
feeling
● able to identify other areas such as where stimulation led to the vivid recall of past memories
● Animal studies:
○ Squid - diameter of the axon is large (up to 1 mm) → adaptation speeds up the
transmission of the action potential since neurons in these animals lack myelin
● Alan Hodgkin and Andrew Huxley
○ used microelectrodes inserted into these squid axons
○ Intracellular recordings - recording taken from inside a cell measuring the voltage/current
across the cell membrane
○ Extracellular recordings - recording taken from outside the cell to measure the electrical
activity adjacent to the electrode tip
● Rats wandered around, while recording the activity of individual cells → discovered that some
cells would fire only when the rat was in a certain area of the cage
○ Hypothesis: cognitive map of the environment is located in the hippocampus of the rat

Structural Neuroimaging
● clinical lesion studies often rely on an autopsy of the patient to determine the nature of the brain
damage
○ Limitations: after an extensive behavioural study of an interesting patient, he might live for
many years, or the relatives may decline to give permission for an autopsy when he dies
● X-ray CT
○ patient’s head is placed in a ring containing an x-ray emitter and detector on opposite
sides of the patient’s head
○ ring rotates, x-rays are passed through the head
○ detector's response is recorded from all angles, computer makes an image of the brain
○ able to distinguish different tissue types to some extent
 ○ able to show areas of damage due to stroke (if image taken early enough)
○ will NOT show tumours unless large enough (tumours/healthy tissue absorb same
amount of x-rays)
○ Con: moderate to high dosage of radiation and thus pose a level of cancer risk
● MRI
○ placing the head of individuals inside a large ring
○ uses very strong magnetic field to image the brain
○ molecules in the body will vibrate at a certain rate, emitting their own radio frequency
waves
○ different molecules will produce slightly different radio waves
○ able to determine the difference between different tissue types, for example grey and
white matter

Functional Neuroimaging
● PET scan
○ measures the amount of glucose consumed by a particular area of the brain
○ patient injected with a mildly radioactive form of glucose
■ very short half-life → half the radioactive particles will decay back into a
non-radioactive form in a very short time
○ each time a radioactive particle decays, it emits 2 positrons that shoot out in opposite
directions
○ image of the amount of brain activity in a particular area
○ image is typically overlaid on a picture of brain anatomy from an MRI scan
○ Cons:
■ the production of radionuclides is very expensive
■ half-life is short and needs to be used almost immediately
■ radionuclide must be injected into an artery (slightly invasive)
■ exposure to a small dose of radiation (about 3-4 times that of a CT scan), posing a
minimal cancer risk
■ ALL areas of the brain are at least a little bit active all of the time, and would all
emit some radioactive particles
● fMRI
○ when an area of the brain is activated, the capillaries supplying blood to the area will
dilate and the blood supply to the area will increase (after about 3-5 seconds)
○ oxygen molecules (hemoglobin) in the blood are then used up
○ slight changes in the magnetic properties of the blood (recorded)
○ detailed images of brain activation with a resolution of 1 mm produced completely
non-invasively
○ Cons:
■ since the blood oxygen response takes some seconds to build up, very short
brain events are difficult to measure
■ only an indirect measure of neural activity and thus measurements provided may
be influenced by non-neural activity,
 ■ can only provide limited specific functional localization information
● EEG
○ record of electrical produced from action potentials
○ collected from an array of electrodes attached to an individual’s scalp
○ able to detect how attentive/relaxed an individual is
○ Cons:
■ all of the brain is active all of the time → difficult to distinguish the brain activity
caused by a particular event
■ resolution of this localization is not as precise as the fMRI
○ Event-related potential -
○ several trials and averaging the EEG responses → the electrical activity evoked by the
stimulus is revealed
○ able to measure very short brain responses as it takes a sample of brain activity
thousands of times per second
○ less expensive

Section 2: Brain Anatomy

The Ventricles and the Cerebrospinal Fluid
● Cerebrospinal fluid - clear watery fluid in which the brain floats; fills the space between the
arachnoid membrane and the pia mater
○ loosely attached to the skull by a network of filaments called arachnoid trabeculae
○ extends down into the spinal cord, and up into the centre of the brain through ventricles
○ provides protection from injury by suspending the brain
○ rinses metabolic waste out of the central nervous system

The Hindbrain
● Surrounds the fourth ventricle, consists of 2 major divisions:
○ Myelencephalon - subdivision of the brain consisting of the medulla oblongata
○ Metencephalon - subdivision of the brain consisting of the cerebellum and the pons
■ Cerebellum
 ■ Pons
● Brainstem - central trunk of the brain consisting of the medulla oblongata, the midbrain, and the
pons
● Pons - appears as a bulge on the ventral surface near the top of the brainstem
○ part of the reticular formation
○ contains groups of relay nuclei that pass signals to the cerebellum from higher brain
centres, and nuclei involved in sleep, respiration, and eye movement
● Medulla - forms one of the centres involved in the control of the autonomic nervous system
○ controls respiration, taking signals about the amount of oxygen in the blood from special
receptors in the carotid artery and using these signals to control respiratory rate
○ regulates heart rate
○ contains centres that control reflexes such as swallowing, sneezing, and vomiting
● Reticular formation - controls the general arousal of the brain, particularly the cerebral
hemispheres
○ controls sleep and wakefulness, sexual arousal, and the ability to concentrate
○ Damage = individual can lose consciousness and become completely comatose

The Midbrain
● 2 major structures:
○ Tectum - located on the dorsal side of the midbrain
■ auditory and visual processing
■ superior colliculus = visual, controls eye movements, and is responsible for some
visual reflexes and reactions to moving stimuli
○ Tegmentum - located on the ventral side
■ contains some of the nuclei of the reticular formation, red nucleus, substantia
nigra (melanin levels high in neurons)
■ neurons in this area secrete the neurotransmitter dopamine → reward system of
the brain and is implicated in addiction
■ motor system
■ red nuclei - partial control over gait, controlling arm swinging during walking and
the crawling of babies
■ Damage/degeneration = symptoms of Parkinson’s disease (motor problems →
tremors, rigidity)

The Forebrain
● 2 major divisions:
○ Telencephalon
○ Diencephalon
● Hypothalamus
○ controls and organizes behaviours of the autonomic nervous system related to the
survival of the organism
○ fighting, feeding, fleeing, and mating
○ involved in urinary control, thirst and hunger, and even shivering
 ○ secretes hormones that control the activity of the pituitary gland → forms the main link
between the nervous system and the endocrine system
● Pituitary gland
○ releases its own hormones
○ hormones secreted by the posterior pituitary gland are produced in the hypothalamus
○ influences behaviours such as breastfeeding and sexual orgasm
○ posterior pituitary - releases the hormone vasopressin, which regulates water, glucose,
and salt in the blood
○ anterior pituitary - synthesizes hormones under control of the hormones released from
the hypothalamus
■ thyroid-stimulating hormones → causes the thyroid to produce the hormone
thyroxin → controls the rate of many metabolic processes in the body
● Thalamus
○ symmetrical structure, having a left and right lobe with identical sets of nuclei
○ acts as a relay station between all of the sensory systems (except olfaction) and the
cerebral cortex
● Amygdala
○ limbic system = amygdala and hippocampus
○ two of these structures located within the temporal lobe of each hemisphere of the
cerebral cortex
○ involved in learning, especially in storing memories about emotional events
● Hippocampus
○ paired structure, with one half located in each cortex.
■ plays an important role in the formation of other memories
■ Declarative memory system
■ Damage: severe memory deficits

The Cerebral Cortex

● Sulci - grooves in the cortical surface
● Fissures - particularly large grooves in the cortical surface
● Medial longitudinal fissure - separates the two halves of the cortex
● Gyri - the ridges between the sulci
● cortex is only about 3 mm thick but it is differentiated into six layers
● split into two hemispheres, these two hemispheres are not identical
○ about 200 million more neurons on the left side than the right
● evolutionary, newest part of the brain
● responsible for most key functions that distinguish humans from less advanced animals:
○ awareness, consciousness, thought, planning, and language
● 4 main lobes:
○ the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobes
● Central sulcus - division in the brain separating the parietal and frontal lobe
● Primary sensory projection areas - areas in the brain where information from the senses is first
received
● Visual information is first received in the primary visual cortex, located at the very back of the
occipital cortex
● Auditory information is received by the primary auditory cortex, located on the medial surface of
the temporal lobe
● Primary somatosensory cortex is located in the parietal cortex, on the surface directly adjacent
to the central sulcus
● Sensory homunculus - a visual representation of how a map of the surface of the skin is
represented on the cortical surface
● Motor homunculus - provides a representation of this organization
● Only about 25% of the cortex is dedicated to primary areas
● Association cortex - cortex outside the primary areas
○ perform increasingly complex functions on the information from the nearby projection
area
○ areas near the primary auditory cortex are responsible for decoding sounds into words,
and areas near the primary visual cortex are responsible for recognizing objects
● areas in the frontal lobes near the primary motor area are responsible for planning and organizing
complex motor movements
● areas further forward are involved in planning in general, helping us choose right from wrong and
evaluating the consequences of future actions
 Vision - Textbook Notes

Sensation and Perception

● Müller–Lyer illusion - where two identical lines are made to look like they are different length by
the placement of arrows on the ends of the line
○ people perceive the vertical line in B as being much longer than in A
○ both vertical lines are the exact same length

● Necker cube - line drawing of a transparent cube that has an ambiguous perception with respect
to its 3D shape
○ the surface that appears closest to you—either the upper right square or lower left
square—is subject to change
○ brain creates a 3D perception based on two-dimensional evidence
○ brain creates a three-dimensional percept based on two-dimensional evidence

Section 1: Sensation and Perception

Sensation and Perception
● Sensation - the transformation of physical characteristics of the world into electrical signals in
our nervous system
● Transduction - the process by which information from the outside world is converted into
electrical signals that the brain can interpret
● Perception - the ability to represent something about the external world through our senses
● Sensory organs have inherent physical limitations
○ visual system only responds to a segment of the electromagnetic spectrum
● Pigeons have more complex sensory systems for colour vision than humans
○ five primary colours; can perceive infrared light

The Inventing Brain

● We are unaware of a large blind spot in the visual field of each of your eyes
○ brain uses input from areas around the blind spot to infer what should be there
Section 2: The Eye
Sclera, Cornea, Iris, Pupil, and Lens
● Sclera - the white of the eye; continuous with the cornea
● Cornea - transparent layer at the front of the eye that allows light to pass into the eye;
responsible for approximately 70% of the eye’s focusing power
○ dome-shaped lens
○ accounts for roughly 80% of all the focusing power of the eye
● Iris - donut shaped ring that controls the diameter of the pupil; gives the eye its colour
○ pupil - hole in the centre of the iris
■ controls the diameter of the pupil
● Lens - curved and flexible structure in the eye responsible for about 20% of the eye’s focusing
power
○ not a static structure → its curvature can be altered such that images are brought into
focus based on how far away they are
○ distant objects → nearby muscles are relaxed, the lens becomes flattened, resulting in
the maximum focal length
○ nearby objects → muscles are contracted, the lens becomes rounder
● Accommodation - the process by which the lens is adjusted by contracting or relaxing nearby
muscles
● Hyperopia (farsightedness) - an intact ability to see things far away, but objects up close appear
blurry
○ light is focused to a hypothetical location behind the retina
● Myopia (nearsightedness) - intact ability to see objects up close, but distant objects appear
blurry
○ light is focused to a hypothetical location in front of the retina
● **these abnormalities occur when:
○ Abnormal length of eyeball
■ Nearsighted = slightly longer eye length
■ Farsighted = slightly shorter eye length
○ Abnormal curvature of the cornea
■ Hyperopia = less curved lenses
○ Accommodation process might be disrupted
■ corrective lenses or laser eye surgery can be used to ameliorate these refractive
error problems by redirecting incoming light to its correct location on the retina

The Retina
● Retina - transparent sheet of tissue with multiple layers. The photoreceptors (rods and cones)
are found in the outer layers closest to the choroid epithelium. The horizontal, amacrine, and
bipolar cells form the intermediate layer, and the ganglion cells are found on the internal surface
layer
● Photoreceptors - cell that responds to light; rods and cones
○ closest to the very back of the eye
○ detect light and pass this information on to the next layer
● Second layer: contains horizontal cells, amacrine cells, and bipolar cells; all of which can
process the signal further before it reaches the next layer
● Third layer: closest to the inner fluid of the eye contains ganglion cells
○ Ganglion cells - type of cell located in the retina; receives input from rods and cones, and
relays these signals to the visual centres of the brain
● light must first pass through ganglion cells, horizontal cells, amacrine cells, and bipolar cells
before striking the photoreceptors that start the whole process
● Photoreceptors:
○ Rods - primarily responsible for scotopic (i.e., low light vision)
■ Contain rhodopsin
● Rhodospin - light-sensitive pigment present in the retina
■ Total loss of rods → only night blindness
○ Cones - primarily responsible for photopic (i.e., high light) vision; referred to as chromatic
■ Contain iodopsin
● Iodopsin → photopigments that are less sensitive to light
■ 3 main types of cones → each maximally sensitive to a different wavelength of
light = allow us to perceive colour
● Convergence - some number of neurons receiving input and relaying the signal onto fewer
neurons
● Average human → 125 million rods, 6 million cones, 1 million ganglion cells
○ on average 120 rods converge onto 1 ganglion cell
○ on average 5 cones converge onto 1 ganglion cell
● More rods converge to produce better night vision, due to a small response from multiple rods
combining to generate a greater response in corresponding ganglion cells
○ Cost: any one ganglion cell will receive input from many rods that detect light from
various areas of the visual field, resulting in poorer acuity
● Fewer cones converge onto any one ganglion cell, thereby increasing acuity such that we can
discriminate finer details in well-lit environments
● **rods yield low-resolution vision in dark environments, cones yield high-resolution vision in
bright environments
● Fovea - section near the centre of the retina where most cones are present and visual acuity is
greatest
○ directly in line with whatever you are focusing your gaze on
○ fovea is exclusively populated with cones, thus achieving maximal visual acuity
● Optic disc/Blind spot - area in which the optic nerve exits the retina; contains no photoreceptors
○ Structural imitation: lacks photoreceptors, instead is made up of axons from the ganglion
cells that are needed to carry signals from the retina to the brain
● Dark adaption:
○ Transition from light to dark environment involves dark
adaptation of both rods and cones
○ 2 steps:
■ 1: during the first few minutes of dark exposure,
there is a lower threshold for the activation of cones
 and therefore a rapid increase in our sensitivity to light
■ 2: after about 5–10 minutes, the threshold of rods decreases considerably, as
shown in the part of the curve following the ‘rod–cone break’
● bipolar cells we discussed earlier receive input from the photoreceptors and can either increase
(turn ON) or decrease (turn OFF) activity in downstream ganglion cells
● Receptive field - area where a stimulus elicits a response
○ affects the firing rate of said ganglion cell
○ stimulating inside the receptive field → firing rate of ganglion cell INCREASES
○ stimulating outside the receptive field → ganglion cell’s firing rate does not change
○ stimulating the outer perimeter within the receptive field—shaped like a donut, and what
we now call the surround of the receptive field
■ elicited the opposite response to whatever occurred when the very centre of the
receptive field was stimulated
○ Structure of the ganglion receptive field:
■ circular
■ centre → elicits one type of response when exposed to light
■ antagonistic surround → elicits an opposite response when exposed to light
● Centre–surround antagonism - centre and surround produce opposite responses
○ Retinal ganglion cell = on centre if light reaching the centre of its receptive field is causing
excitation
● Optic nerve - retinal ganglion axons exit the eye through the optic nerve; pathway before the
optic chiasm

Evolution of the Eye

● Today’s complex eyes originated from a ‘proto-eye’ that emerged some 540 million years ago
● Survival advantage = coarse light-sensitive spot
○ Helped it secure food/avoid predators
● Spots gradually clustered through successive generations → a more complex patch of
photosensitive cells might form
● Flat eye - some primitive invertebrates (i.e. jellyfish) have a path of photoreceptors

Section 3: Visual Pathways

Organization of Primary Visual Cortex
● Areas of the visual field captured by only ONE eye
● Nasal hemi-retina - area of the retina closest to the nos
○ half of a given retina closest to the nose
● Temporal hemi-retina - area of the retina closest to the
temples
○ half of a given retina closest to the temple
● images are inverted as they pass through the lens
○ Right eye → nasal retina sees the right half of the
world
 ○ Left eye → temporal retina sees left half of the world
● Optic nerves carrying signals from the nasal parts of each retina cross the brain’s midline at the
optic chiasm
○ Optic chiasm - point in the brain where the optic nerve from the nasal part of each retina
crosses
○ optic nerves carrying information from the temporal portions of each retina do not cross
midline
■ continue along on the congruent side of the brain
○ Optic tract - pathway after the optic chiasm
● 4 subcortical targets:
○ 1. pretectal area of the midbrain controls pupillary reflexes in response to changes in
brightness
○ 2. the retinohypothalamic fibers regulate circadian rhythms
○ 3. superior colliculus controls saccadic (high velocity) eye movements and coordinates
visual, auditory, and somatosensory information
○ 4. LGN and a major hub for visual processing that constitutes part of the thalamus
located in the midbrain in each hemisphere
● Lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) - located at the end of the optic tract on both sides of the brain;
acts as the primary relay station for visual information
○ 90% of all retinal inputs terminate at the LGN, but the LGN also receives inputs from the
brain stem, thalamus, and other higher-order centres in the brain
○ Contains 6 layers:
■ Layers1 and 2 receive input from the magnocellular ganglion cells
■ Layers 3, 4, 5 receive input from the parvocellular ganglion cells
○ Parvocellular cells - smaller cell bodies; convey detailed information that is useful for the
perception of colour, form, pattern, texture, depth
○ Magnocellular cells - larger cell bodies; convey information about movement
○ LGN have similar receptive field properties as the retina
○ Difference: receptive fields of LGN are a little larger, a single LGN responds to a larger are
of visual space
● Area V1: made up of a thin sheet of grey matter about 2 mm thick with six layers of cells (L1-6)
○ A long strope in the cortex (line of Gennari), this line corresponds to layer 4 of V1
(principal layer for input from the LGN)
○ maintains a topographic representation of visual space
● 1902: Korbian Broadmann: identified and labelled 52 regions within these layers of the V1
● V1 cells often responded to stimuli more complex than simple spots of light
○ some V1 cells responded to a vertical bar of light, but the responses diminished as it was
rotated clockwise or counterclockwise
● Simple cells - an eye with a single lens
● Complex cells - cells located in the visual cortex sensitive to the orientation of a bar of light as
well as the direction of its movement
● Hypercomplex cells - cells in the visual cortex that have all the features of a complex cell but are
also sensitive to the length of a bar of light
 ● Hubel and Wiesel: “feature detectors” - since V1 cells respond selectively to discrete features
● Ocular dominance columns - columns of neurons in the visual cortex that respond preferentially
to input from either the right or left eye
● Orientation columns - columns of neurons in the visual cortex that respond preferentially to
stimuli of specific angles
○ all cells in one column chiefly respond to input from one eye, all cells in a neighbouring
column chiefly respond to input from the other eye

Extrastriate Cortex
● Dorsal pathway - where pathway; information processed along the parietal lobe
● Ventral pathway - what pathway; information processed along the temporal lobe
● Primate extrastriate cortex → includes areas V2, V3, V4, V5 (also known as MT), and IT
○ What pathway = areas V2, V4, and IT
■ V2 = orientation, spatial frequency, colour
■ V4 = colour, geometric shape
○ Where pathway = areas V3 and V5
■ V3 = receives input from both V1 and V2, processing of certain holistic forms of
motion within the visual field called ‘global motion’
■ V5 = part of the dorsal pathway because it seems to play a major role in our
perception of an object’s motion

Section 4: Depth, Distance, and Motion

Two Types of Depth Cues
● Monocular depth cues - cues needed to be captured by one eye
● Binocular depth cues - more sophisticated perception of depth; requires two eyes

Monocular Depth Cues

● Monocular depth cues used to estimate with information sent from one eye
○ 3 categories: accommodation, motion, pictorial cues
● Accommodation - lens is adjusted by contracting or relaxing nearby muscles
○ change in the tension of the muscles surrounding the lens
● Motion parallax - depth cue based on the relative speeds of near and far objects while in motion
○ travelling in a car: you can see that closer objects appear to move quickly or in a blur and
distant objects appear to move more slowly
● Optic flow - perceived motion of the visual field that results from one’s movement through the
environment
○ objects and surfaces appear to ‘flow’ around you as you move through your environment,
allowing your visual system to infer your current direction
● Interposition - pictorial depth cue whereby one object overlaps, and thus occludes, another
object
○ Linear perspective - pictorial depth cue where parallel lines observer appear to converge
on a single vanishing point in the horizon
 ● Aerial perspective - pictorial depth cue caused by the visual effect of light when passing through
the atmosphere that causes distant objects to appear hazy and blue
○ scatter of light in the atmosphere causes very distant objects to appear hazy and bluer
● Shading - pictorial depth cue that helps us infer the direction of light (i.e., usually from above)
○ expect that light comes from above us, our sense of depth is firmly linked to our implicit
(or explicit) understanding of how shadows ought to be cast

Binocular Depth Cues

● Stereoscope - device that creates the illusion of depth from two photographs taken of the same
scene at slightly different angles
● Charles Wheatsone (19th century): binocular perception of depth stems from our two eyes
capturing similar parts of the world from slightly different perspectives
○ he took two photographs of the same scene about 60 mm horizontally apart from one
another—roughly the distance between our two eyes
● Stereopsis - perception of depth via binocular disparity
● Convergence - as objects move closer to our face the gazes of our eyes converge, leading the
activity of extraocular muscles (i.e., muscles around the eye) to be another type of binocular
depth cue

Development of Depth Perception

● 4 months: infants show a distinct reaching preference for objects closer to them
● 6 months (crawling): most infants can discern deep and shallow surfaces and avoid
dangerous-looking heights
○ Visual cliff → raised surface with a glass platform that extends over a drop of several feet
● Most infants around 6–14 months could not be coaxed to crawl over the illusory ‘cliff’, thus
suggesting that depth perception is present at this age
● Depth perception is both innate and learned
○ 6 months: monocular depth perception develops, using cues such as changes in texture
or overlapping objects
○ Binocular depth perception is most likely driven by experience
● Studies have shown that even animals raised in visually deprived environments—which lack
normal monocular depth cues—avoid the deep side of the visual cliff

Evolution of Depth Perception

● Stereoscopic vision is essential for predatory animals like owls and wolves but less important for
prey animals like rabbits or deer
● Predators → both eyes near the front of the head, allowing for the greatest degree of binocular
overlap
● Prey → eyes farther apart and placed on each side of the head, yielding a more panoramic field
of view
Section 5: Development & Specialization
Infant Visual Acuity
● Preferential looking paradigm - method used to determine visual acuity in infants
○ takes advantage of newborns preferring to look at complex or novel patterns over simpler
or familiar patterns
○ Researcher will present an infant with two cards:
■ one card that is plain grey
■ another that has plain grey stripes
● **If the infant has good enough acuity to perceive the stripes, they usually prefer to look at that
card because it is more complex
○ if the stripes are too fine to be perceived by the visual system, they will not show a
preference towards either card
● Use EEG to study visual abilities
● Our visual system is the least developed at birth
● Prenatal period: fetus is sensitive to light, as measured by changes in fetal heart rate in the
presence of a light stimulus
○ Premature infants → can track and focus on objects that are presented less than a foot
away
○ Full term infants → have visual acuity roughly 30 times worse than adults
● Newborn visual acuity is limited to 20/200 to 20/600, meaning that an infant can see at 20 feet
what an adult can see at 200 to 600 feet
● 2 weeks: show some ability to distinguish between opposing colours, like green and red, and are
also attracted to moving objects more so than stationary ones
● 3 months: develop an ability to track and follow a slow-moving object
● 6 months: average visual acuity of infants improves to 20/80; driven by the maturation of
photoreceptors
● 6-8 months: visual acuity continues to improve to normal adult levels (20/20), yet at a slower rate
compared to the improvements seen in the prenatal and newborn periods
● 3-5 years: children demonstrate biological motion
○ Biological motion - children presented with displays of many separated dots of light can
mentally ‘connect the dots’ together to see larger configurations (i.e. four legged animal)
● Limitations to children:
○ child’s visual system is very sensitive to the overall quality of a stimulus
○ researchers degrade the quality of a stimulus by even a small amount (i.e. add noise),
children often perform much worse than adults
● 11 year olds are still affected by such noise, and adult performance is not reached until 15 years
of age
○ Explanation: higher visual centres of the extrastriate cortex are not fully mature until late
adolescence
Specialized Visual Systems
● Simple eyes - single lens
● Compound eyes - consists of many tiny light-capturing elements (ommatidia); provide very little
fine-grained details
○ each ommatidium has its own lens and receptors
○ Insects: each lens makes up a small part of the overall picture, similar to a jigsaw puzzle
■ Some insect compound eyes (e.g., dragonflies) have upwards of 30,000
ommatidia that excel at detecting motion and provide a 360-degree view of the
environment
● Many other animals have slit-shaped pupils that are either vertical
○ Misconception: slit-shaped pupils better serve nocturnal animals by allowing for a greater
pupil diameter at night, permitting for more light to enter the eye
■ FALSE: circular pupils are better at this
○ slit-shaped pupil enhances visual acuity and the range of intensities over which the eye
can function effectively
○ reduces chromatic aberration—that is, a tendency for some wavelength of light entering
at the periphery to blur the resulting retinal image
● Eye size instead seems to vary by utility or function