Tuesday, 16.

June 2020

Bio Psych Chapter 4

Genetics, Evolution, Development and Plasticity

- Genetics and Evolution of Behaviour

• Mendelian Genetics

- Epigenetics: deals with changes in gene expression

- Various experiences can turn a gene on or off

- Result of an experience (maternal deprivation, cocaine exposure, ...) in some

way alters the chemical environment within a cell

- E.g. traumatic experiences in early childhood decrease methylation of many

brain genes, increasing later risk of depression, PTSD, ...

- What you do at any moment not only affects you now, but also produces
epigenetic effects that alter gene expression for longer periods of time -
experiences act by altering the activity of genes

• Heredity and Environment

- Variations in some characteristic depend largely on genetic differences

- To determine heritability of any characteristic, researchers rely mainly on

three kinds of evidence

• 1. They compare monozygotic twins and dizygotic twins, 2. Studies of

adopted children, 3. Identify specific genes linked to some behaviour

- Any estimate of the heritability of a trait is specific to a given population

- Even a trait with high heritability can be modified by environmental

intervention - heritable does not mean unmodifiable

- Some genes control brain chemicals, but others affect behaviour indirectly

• The Evolution of Behaviour

- Evolution: a change over generations in frequencies of various genes in a

population

- Evolution through inheritance of acquired characteristics (Lamarckian

evolution)

- Our ancestors managed to get enough nutrition to provide a big brain with all
the fuel it needs

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- We devote more energy to our brains and less to physical strength

- Any behaviour characteristic of a species arose through natural selection and

presumably provided some advantage, at least in ancestral times

- Altruistic behaviour

• Kin selection—selection for a gene that benefits the individual’s relatives

• Reciprocal altruism - idea that individuals help those who will return favour

- Development of the Brain

• Maturation of the Vertebrate Brain

- Proliferation is the production of new cells, early in development the cells

lining the ventricles of the brain divide - some cells remain where they are as
stem cells, continuing to divide

- Early in development the primitive neurons begin to migrate

- At first a primitive neuron looks like any other cell - gradually the neuron
differentiates, forming its axon and dendrites

- After the migrating neuron reaches its destination, its dendrites begin to form

- Myelination: process by which glia produce the insulating fatty sheaths that
accelerate transmission in many vertebrate axons

- Final stage is synaptogenesis, or the formation of synapses

- Stem cells in the nose remain immature throughout life

• Pathfinding by Axons

- Axons grow to a specific target instead of attaching at random

- Neural Darwinism - in the development of the nervous system, we start with

more neurons and synapses than we can keep

• Determinants of Neuronal Survival

- If its axon does not make contact with an appropriate postsynaptic cell by a
certain age, the neuron kills itself through a process called apoptosis, a
programmed mechanism of cell death

- When SNS begins sending axons toward the muscles and glands, it doesn’t
know the exact size of the muscles or glands - it makes more neurons than
necessary and discards the excess

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- Nerve growth factor is a neurotrophin (chemical that promotes the survival
and activity of neurons)

• The Vulnerable Developing Brain

- During early development, the brain is highly vulnerable to malnutrition, toxic

chemicals & infections that would produce only mild problems at later ages

- Fetal alcohol syndrome: condition marked by hyperactivity, impulsiveness,

difficulty maintaining attention, varying degrees of mental retardation, motor
problems, heart defects, and facial abnormalities

- Exposure to alcohol: at earliest stage of pregnancy it interferes with neuron

proliferation later it impairs neuron migration and differentiation, still later it
impairs synaptic transmission

- The immature brain is also highly responsive to influences from the mother

- Stress to mother changes her behaviour in ways that change offspring’s

behaviour

• Differentiation of the Cortex

- Immature neurons experimentally transplanted from one part of developing

cortex to another develop the properties characteristic of their new location

- Visual input to auditory portions of brain actually produced a visual sensation

• Fine-Tuning by Experience

- Brains have evolved the ability to remodel themselves in response to

experience

- Central structure of a dendrite becomes stable by adolescence, peripheral

branches of a dendrite remain flexible throughout life

- Gain or loss of spines means a turnover of synapses, which relates to

learning

- Brain isn’t like a muscle, where you could exercise to be bigger and stronger

- Physical activity enhances both cognitive processes and brain anatomy

- Blind people improve their attention to touch and sound, based on practice

- People blind since birth or early childhood: occipital cortex also responds to
auditory information, because of strong connections from the temporal
cortex to the occipital cortex

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- Gray matter of several cortical areas was thicker in professional musicians
than in amateurs and thicker in amateurs than in non-musicians - the most
strongly affected areas related to hand control and vision

- Practicing a skill reorganises the brain to maximise performance of that skill

- We should reserve judgment about most of the reported effects of brief

experiences on the adult brain

- Stimulation on one finger excites mostly same cortical areas as another

finger

- “musician’s cramp” or focal hand dystonia

• Brain Development and Behavioral Development

- Adolescents tend to prefer immediate rewards even with rewards other than
money, and adolescent rats and mice show a similar tendency

- Adolescent humans show stronger brain responses than older adults do

when anticipating rewards, and weaker responses in the areas of the
prefrontal cortex responsible for inhibiting behaviours

- Adolescents are highly responsive to social support and social influence

- Old people’s memory and reasoning begin to fade - many neurons lose some
synapses, remaining synapses change more slowly in response to
experiences

- Volume of the hippocampus also gradually declines in old age, and certain
aspects of memory decline in proportion to the loss of hippocampus

- Plasticity after Brain Damage Brain

• Damage and Short-Term Recovery

- Most common cause for young people is closed head injury

- One cause of damage after closed head injury is the rotational forces that
drive brain tissue against the inside of the skull

- Common cause of brain damage is temporary interruption of normal blood

flow to a brain area during a stroke (cerebrovascular accident) - more
common type of stroke is ischemia, the result of a blood clot or other
obstruction in artery - less common is haemorrhage, result of ruptured artery

- In ischemia, the neurons deprived of blood lose much of their oxygen and
glucose supplies - in hemorrhage, they are flooded with blood and excess
oxygen, calcium, and other chemicals

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- Edema: the accumulation of fluid

- Both ischemia and hemorrhage also impair the sodium–potassium pump,

leading to an accumulation of sodium inside neurons

- Treatment:

• Drug called tissue plasminogen activator, breaks up blood clots

• Strokes kill neurons by overstimulation: one approach has been to

decrease stimulation by blocking glutamate synapses or blocking calcium
entry

• Cooling protects the brain after ischemia by reducing over- stimulation,

apoptosis, and inflammation

• Exposure to cannabinoids minimises the damage caused by strokes in

laboratory animals

• Later Mechanisms of Recovery

- In some cases: one area more or less takes over the function of another,
damaged area - in other cases, surviving brain areas do not take over the
functions of the damaged area, but they compensate in other ways

- Diaschisis refers to the decreased activity of surviving neurons after damage

to other neurons - if diaschisis contributes to behavioral deficits following
brain damage, then increased stimulation should help

- Several problems limit axon regeneration in mammals: 1. cut in the nervous

system causes a scar to form, creating a mechanical barrier, 2. Neurons on
the two sides of the cut pull apart, 3. glia cells that react to CNS damage
release chemicals that inhibit axon growth

- Is collateral sprouting helpful or harmful? - depends on whether the sprouting

axons convey information similar to those that they replace

- If a certain set of synapses becomes inactive, remaining synapses become

more responsive, more easily stimulated - process of enhanced response,
known as denervation supersensitivity or receptor supersensitivity

- Denervation supersensitivity helps compensate for decreased input - it

enables people to maintain nearly normal behaviour even after losing most of
the axons in some pathway

- phantom limbs develop when the relevant portion of the somatosensory

cortex reorganises and becomes responsive to alternative inputs

- Much recovery from brain damage is based on learning

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- Someone with brain damage may have lost some ability totally or may be
able to find it with enough effort - much recovery from brain damage
depends on learning to make better use of the abilities that were spared

- Behaviour recovered after brain damage is effortful, and its recovery is

precarious

- A person with brain damage who appears to be functioning normally is

working harder than usual - the recovered behaviour deteriorates markedly
after drinking alcohol, physical exhaustion, or other kinds of stress that would
minimally affect most other people