The Brain and Human Behavior

Humans: The Cooking Ape Perhaps the first to suggest that humans were cooking as early as 1.9 million years ago, Richard Wrangham shows through his new research and his imagination how and possibly when cooking changed humans dramatically. Wrangham, Harvard University primatologist and MacArthur Fellow, has been studying the evolution of human cooking. After 25 years of primate research at his site in Kibale, Uganda, Wrangham is best known for explaining the similarity and differences across species of primate social organizations. In Kibale, he has analyzed chimpanzees’ behavior: how it’s changed when they interact with the environment and how their social groups have evolved. In particular, he noticed how food changed their interactions with each other. Like that of chimps, human behavior has been affected by food, especially as they shifted from raw to cooked food. Moving from eating food as it was discovered to collecting edibles and cooking them altered our social relationships. Cooked food has changed Homo sapiens physically by making food more digestible thereby altering jaws, teeth, and guts, and providing more calories for more expensive organs such as the brain. Wrangham discusses when and how humans may have started using fire to cook food, what they cooked, and the transition from cooking in an outdoor fire to hearths and open ovens.

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Veto and Vacillation: A Neural Precursor of the Decision to Withhold Action

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn_a_00479 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 296-304 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Erman Misirlisoy ◽

Patrick Haggard

Keyword(s):

Human Behavior ◽

Temporal Pattern ◽

Neural Precursor ◽

Rule Based ◽

Action Sequences ◽

Readiness Potentials ◽

Preparatory Activity ◽

The Brain ◽

Motor Areas

The capacity to inhibit a planned action gives human behavior its characteristic flexibility. How this mechanism operates and what factors influence a decision to act or not act remain relatively unexplored. We used EEG readiness potentials (RPs) to examine preparatory activity before each action of an ongoing sequence, in which one action was occasionally omitted. We compared RPs between sequences in which omissions were instructed by a rule (e.g., “omit every fourth action”) and sequences in which the participant themselves freely decided which action to omit. RP amplitude was reduced for actions that immediately preceded a voluntary omission but not a rule-based omission. We also used the regular temporal pattern of the action sequences to explore brain processes linked to omitting an action by time-locking EEG averages to the inferred time when an action would have occurred had it not been omitted. When omissions were instructed by a rule, there was a negative-going trend in the EEG, recalling the rising ramp of an RP. No such component was found for voluntary omissions. The results are consistent with a model in which spontaneously fluctuating activity in motor areas of the brain could bias “free” decisions to act or not.

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Neuroscience: The New English Major?

The Neuroscientist ◽

10.1177/10738584211003992 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 107385842110039

Author(s):

Kristin F. Phillips ◽

Harald Sontheimer

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Graduate Education ◽

Human Behavior ◽

Undergraduate Curriculum ◽

Virginia Tech ◽

Bachelor's Degree ◽

State University ◽

Human Interactions ◽

English Major ◽

The Brain

Once strictly the domain of medical and graduate education, neuroscience has made its way into the undergraduate curriculum with over 230 colleges and universities now offering a bachelor’s degree in neuroscience. The disciplinary focus on the brain teaches students to apply science to the understanding of human behavior, human interactions, sensation, emotions, and decision making. In this article, we encourage new and existing undergraduate neuroscience programs to envision neuroscience as a broad discipline with the potential to develop competencies suitable for a variety of careers that reach well beyond research and medicine. This article describes our philosophy and illustrates a broad-based undergraduate degree in neuroscience implemented at a major state university, Virginia Tech. We highlight the fact that the research-centered Experimental Neuroscience major is least popular of our four distinct majors, which underscores our philosophy that undergraduate neuroscience can cater to a different audience than traditionally thought.

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Prehistory of the Concept of ‘Neuroreductionism’: The Sorrowful Path of the Soul

Theological Herald ◽

10.31802/gb.2021.41.2.004 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 77-87

Author(s):

Дамиан Воронов

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Human Behavior ◽

Human Spirit ◽

Brain Science ◽

Long Period ◽

Natural Scientists ◽

The Brain ◽

Neuroimaging Techniques

Современная нейронаука описывает человека как биологическую машину, в которой вера, любовь, надежда, страхи, воспоминания, мечты и свобода предстают как убедительная иллюзия. Перспективные методы нейровизуализации позволяют естествоиспытателям заглянуть внутрь мозга и измерить его деятельность, соответствующую ощущениям от переживания боли, цвета и звуков. Редукционизм и нейроцентризм умаляют сферу человеческого духа, сжимая её до выражения «я - это мой мозг». Позиция современной науки о мозге, постулирующей его ключевую роль в генерации мыслей, принятии решений и поведения человека, утверждалась постепенно, ей предшествовал длительный период оживлённых споров и удивительных открытий, о чём и повествуется в данной статье. Modern neuroscience describes humans as a biological machine in which faith, love, hope, fears, memories, dreams and freedom appear as a compelling illusion. Advanced neuroimaging techniques allow natural scientists to look inside the brain and measure its activity corresponding to the sensations of pain, color and sound. Reductionism and neurocentrism detract from the sphere of the human spirit, shrinking it to the expression «I am my brain». The position of modern brain science, postulating its key role in the generation of thoughts, decision-making and human behavior, was established gradually, it was preceded by a long period of debate and amazing discoveries, which is described in this article.

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Gene-culture interaction on human behavior and the brain

10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198743194.003.0007 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Shihui Han

Keyword(s):

Human Behavior ◽

Functional Organization ◽

Brain Activity ◽

Receptor Gene ◽

Individual Development ◽

Genetic Studies ◽

Oxytocin Receptor Gene ◽

New Approach ◽

Self Reflection ◽

The Brain

Chapter 7 reviews empirical findings that allow consideration of biological and environmental influences on human behavior from an evolutionary perspective (e.g., gene-culture coevolution) and from a perspective of individual development (e.g., gene-culture interaction). It also reviews imaging genetic studies that link genes with brain functional organization. It introduces a cultural neuroscience paradigm for investigating genetic influences on the coupling of brain activity and culture by presenting two studies that examined how serotonin transporter functional polymorphism and oxytocin receptor gene moderate the association between interdependence and brain activities involved in self-reflection and empathy. These studies illustrate a new approach to understanding the manner with which culture interacts with gene to shape human brain activity.

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Procesos de esencialización de hombres y mujeres: Un estudio comparado Brasil-España

Anales de Psicología ◽

10.6018/analesps.32.1.190841 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 32 (1) ◽

pp. 190 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Marcos Emanoel Pereira ◽

José Luis Álvaro Estramiana ◽

Alicia Garrido Luque

Keyword(s):

Gender Roles ◽

Special Reference ◽

Human Behavior ◽

Common Sense ◽

Social Categories ◽

Brain Transplant ◽

The Brain

The main objective of this research is to present the results of an experiment based in the brain transplant paradigm. It was done in Brazil and Spain and its aim was to study various essentialization processes among different social categories. It was possible to identify that naturalizable social categories are more essentialized than entitative ones, that essencialization is greater in Brazil than in Spain, and that the direction of the supposed brain transplant in which the experiment was based had an impact only among Spanish participants. In both countries the attribution of internal causes was the most common explanation together with a biologization of gender with special reference to hormones and genes used as arguments to elaborate common sense explanations of human behavior. Altogether the results found lead us to the conclusion than essentialization plays an important role in the perpetuation of sexism and other forms of gender roles stereotypes.

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Electroencephalogram Profiles for Emotion Identification over the Brain Regions Using Spectral, Entropy and Temporal Biomarkers

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s20010059 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 20 (1) ◽

pp. 59

Author(s):

Noor Kamal Al-Qazzaz ◽

Mohannad K. Sabir ◽

Sawal Hamid Bin Mohd Ali ◽

Siti Anom Ahmad ◽

Karl Grammer

Keyword(s):

Human Behavior ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Entropy Method ◽

Emotional States ◽

Spectral Entropy ◽

Emotion Identification ◽

Daily Lives ◽

The University ◽

Electroencephalogram Eeg ◽

The Brain

Identifying emotions has become essential for comprehending varied human behavior during our daily lives. The electroencephalogram (EEG) has been adopted for eliciting information in terms of waveform distribution over the scalp. The rationale behind this work is twofold. First, it aims to propose spectral, entropy and temporal biomarkers for emotion identification. Second, it aims to integrate the spectral, entropy and temporal biomarkers as a means of developing spectro-spatial ( S S ) , entropy-spatial ( E S ) and temporo-spatial ( T S ) emotional profiles over the brain regions. The EEGs of 40 healthy volunteer students from the University of Vienna were recorded while they viewed seven brief emotional video clips. Features using spectral analysis, entropy method and temporal feature were computed. Three stages of two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were undertaken so as to identify the emotional biomarkers and Pearson’s correlations were employed to determine the optimal explanatory profiles for emotional detection. The results evidence that the combination of applied spectral, entropy and temporal sets of features may provide and convey reliable biomarkers for identifying S S , E S and T S profiles relating to different emotional states over the brain areas. EEG biomarkers and profiles enable more comprehensive insights into various human behavior effects as an intervention on the brain.

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A tribe called Europe? An “emotional” perception of reality

10.31338/1641-2478pe.4.17.6 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 118-131

Author(s):

Agnieszka Rothert

Keyword(s):

Political Science ◽

Human Behavior ◽

Human Behaviour ◽

Human Beings ◽

Crucial Point ◽

Emotional Perception ◽

Political Structures ◽

The Brain

A main goal of this essay is the analysis of the contemporary phase of evolution of European “organism” by using approaches from political science and neuroscience. The transdisciplinary perspective allows for better understanding of finer points of human behavior which can be lost only in political science analysis. My simple and obvious assumption is that politics is about people. Human beings create groups, communities, etc. If it is so, maybe we should start with looking more closely into mechanisms of the most important part of ourselves. The brain. It is responsible for all human behaviour. Another crucial point is the connection between humans and environment. The concept of co-evolution is fundamental and very useful when we want to show intertwining relations between interiority (brain, body) and externality (behaviour, social and political structures). Europe may be the very context for this analysis, but it is most of all our humanity.

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