Unit 2 biology of behaviour

This PPT contains Unit 2 Biology of behaviour for F.Y.B.Sc. Nursing students. The biology of behavior, also known as behavioral neuroscience or psychobiology, explores the relationship between biological processes and behavior. It delves into how the brain, nervous system, and other physiological factors influence behavior, emotions, thoughts, and actions. Understanding this relationship helps us comprehend various aspects of human and animal behavior.

1. BIOLOGY OF
BEHAVIOUR
By:
Tejal D. Virola
Faculty (MHN)
GHPSCON

2. Body-Mind
Relationship-
Modulation Process
in Health & Illness
orPhysiological
basis of behaviour

3. Effects of Bodily Conditions on
Mental Functioning
•Increased blood pressure causes mental
excitement.
•Severe pain reduces the concentration
level.
•Chronic illness causes depression.
•Malfunctioning of the endocrine glands
may exert full influence on one's
personality, resulting in lethargy, nervous
tension, etc.

4. •Physical fatigue affects our mood and
reduces our motivation, interest and
concentration.
•Brain injury affects many
psychological functions. At the same
time well developed brain leads to the
development of better intellectual
functioning.

5. Effects of Mental Conditions on
Bodily Functioning
•Unpleasant emotions like fear, anger and
worry cause irritability, insomnia, headache,
etc. Mental processes are intimately
connected to brain or cortical processes, e.g.
depression affects thinking and memory.
•Emotional conflicts are responsible for peptic
ulcer, ulcerative colitis, etc.
•Deep thinking and concentration can cause
physical strain.

6. •According to Franz Alexander, repressed
feelings of hostility and aggression are
expressed through the nervous system and
cause hypertension and cardiac diseases.
Repressed feelings of dependency, wish to
receive love, affect parasympathetic nervous
system resulting in gastrointestinal disorders
or respiratory disorders.
•Unconscious motivation and conflicts gives
rise to many physical complaints and
neurotic disorders like conversion disorders.

7. •Relationship between body and the
mind has an effect on health and
illness.
•If the relationship is harmonious, it
leads to health, while an adverse
relationship leads to illness.
•If all the body and mental processes are
working within normal range, the
individual will have good health.
•Disruption in any one of the processes
will lead to illness.

8. •Psychosomatic medicine deals with
physical diseases caused by psychological
factors.
•In these patients, the treatment should be
given for both body and mind, e.g. in case
of peptic ulcer the treatment includes both
drugs and psychotherapy.
•The nurse should understand the
interrelationship between the body and
the mind.
•She should also understand the emotional
factors underlining the disease of the
patient.
•It is always necessary to study the
patient's physical and psychological
problems in order to provide
comprehensive care.

9. GENETICS AND
BEHAVIOR:
HEREDITY AND
ENVIRONMENT

10. Heredity
•Heredity is considered as “the
sum total of inborn individual
traits”.
•Biologically, it has been
defined as “the sum total of
traits potentially present in
the fertilized ovum”.
•According to Douglas and
Holland “one's heredity
consists of all the structures,
physical characteristics,
functions or capacities derived
from parents, other ancestry
or species”.

11. •All organisms possess a life cycle,
which includes growth, development,
reproduction and decline.
•Though there is essential unity in life,
the ways by which each organism
exercises its capacities are different.
•These individual qualities of organisms
and their basic properties are
transmitted by means of heredity.

12. Mechanism of Heredity
•The life cycle of an individual begins
with the fusion of a sperm and ovum.
•The origin of every human life can be
traced to a single cell called zygote.
•When a sperm unites with an ovum,
zygote is produced.
•The genes, which are the carriers of
distinctive traits are present both in
the sperm and the ovum.

13. •In the fertilized ovum, there are 23
pairs of chromosomes, half of which
are given by the father and the other
half by the mother.
•While females have 23 pairs of XX
chromosomes, males have 22 pairs of
XX chromosomes plus two single
chromosomes represented by X and
Y.
•The X and Y are called as sex
chromosomes.

14. Characteristics influenced
significantly by genetic factors
Physical
characteristics
Intellectual
characteristics
Emotional
characteristics and
disorders
Height Memory Shyness
Weight Intelligence Extraversion
Obesity
Age of language
acquisition
Emotionality
Tone of voice Reading disability Neuroticism
Blood pressure Mental retardation Schizophrenia
Tooth decay Anxiety
Athletic ability
Firmness of
handshake
Activity level
Age of death

15. Environment
Environment covers the social, moral,
economical, political, physical and
intellectual factors, which influence
the development of the individual
from time to time.

16. Definition
1. The environment is everything that
affects the individual except his genes.
-Boring, Langfieldand Weld
2. Environment covers all the outside
factors that have acted on the
individual, since he began life.
-Woodworth

17. Types of
Environment
Intercellular
Intrauterine
External
Physical
Biological
Psychosocial

18. Interaction between
Heredity & Environment
•Influence of heredity and environment
differs from one individual to another and
from one human trait or condition to
another.
•Heredity supplies the potential talent,
while favourable environment brings it out.
•Heredity lays down the essential
foundations, while environment can change
these foundations for better or worse

19. •Heredity provides the raw material
from which a person is made. How
the material is moulded, and what
he becomes depends chiefly on the
environment.
•Our inheritance prescribes the
limits, beyond which it may not be
possible for any individual to
develop, however wholesome and
stimulating the environment may
be.

20. BRAIN AND
BEHAVIOUR:
NERVOUS
SYSTEM,
NEURONS AND
SYNAPSE

21. •How we will behave in a particular
situation depends upon the judgment of
our brain.
•The sense impressions, which are
received through the sense organs, do
not bear any significance unless they are
given a meaning by the nervous system.
•Learning also to a great extent is
controlled by the nervous system.
•The proper growth and development of
nerve tissues and nervous system as a
whole helps in the task of proper
intellectual development.

22. •Any defect in the spinal cord or the brain
seriously affects the intellectual growth.
•The emotional behaviour is also influenced
by the nervous system, especially at the
time of anger, fear and other emotional
changes.
•The process of growth and development is
also directly and indirectly controlled by
the functioning of the nervous system.
•The personality of an individual is greatly
influenced through the mechanism of the
nervous system.

23. •Human behaviour involves the body-mind
interaction of the various bodily factors. The
most important are:
1. The sense organs, called receptors.
2. The muscles and endocrine glands, called
effectors.
3. The nervous system known as the
connecting or integrating mechanism

24. Psychology of
Sensation

25. Receptors (Psychology of
Sensation)
•Behaviour in all its forms and shapes has
definitely a biological or physiological base.
•The behaviour is based on the various stimuli
present in the external environment and
lying within our body.
•The stimuli in the form of various sensory
experiences are received by our sensory
systems known as receptors.

26. External Receptors
•External receptors are those sensory
mechanisms that help us make
contact with the outer world, for
example, eyes, ears, nose, tongue and
skin.
•The specific receptor cells for receiving
the external stimuli lie within these
sensory systems.

27. •Sense organs:

28. Internal Receptors

29. Sensation

30. Nursing Implication for
sensory process
Light Noise
Loss of
skin
sensation
Ventilation
Taste

31. Muscular &
Glandular
controls of
Behaviour

32. Effectors

33. •Effectors are termed as the organs of
responses.
•What is received through the sensory
organs in the form of sensory input is
responded through bodily reactions and
motor activities carried out through
muscles and glands, particularly the
hormones secreted by the ductless
glands, which are responsible for most of
our behaviour patterns.
•The under activity or over activity of
these glands, causes deficiency or excess
of hormonal secretion. This affects the
entire personality makeup of the
individual

34. Muscles

35. Glands

36. Connectors
•Connectors or adjusters help in
regulating, controlling or coordinating
the activities of receptors and effectors.
•The ability to play a piano, drive a car or
hit a tennis ball depends on muscle
coordination.
•It is necessary for the body to provide
messages to the muscles to coordinate.
These messages are passed through
specialized cells called „neurons‟

37. Neuron

38. •A nerve cell with all its branches is called a
neuron. These are the basic elements of the
nervous system.
•A neuron has a nucleus, a cell body and a
cell membrane to enclose the whole cell.
There are tiny fibers extending out from
the cell body called „dendrites‟.
•Their role is to receive messages through
electrical impulses from the sense organs
or adjacent neurons and carry them to
the cell body.

39. •The messages from the cell body further
travel the length of a nerve fiberknown
as the axon.
•A group of axons, bundled together like
parallel wires in an electrical cable, is
referred to as a nerve.
•The axon (but certainly not all of them)
is surrounded by a fatty covering called
the „myelin sheath‟. It serves to increase
the velocity, with which the electrical
impulses travel through the axons.

42. Neural impulses
Neurons are the
receivers and
transmitters of
messages. These
messages are
always in the
form of
electrochemical
impulses.

43. •There is a fluid-filled space called
the synapse between the axon of
the neuron and the receiving
dendrite of the next neuron.
•Enlargements of the axon endings
of transmitting neurons called
boutons, contain
neurotransmitter chemicals,
which are stored in small vesicles.

44. •A nerve impulse reaching these
boutons causes a neurotransmitter to
be released into the synapse. With the
help of the release of a
neurotransmitter into the synapse,
one neuron is capable of sending its
message on to many other neurons.
•It makes it possible for a single neuron
to receive messages from thousands of
other neurons.

45. Synapse
•Information is
transmitted through
the body from one
neuron to another. The
junction between two
neurons is called a
synapse.
•The small space
between the axon
terminals of one
neuron and the cell
body or dendrites of
another is called the
synaptic cleft.

46. •Neurons conducting impulses toward
the synapse are called presynaptic
neurons and those conducting
impulses away are called
postsynaptic neurons.
•A chemical, called a
neurotransmitter is stored in the
axon terminals of the presynaptic
neuron. An electrical impulse
through the neuron causes the
release of this neurotransmitter into
the synaptic cleft.

47. •The neurotransmitter then diffuses across
the synaptic cleft and combines with
receptor sites that are situated on the cell
membrane of the postsynaptic neuron.
•The cell body or dendrite of the
postsynaptic neuron also contains a
chemical inactivator that is specific to the
neurotransmitter that has been released
by the presynaptic neuron.
•When the synaptic transmission is
complete, the chemical inactivation quickly
inactivates the neurotransmitter to
prevent unwanted continuous impulses

48. Neurotransmitters
•Neurotransmitters play an essential function
in the role of human emotion and behaviour.
These are chemicals that convey information
across synaptic cleft to neighbouring target
cells.
•They are stored in small vesicles in the axon
terminals of neurons.
•When electrical impulse reaches this point,
the neurotransmitters are released from the
vesicles.

49. •They cross the synaptic cleft and bind
with receptor sites on the cell body of
dendrites of the adjacent neuron to
allow the impulse to continue its
course or to prevent the impulse from
continuing.
•After the neurotransmitter has
performed its function in the synapse,
it either returns to the vesicles to be
stored and used again or it is
inactivated and dissolved by enzymes.

50. •The process of being stored
for reuse is called reuptake.
•Deficiency or an excess of a
neurotransmitter can
produce severe behavioural
disorders.

51. NEUROTRANSMITTER FUNCTION
Acetylecholine Regulatemuscle movement &
cognitive functioning
Glutamate Helps in memory process
GABA Moderates eating, aggression &
sleeping
Dopamine Regulates movements and co-
ordination,emotions, voluntary
decision making ability.
Serotonin Regulates sleep, eating, mood &
pain
Endorphins Regulates pain & pleasurable
feelings

53. Nervous System
•The nervous system is the master
controlling, communicating and
regulatory system in the body.
•Nervous system controls and coordinates
all essential functions of the human body.
•It is the centre of all mental activity
including thought, learning and memory.
Together with the endocrine system, the
nervous system is responsible for
regulating and maintaining homeostasis.

55. Central Nervous System
•Central nervous system (CNS) consists of
brain and the spinal cord, which act as the
integrating and command centres of the
nervous system.
•They interpret incoming sensory information
and issue instructions based on past
experience and current conditions.
•Brain is composed of three main divisions:
the forebrain, midbrain and hindbrain.

58. Forebrain
•Its important structures are thalamus,
hypothalamus, limbic system and the
cerebrum.
•All sensory impulses pass through
fromthalamusto the higher centers,
therefore it is usually known as the relay
station.
•In addition, the thalamus has some control
over the autonomic nervous system and also
plays a role in the control of sleep and
alertness

59. •Hypothalamuslies below the
thalamus.
•It exerts a key influence on all kind of
emotional as well as motivational
behavior.
•Centers in the hypothalamus have
control over the important body
processes like eating, drinking,
sleeping, temperature control and
sex.
•It also has control over the activities
of pituitary gland.

60. •Limbic systemconsists of structures in
the thalamus, hypothalamus and
cerebrum, which form a ring around the
lower part of the forebrain.
•Major structures within this system
include the olfactory bulb, septal nuclei,
hippocampus, amygdala and cingulate
gyrus of the cerebral cortex.
•The limbic system often called the
emotional brain, functions in emotional
aspects of behaviour related to survival,
memory, smell, pleasure and pain, rage
and aggression, affection, sexual desire
etc.

61. •Cerebrumis the most complex and
largest part of the brain.
•The cerebrum is covered by a thick
layer oftightly packed neurons called
the cerebral cortex.
•It is divided into two hemispheres; the
left and right hemispheres.

62. Right and Left
Hemispheres,
Association
Cortex

63. •Right and Left Hemispheres,
Association Cortex
•Cerebral cortex is responsible for many
higher order functions like language
and information processing.
•The cerebral cortex is divided into
sensory, motor and association areas

65. •Sensory area receives sensory input.
•Motor area controls movement of muscles.
•Association area is involved with more
complex functions such as writing.
•Each cerebral hemisphere is divided into four
lobes; frontal, parietal, occipital and
temporal lobes. The different parts of the
cerebrum are connected with different
mental functions.

66. •Association Cortex
•Association cortex deals with more
complex, integrative functions such as
memory, emotions, reasoning, will,
judgment, personality traits and
intelligence. The association areas are:
•Somatosensory association areas: It permits
to determine the exact shape and texture
of an object without looking at it.
•Visual association areas: It relates present
to past, visual experiences with recognition
and evaluation of what is seen.
•Auditory association areas: It determines if
a sound is a speech, music or noise.

67. Right or Left
Brain
exercise

68. Try this!!!!
Read aloud, as quickly aspossible,
the colour in which the words are written
but not the actualwords.
GREEN YELLOW BLUEORANGE
WHITEREDGREENBLUEORANGE
YELLOW WHITEGREENREDBLUE
WHITEGREENORANGE YELLOW
ORANGEBLUEGREENREDWHITE
YELLOW RED BLUE YELLOW
ORANGEREDWHITEBROWNWHITE

69. Midbrain
•Midbrain is concerned with the relaying of
messages particularly those related to
hearing and sight to higher brain centres.
One of its important structures is known as
reticular activating system (RAS).
•With the help of this structure an individual
is able to decide as to which impulses should
be registered consciously and, which should
be rejected.

70. Hindbrain
•Hindbrain is
composed of
three
structures the
medulla, pons
and
cerebellum.

71. •„Medulla‟ controls breathing and many
important reflexes, such as those that
help us to maintain our upright
postures.
•It also regulates the highly complex
processes like digestion, respiration
and circulation.

72. •The „pons‟assist in breathing,
transmitting impulses from the
cerebellum to the higher brain regions
and in coordinating the activities of
both sides of the brain.
•„Cerebellum‟ is responsible for body
balance and the coordination of body
movements like dancing, typing,
playing, etc.

73. Spinal Cord
•Spinal cord works as a
channel of communication
from and to the brain.
•It is a rope-like structure,
made up of long round nerve
fibers.
•It also works as an organ for
effective reflex actions like
withdrawal of the hand when
something is hot.
•These reflex actions are
almost automatic in nature.

74. Peripheral Nervous System
•Nerve tissues lying
outside the bony
case of the CNS
come in the region
of the peripheral
nervous system.

75. •It consists of a network of nerves,
which helps in passing the sense
impressions to the CNS as well as in
conveying the orders of the CNS to
the muscles.
•This peripheral nervous system is
subdivided into two parts, the somatic
system and the autonomic system.

76. •The somatic system is both a sensory
and a motor system.
•The autonomic system is only a motor
system consisting of two divisions, the
sympathetic and parasympathetic
system.
•The sympathetic system is connected to
the spinal cord and carries messages to
the muscles and glands particularly in
stress situations to prepare for an
emergency.

77. •The parasympathetic system is connected to
the brain and to the lower portion of the
spinal cord. It tends to be active when we are
calm and relaxed.
•The messages conveyed by the nerve fibres of
this system direct the organs to do just the
opposite of what the sympathetic system had
done.
•It directs the body organs to return to the
normal state after the emergency has passed.
•The sympathetic and parasympathetic
divisions of the autonomic nervous system
work in close co-ordination for maintaining
the equilibrium of the body function.

78. Nature of
Behaviour of an
Organism,
Integrated
Responses

80. Sensory
•Millions of sensory receptors detect changes,
called stimuli, which occur inside and outside
the body.
•They monitor such things as temperature,
light and sound from the external
environment.
•Inside the body, the internal environment,
receptors detect variations in pressure, pH,
carbon dioxide concentration and the levels
of various electrolytes.
•All of this gathered information is called
sensory input.

81. Integrative
•Sensory input is converted into
electrical signals called nerve impulses
that are transmitted to the brain.
•There the signals are brought together
to create sensations, to produce
thoughts or to add to memory.
•Decisions are made each moment
based on sensory input. This is
integration

82. Motor
•Based on the sensory input and
integration the nervous system responds
by sending signals to muscles, causing
them to contract or to glands causing
them to produce secretions.
•Muscles and glands are called effectors,
because they cause an effect in response
to detections from the nervous system.
This is the motor output or motor
function.

83. •The cerebral cortex has primary
areas, which control the incoming
sensory stimuli and the outgoing
motor responses.
•An individual is able to adjust
himself effectively to the
environment, because the various
nerve impulses are systematically
integrated by the brain.

84. •There are millions of nerve fibers, which
connect the various neurons of the brain.
The connecting nerve fibers are known as
„associate fibers‟.
•The associate fibers are the foundations
of memory, language, reasoning and
other higher mental processes.
•There is great coordination between the
various parts of the brain.

85. •Autonomic nervous system is autonomous
and works independent of voluntary control.
•It is made up of nerves connecting with the
glands and smooth muscles, which are
involved in respiration, circulation and
digestion.
•These processes go on automatically without
our knowledge.
•The system operates actively during
emotional states. When we are well, physical
and mental activities are integrated

89. Importance of knowledge of the
Nervous System and Glands to a
Nurse
•To understand the physiological basis of
patient behaviour.
•To understand how glandular secretions
influence personality.
•To understand the various diseases of
nervous system and glands and their effect
on human behaviour.