The Brain
Uploaded by WeDie2012 on Mar 23, 2012
Research Essay: The Brain
In the 1800s through the 1900s the central theory is that the unconscious mind drives much of human behaviour even though civilised society stresses the importance of overriding primitive impulses with morality and reason. Yet this constant tension between a person’s repressed drives and his expected social actions often causes psychological distress. Freud suggests that one of the ways this tension is resolved is through the fantasy world of dreams. An important distinction between the manifest and latent content of dreams. In his view, the manifest content is the remembered elements of the dream or its apparent narrative. The latent content is the underlying thoughts and wishes the dream represents. Freud argues that this latent content of dreams is based on fantasies related to the emotional experiences of childhood. Through psychoanalysis or “dreamwork,” patients are able to uncover the unconscious wishes or motives that lie behind a particular dream and so gain a greater understanding of themselves. In 1929 Hans Berger develops the first electroencephalograph, an instrument for recording the electrical activity in the brain. Commonly known as the EEG or brainwave test, Berger’s invention is now routinely used as a diagnostic test in neurology, psychiatry and brain research.
Present studies agree that the brain is highly specific and divided. Some areas handle speech, others visual, others touch, and much more. Most of the brain works automatically outside of the ability of the individual to control the process of cognition. Research has shown that the brain has grown larger from the tiny reptile brain by overlaying each previous brain set with a new brain capable of new abilities. This is done much like building a house. You may start out with a one room house. As you add on, the one room is not stretched and made larger, more rooms are added and each new room has a specific function such as kitchen, bedroom, playroom, den, etc. Scientists have identified eight such layers, each containing specific capabilities and characteristics. The capability of each brain segment has been mapped and identified. In the present neurobiologists are working on how perception, cognition, and memory are coded and stored within the brain. Recent studies are based on simultaneous monitoring of the activity of hundreds of associated, localized neurons. The functional properties of these groups of neurons have been identified. These studies seem to indicate the theory of distributed coding is the...