PSYCO275 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Epigenetics, Chromosome, Drosophila Melanogaster

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYCO275
• Professor: Kyle Mathewson

Document Summary

Animals have excitable tissue, muscles and neurons. Niche determines complexity of the nervous system. Cerebellum = fine, detailed types of behaviours. If you are missing a cerebellum, you will over compensate movements, and will be unable to make fine movements. You can control for body size by normalizing the brain size to the average brain size of the species. Fruit eaters have larger brains, and foragers tend to be more social, as they need to forage in groups so that they can warn each other about predators and other dangers. Primates have a very durable skull, and the jaw is different. As you change your diet, perhaps the skull changes as well. If an animal"s diet requires them to eat harder foods, then the jaw will adapt and evolve in order to satisfy the animal"s needs over a period of time. Cerebrovascular network facilitated the cooling of the brain.