PSYB30H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Neuroglia, Neocortex, Voltmeter
Document Summary
4-1 searching for electrical activity in the nervous system. Early clues that linked electricity and neural activity. 18th-century amateur english scientist stephen gray speculated that electricity might be the messenger that spreads information through the nervous system by conducting the experiment of rod-cloth-foil-boy electricity transfer. (electrical stimulation & electrical recording studies proved that as well) Luigi galvani, a contemporary of gray surmised that sparks of electricity form the storm were activating the muscles by observing the frog"s leg twitched during a lightning storm. Electrical stimulation: passing an electrical current from the uninsulated tip of an electrode onto a nerve produces behavior- a muscular contraction. Richard caton, a scottish physician, was the first to measure the electrical currents of the brain with a sensitive voltmeter and detect fluctuations in his recordings when placing electrodes on the skull of a human subject.
