PSYCH 3312 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Selective Breeding, Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, Methyl Group
17 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Effects of sex hormones on the brain and behavior. Cognitive ability can be selectively bred in rats. Rats would learn a maze, the ones who did it quickly were bred together. The other rats weren"t so great at the task, and those were bred together. The task is usually too complicated to boil down to just one gene. There must be multiple genes responsible for skills. Val allele produces more effective version of bdnf protein than met allele. His allele constructs more efficient serotonin receptors than tyr allele. Genes must be activated or expressed" to take effect. Epigenetics: modifies gene activation w/o modifying the genes themselves. Methylation: a methyl group of atoms attaches to a gene to (usually) inhibit its activity. Stress may induce bdnf activation (and reduce ltp) Epigenetic changes can be passed from parent to child. Hebb"s home rats (which his kids would play with) outperformed lab rats.
