Intro to Biopsychology

• Neuroscience studies the biological mechanisms underlying thoughts, feelings, perceptions, learning, memory, and behavior.
• Biopsychology is the scientific study of the biology of behavior
• Donald O Hebb proposed the first comprehensive theory of how complex psychological phenomena might be produced by brain activity
• Hebbian learning: "Neurons that fire together wire together"
• Karl Lashley performed lesions of different areas of rat cortex and tested learning in a maze
• Principle of Equipotentiality: All areas of cortex are equally important in learning and memory
• Principle of Mass Action: Deficit in learning is proportional to amount of tissue damage
• Three major dimensions along which biopsychological research vary:

  • Human vs. non-human subjects
  • Experiments vs. nonexperimental studies
  • Pure vs. applied research
• Advantages of human subjects:

  • Can follow instructions
  • Can report subjective experience
  • More complex experimental design
  • Less expensive and cleaner
  • Have human brains
• Advantages of nonhuman subjects:

  • Have simpler nervous systems
  • Comparative approach
  • Fewer ethical constraints
  • Allow various genetic/pharmacological manipulations
• Limitations of animal models:

  • Need to be careful with inferences drawn from behavior
  • A model is only as good as the behavior it measures
• Biopsychology: the study of the biology and behavior
• Independent Variable: difference between conditions being compared
• Dependent Variable: The effect of the independent variable
• Between subject design: A different group of of subjects under each condition
• Within subject design: a different group of subjects under each condition
• Confounded Variable: unintended difference that led to observed effects to the dependent variable
• Quasiexperimental studies: Can tell us what is related to what but does not allow us to establish cause and effect
• Case Studies: Scientific studies that focus on a single subject
• Generalizability: A limitation of case studies, it is the extent to which results can be generalized to the general population
• Pure Research: Motivates primarily by the curiosity of the researchers, for the purpose of acquiring general knowledge and basic principles
• Applied Research: aims to bring about some direct benefit to human kind
• Translational Research: Aims to translate the findings of pure research into useful applications
• Physiological Psychology: studies the neural mechanism of behavior through direct manipulation and recording of the brain in controlled experiments
• Psychopharmacology: focuses on the manipulations of neural activity and behaviors with drugs
• Neuropsychology: the study of psychological effects of brain damage in human patients.
• Psychophysiology: Studies the relation between physiological activity and psychological processes in human subjects
• cognitive neuroscience: studies the neural basis of cognition, the higher level of intellectual processes.
• Comparative Psychology: focuses on the biology of behaviors, comparing across species: evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics
• Biopsychology focuses on:

  The relation between Brain and Behavior
• Neuropsychology is mainly performed though

  Case studies and quasiexperiments