Chapter 1: Biopsych as a neuroscience

• human brain

  • squishy, wrinkled, walnut-shaped hunk of tissue
  • 1.3 kg
  • an intricate network of neurons and other cell types
• neurons


  cells that receive and transmit electrochemical signals
• neuroscience


  • the scientific study of the nervous system
  • Does the brain have the capacity to understand something as complex as itself?
• Jimmie G.


  • the man frozen in time
  • could not remember anything that had happened to him since his early 20s
  • unable to form new lasting memories
• clinical implications of biopsych

  (1) much of what biopsychologists learn about the functioning of a healthy brain comes from studying dysfunctional brains

  (2) many of the discoveries of biopsychologists have relevance for the treatment of brain dysfunction
• evolutionary perspective

  • environmental pressures that likely led to the evolution of our brains and behavior often leads to important biopsychological insight
  • important component is comparative approach (trying to understand biological phenomena by comparing then in different species)
• neuroplasticity 


  • the brain is a plastic (changeable) organ that continuously grows and changes in response to an individual's environment and experiences
  • upheld as a panacea - a means of improving brain function or recovering from brain dysfunction
  • not always beneficial
• epigenetics


  suggests that we are the product of ongoing interactions between genes and experiences
• consciousness


  the perception or awareness of some aspect of one's self or the world
• Biopsychology


  • scientific study of the biology of behavior
  • psychobiology, behavioral biology, or behavioral neuroscience
  • bio first before psych - bc it denotes a bio approach to psych
• The Organization of Behavior (1949) by Donald Hebb


  • played a key role in the emergence of biopsych
  • developed the first comprehensive theory of how complex psych phenomena (i.e., perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and memories) might be produced by brain activity
  • based his theory on experiments involving both human and nonhuman animals, on clinical case studies, and on logical arguments developed from his own insightful observations of daily life
• Biopsychologists


  are neuroscientists who bring to their research a knowledge of behavior and of the methods of behavioral research.
• Neuroanatomy


  The study of the structure of the nervous system
• Neurochemistry


  The study of the chemical bases of neural activity
• Neuroendocrinology


  The study of interactions between the nervous system and the endocrine system
• Neuropathology


  The study of nervous system dysfunction
• Neuropharmacology


  The study of the effects of drugs on neural activity
• Neurophysiology


  The study of the functions and activities of the nervous system
• Human and Nonhuman subjects in bio psych exp

  • nonhumans - mice, rats, cats, dogs
  • adv: brains and behavior are simpler = fundamental brain-behavior interactions
  • insights frequently arise from the comparative approach
  • able to conduct research on lab animals; fewer ethical constraints
  • humans
  • have adv over animals: can follow instructions, can report their subjective exp, and inexpensive
  • have human brains
  • are dif from other mammals as it differs in size and extent of cortical development
  • volunteer to be subjects (participants or volunteers)
• nonhuman animal ethics committees

  • panel of individuals that approves the use of nonhumans for experimentation
  • emphasize consideration of 3Rs: Reduction, Refinement, and Replacement
  • Reduction - reduce the numbers of animals used in research
  • Refinement - refining research studies or the way animals are cared for to reduce suffering
  • Replacement - replacing studies using animal subjects with alternate techniques
• Experiments and nonexperiments

  • nonexperiments
  • quasiexperimental studies and case studies
  • experiments
  • study causation
  • between-subjects design vs within-subjects design
  • IV and DV
  • confounding variable
  • Lester and Gorzalka (1988) exp illustrates the prevention of confound variables with good experimental design
  • demonstrated the Coolidge effect
• Coolidge effect


  the fact that a copulating male who becomes incapable of continuing to copulate with one sex partner can often recommence copulating with a new sex partner
• Lester and Gorzalka (1988); Coolidge effect


  • has not been demonstrated in females bc it is more difficult to conduct such exp with them
  • mammalian males become sexually fatigued more readily than females
  • DV - amount of time that the female displayed lordosis (the arched-back, rump-up, tail-diverted posture of female rodent sexual receptivity) during sex test
• Quasiexperimental studies


  • studies of groups of subjects who have been exposed to the conditions of interest in the real world
  • have the appearance of experiments but are not true experiments because confounding variables are not controlled
  • Diff with exp - experiments can tell us whether an IV causes a change in the DV
  • Quasiexp can tell us only that two variables are correlated with one another
• Case studies

  • focus on a single or a few subject(s)
  • provide in-depth info
  • problem with generalizability
• Pure and Applied Research

  • biopsych can be pure or applied
  • Pure R.
  • motivated by curiosity of researcher
  • often becomes the topic of translational research (research that aims to translate the findings of pure research into useful applications for humankind)
  • more vulnerable to vagaries of political regulation
  • Applied R.
  • intended to bring some direct benefit to humankind
  • it is not necessary for a study to be completely pure or applied
• Divisions of BioPsych

  • physiological psych
  • psychopharmacology
  • neuropsychology
  • psychophysiology
  • cognitive neuroscience
  • comparative psychology
• Physiological Psych


  • studies the neural mechanisms of behavior through the direct manipulation and recording of the brain in controlled experiments—surgical and electrical methods are the most common
  • subjects - lab animals bc the focus on direct brain manipulation and controlled experiments precludes the use of human participants
• Psychopharmacology


  • focuses on the manipulation of neural activity and behavior with drugs
  • purpose is to develop therapeutic drugs or to reduce drug abuse
  • study the effect of drugs on laboratory species
• Neuropsychology


  • study of the psychological effects of brain dysfunction in human patients
  • case studies and quasiexperimental studies of patients with brain dysfunction resulting from disease, accident, or neurosurgery
  • cerebral cortex - outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres; more likely to be damaged by accident or surgecy
  • most applied field of biopsych
  • case study of Mr. R
• Mr. R


  • student with a brain injury who switch to architecture
  • grades declined following an accident
  • one of roughly one-third of left-handers whose language functions are represented in the right hemisphere of their brain, rather than in their left hemisphere
  • verbal memory and reading speed were below average
  • may have suffered from damage to his right temporal lobe during the car accident, which explains his diminished language skills
• Psychophysiology


  • division of biopsychology that studies the relation between physiological activity and psychological processes in humans
  • noninvasive procedures -- physiological activity is recorded from the surface of the body
  • electroencephalogram (EEG), muscle tension, eye movement, and other autonomic nervous system activity (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, pupil dilation, and electrical conductance of the skin, blood pressure, galvanic skin response (gsr))
• autonomic nervous system (ANS)


  division of the nervous system that regulates the body’s inner environment
• Cognitive Neuroscience


  • youngest division of biopsychology
  • study the neural bases of cognition
  • involves human participants, noninvasive
  • major method: functional brain imaging (fMRI)- recording images of the activity of the living human brain while a participant is engaged in a particular mental activity
  • sometimes involves noninvasive electrophysiological recording and sometimes focuses on patients with brain dysfunction
  • cognitive psych contains a lot of cog neurosci
  • higher intellectual processes (e.g.,thought, memory, attention, and complex perceptual processes)
• Comparative Psychology


  • focuses on the behavior of animals in their natural environments
  • compare the behavior of different species in order to understand the evolution, genetics, and adaptiveness of behavior
  • study behavior in the lab; or engage in ethnological research (study of behavior in an animal's natural environment)
  • to some degree the laws of behavior are the same for all species and that therefore knowledge gained by studying rats, dogs, cats, and other animals can be generalized to humans
  • behavior, cognition, perception, and social relationships of diverse species
• Converging operations


  • the use of several methods to solve a single problem so that the strengths of one method balance out the weaknesses of the others
• Korsakoff’s syndrome


  • Jimmie G.
  • first described in the late 19th century by Sergei Korsakoff, a Russian physician
  • primary symptom: severe memory loss
  • commonly occurs in heavy drinkers of alcohol
  • largely caused by the brain damage associated with thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency
• scientific interference


  The empirical method that biopsychologists and other scientists use to study the unobservable
• Hammond, Merton, and Sutton (1956)


  • injected a paralytic (movement-inhibiting) substance into the eye muscles of their participants (Merton himself)
  • paralytic substance was the active ingredient of curare, a drug with which some Indigenous people of South America coat their blow darts
  • Merton saw the stationary visual world moving in the same direction as his attempted eye movements
  • If a visual object is focused on part of your retina, and it stays focused there despite the fact that you have moved your eyes to the right, it too must have moved to the right
• Critical thinking


  • the process by which these weaknesses are recognized
  • The identification of weaknesses in existing beliefs is one of the major stimuli for scientists to adopt creative new approaches