Neuroscience

• Biopsychology integrates


  Various approaches to the study of the nervous system
• Neuroscience


  The study of the nervous system
• Biopsychology


  Can be viewed as a bridge between the disciplines of psychology and neuroscience
• Advantages of non-human subjects

  • Have simpler nervous systems
  • Possible to use comparative, cross-species approach
  • Fewer ethical constraints
• The rest of the course will focus on

  How biological fundamentals are applied to the study of biopsychological phenomena
• Dimensions along which biopsychological research varies

  • Human vs. non-human subjects
  • Experimental vs. non-experimental studies
  • Applied vs. pure research
• In a well-designed experiment, the experimenter can conclude that any difference
• Types of biopsychological research

  • Experiments
  • Non-experimental studies (quasiexperimental designs and case studies)
• Until the middle of the last century, the brain was studied primarily by philosophers; since then, it has been subjected more and more to scientific study
• Biopsychologists use a variety of research approaches in their studies; to understand what biopsychology is, you must understand what they do
• Advantages of human subjects

  • Can follow instructions
  • Can report subjective experiences
  • Are often less expensive
  • Have a human brain
• The ethics of both human and animal research is carefully scrutinized by independent committees
• Biopsychologists try to discover

  How phenomena studied by other neuroscience researchers produce psychological phenomena such as perception, learning, memory, emotion, and language
• Approaches in neuroscience

  • Neuroanatomy
  • Neurophysiology
  • Neurochemistry
  • Neuroendocrinology
  • Neuropharmacology
  • Neuropathology
• The course will examine

  The fundamentals of neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and neuropharmacology
• Experiments are a method used by scientists to determine cause-and-effect relationships
• Confounded variables


  Other unintended differences among conditions that can influence the dependent variable
• These manipulations produce different treatment conditions in an experiment
• The major shortcoming of a quasi-experimental study is that although researchers can examine relations between the variables of interest, a quasi study cannot control for potential confounding variables
• Pure research


  • Motivated primarily by the curiosity of the researcher; focuses on establishing building blocks or basic concepts that may provide information salient to many problems
• Sometimes it is impossible to conduct controlled experiments; e.g., if humans subjects are involved, it may be impossible for ethical or technical reasons to assign them to particular conditions and to administer the conditions
• Experimenter: 'These manipulations produce different treatment conditions in an experiment'
• Example: researchers cannot randomly assign humans to Control and Alcohol groups, and then expose one group to 10 years of chronic alcohol exposure to see if alcohol causes brain damage; instead they must compare the brains of alcoholics and non-alcoholics found in the real world
• Biopsychologists study the biology of behavior
• Key Problem: because subjects in the real world do not assign themselves to groups randomly, there are many other differences among the groups that could contribute to differences in the dependent measures (e.g., brain damage may be due to poor diet, accidental head injury, other drug use, etc.)
• Quasi-experimental design


  1. Researchers examine subjects in real-world situations who have self-selected into specific conditions

  2. Subjects have assigned themselves to the treatment conditions
• Quasi-experimental studies do not allow a researcher to establish direct cause-and-effect relationships
• The presence of confounded variables makes experiments difficult to interpret because it is impossible to tell how much (if any) of the effect on the dependent variable was caused by the independent variable and how much (if any) was caused by the confounded variable
• Applied research


  • Motivated by an attempt to directly use the building blocks of basic research to answer specific questions; human and animal problems are specifically addressed
• Experimenter: 'In a well-designed experiment, the experimenter can conclude that any differences in the dependent variable between the various treatment conditions were caused by the independent variable'
• Dependent variables


  Reflect the subject’s behavior; this is what the experiment measures
• The strength of biopsychology as a science is attributable to its diversity
• Applied research


  Motivated by an attempt to directly use the building blocks of basic research to answer specific questions; human and animal problems are specifically addressed
• The 6 divisions of Biopsychology

  • Physiological Psychology
  • Psychopharmacology
  • Neuropsychology
  • Psychophysiology
  • Cognitive Neuroscience
  • Comparative Psychology
• Psychopharmacology


  Similar to physiological psychology but the nervous system is manipulated pharmacologically; focuses on drug effects on behavior and how these changes are mediated by changes in neural activity; many favor pure research while others study applied questions
• Psychophysiology


  Focuses on the relation between physiology and behavior by recording the physiological responses of human subjects; brain recording is noninvasive; common measures include EEG, muscle tension, eye movement, heart rate, pupil dilation, and skin conductance
• Comparative Psychology


  Study of evolutionary and genetic factors in behavior; features comparative and functional approaches; includes laboratory research and studies of animals in their natural environments (ethology)
• Cognitive Neuroscience


  Focuses on the neural bases of cognitive processes like learning and memory, attention, and complex perceptual processes; employs human subjects and uses noninvasive, functional brain imaging techniques; involves collaborations between researchers with different backgrounds
• Physiological Psychology


  Focuses on the direct manipulation of the nervous system in controlled laboratory settings (e.g., lesions, electrical stimulation, invasive recording); strong focus on pure research
• Biopsychologists study the biology of behavior in a variety of ways