Unit 1: Biopsychology

What is Biopsychology? An Overview

  • Relationship between brain and behaviour

    • I.e. scientific study of the biology of behavior

  • Catalyzed by Donald Hebb work “The Organization of Behaviour (1949)

    • Established biopsycholpgy as major branch of neuroscience

  • Integrates multiple scientific approaches to investigating psychological phenomena

  • Young science

  • Biopsychologists collaborate across these core areas of neuroscience:

    • Neuroanatomy: structure and organization of the nervous system

    • Neurochemistry: chemical processes and neurotransmitters in the brain

    • Neuroendocrinology: interactions between the nervous system and hormonal systems

    • Neuropathology: disorders and diseases of the nervous system

    • Neuropharmacology: effects of drugs on neural activity and behaviour

    • Neurophysiology: electrical and functional properties of neurons and neural circuits

Video

Brief history of behavioural neuroscience:

  • Ancient Greece: Hippocrates believe that brain controlled human thought

  • 1662: Rene Descartes invented model to describe how brain controls behaviour

    • Soul controlled body through pineal gland

  • 19th century: Paul Broca and Carl Wernicke discovered areas of brain responsible for language (Broca and Wernicke areas)

  • 1890: William James declared psychology should be studied via biology

  • 1930: Skinner box invention (punishment and reward)

  • 1990: invention of neuroimaging

Methods to answer biopsychological questions

  • Behavioural experiments in animals

  • Specialized equipment

    • Ex. Rotarod

  • Operant conditioning

  • Electroencephalography (EEG)

  • Functional Magnetic Resonance imaging (fMRI)

What Types of Research Characterize the Biopsychological Approach?

  • Spans wide range of approaches, cateogrized along 3 dimensions

Human vs Nonhuman subjects

  • People models

    • Advantages of humans

      • Follow directions

      • Report subjective experience

      • Less expensive

      • Human brain

  • Animal models

    • Can allow for testing safety and whether treatment works in animals before testing on humans

    • Allows for understanding complexity of the brain and how neurons talk to each other

    • Advantages of nonhuman subjects

      • Simpler nervous systems

      • Comparative approach

      • Fewer ethical constraints

Experimental vs Nonexperimental Designs

  • Experimental: Controlled experiments to test specific hypotheses

    • Can establish cause and effect relationships

      • Between-subjects design

      • Within-subjects design

      • Independent variables

      • Dependent variables

      • Confounding variables

  • Nonexperimental: observational/correlational methods ****

    • Quasiexperimental studies:

      • Used when controlled experiments are impossible

      • Self-selected subjects

      • Can’t control confounds

    • Case studies:

      • Used when conditions are rare

      • Single-subject design

      • Questionable generalizability

Applied vs Pure Research

  • Applied research

    • Solves practical problems

    • Pure research into application

  • Pure:

    • Expand fundamental knowledge without immediate application

    • Curiosity of researcher

What Are the Divisions of Biopsychology?

  • 6 distinct subdisciplines

Physiological Psychology

  • Investigates brain function through direct manipulation of nervous system

    • Primarily uses animal subjects in controlled lab settings

    • Emphasizes pure research uncover fundamental neural mechanisms

Psychopharmacology

  • How drugs affect behaviour and neural activity

  • Combines pure and applied research

Neuropsychology

  • Examines behavioural effects of brain damage in human patients

  • Relies on case studies and quasiexperimental designs

  • Applied research

Psychophysiology

  • Link between physiological responses and psychological processess in human subjects

    • Uses non-invasive techniques and surface-level recordings to understand emotional and cognitive states

    • Ex. eye movement, muscle tension

Cognitive Neuroscience

  • Youngest division of biopsychology

  • Investigate neural basis of cognition

    • Learning

    • Memory

    • Attention

    • Perceptual processes

  • Noninvasive functional brain imaging

  • Interdisciplinary collaboration across psychology, neuroscience and computer science

Comparative Psychology

  • Evolution and genetics of behaviour across species

    • Uses lab experiments and naturalistic observations

    • Comparative and functional approahces

How do Biopsychologists Conduct their Work?

Converging Operations

  • Progress is greatest when different approaches are combined, each compensating for the weaknesses of the others

Scientific Inference

  • Observing consequences of unobservable processes and drawing conclusions about their nature

    • Since most of psychology and brain activities cannot be seen directly

Thinking Critically About Biopsychology Claims

  • Studying mistakes helps biopsychologists avoid similar errors and encourages critical thinking

    • Identifies weaknesses in arguments

  • Ex. Prefrontal lobotomy surgery

    • Moniz & Lima, Chimpanzees,

    • Led to significant apathy, loss of emotional expressions, etc.

    • Fell out of favor, not due to recognition of harmful effects, but because antipsychotic medications emerged as more effective


Chapter 1 Reading Notes

  • Neurons: cells that receive and transmit electrochemical signals

  • Neuroscience: scientific study of nervous system

4 perspectives

Thinking Creatively About Biopsychology

  • Best research is that that involves thinking creatively and outside the box to overcome restrictive effects of conventional thinking

Clinical Implications

  • 2 aspects:

    • Learning about functioning of healthy brain from studying dysfunctional brain

    • Applying learning to treatment methods for brain dysfunction

Evolutionary Perspective

  • Considering environmental pressures that led to evolution of our brains and behaviour

  • Much of biopsychology is learned through studying species related to us through evolution

Neuroplasticity

  • Recent research demonstrates how adult brain is changeable orgn that continues to grow and change in response to environment and experiences

  • Can be both positive and negative

Core Themes of Text

Epigenetics

  • Interaction between genes and your experiences

Consciousness

  • Perception/awareness of some aspect of one’s self or the world

What is Biopsychology?

  • Scientific study of biology of behaviour

    • Biological perspective on psychology

Origins of Biopsychology

  • Donald Hebb, 1949, Organization of Behaviour

    • First theory about how psychological phenomena (perception, emotions, thoughts, memories) might be produced by brain activity

  • Very new, growing field

How is Biopsychology Related to Other Disciplines of Neuroscience?

  • Draw together knowledge from other neuroscientific disciplines and apply it to study of behaviour

    • Neuroanatomy: Study of structure of nervous system

    • Neurochemistry: Study of chemical bases of neural activity

    • Neuroendocrinology: study of interactions between nervous system and endocrine system

    • Neuropathology: study of nervous system dysfunction

    • Neurophysiology: study of functions and activities of nervous system

What Types of Research Characterize the Biopsychological Approach?

  • 3 types of research:

    • Human/nonhuman

    • Formal/nonexperimental

    • Pure/applied

Human and Nonhuman subjects

  • Advantages of human subjects

    • Follow instructions and report subjective experience

    • Cheap

    • Help understand intricacies of human brain

However, human subjects must volunteer, nonanimal don’t

  • Advantages of nonhuman subjects

    • Brains and behaviour is simpler and more likely to reveal fundamental brain-behaviour interactions

    • Can use comparative approach of comparing different species (ex. species w cerebral cortex vs without)

    • Able to conduct ethical experiments that wouldn’t be ethical on humans

  • Importance of nonhuman animal ethics committee when committing experiments on nonhuman subjects

  • Emphasize 3 R’s:

    • Reduction

      • Efforts to reduce number of animals used in research

    • Refinement

      • Refining research studies to reduce suffering and in ways that animals are cared for

    • Replacement

      • Replacing studies using animal subjects with alternate techniques (ex. computer models)

Experiment and Nonexperiments

Experiment

  • Study causation

  • Between-subjects design (more common)

    • Different group of subjects tested under each condition

  • Within-subjects design

    • Same group of subjects tested under each condition

  • Independent variable

    • Difference between conditions

  • Dependent variable

    • Variable measured to assess effect of independent variable

  • Confounded variable

    • Unintended difference not caused by independent variable

Quasiexperimental studies

  • Studies of groups of subjects who have been exposed to conditions of interest in the real world

  • No true experiment (potential confounded variable) but suggest correlations

Case studies

  • Studies that focus on a single subject

  • Provide in-depth picture

  • Poor generalizability (application to toher cases)

Pure and Applied Research

  • Pure research: motivated by curiosity of researcher

    • Done for the sole purpose of acquiring knowledge

      • Leads to translational research: translate findings of pure research into useful applications

    • Often harder to fund

  • Applied research: intended to bring about direct benefit to humankind

What are Divisions of Biopsychology?

Physiological psychology

  • Studies neural mechanisms of behaviour through direct manipulation and recording of brain in controlled experiments

    • Surgical and electrical methods are most common

    • Nonhuman experiments

    • Pue research

Psychopharmacology

  • Focus on manipulation of neural activity and behaviour with drugs

  • Similar to physiological psychology

Neuropsychology

  • Study of psychological effects of brain dysfunction in human patients

  • Case studies and wuasiexperimental studies

  • Most applied biopsychological subdiscipline

Psychophysiology

  • Studies relation between physiological activity and psychological processess in human

  • Uses EEG (electroencephalogram), muscle tension, eye movement, indicators of autonomic nervous system activity (ex. heart rate)

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

Cognitive neuroscience

  • Youngest division of biopsychology

  • Study neural bases of cognition

    • I.e. thought, memory, attention, etc.

  • Uses human participants (noninvasive manipulation)

  • Uses functional brain imaging

    • Recording images of activity of living human brain

  • Involves interdisciplinary collaboration

Comparative psychology

  • Focus on behaviour of animals in natural environment

  • Compare behaviour of different species in order to understand evolution, genetics and adaptiveness of behaviour

  • Ethological research: study of behaviour in animal’s natural environment

How Do Biopsychologists Conduct Their Work?

Converging Operations: How do Biopsychologists Work Together?

  • Converging operations:

    • Different approaches are focused on single problem

      • Strengths of one approach compensate for weakness of the other

Scientific Inference: How Do Biopsychologists Study the Unobservable Workings of the Brain?

  • Many processes of brain cannot be directly observed (only can observe its impacts) → thus displays importance of inference

Thinking Critically about Biopsychological Claims

  • First step in creative thinking is critical thinking

    • Spotting weaknesses of existing ideas

  • First step

    • Published in reputable scientific journal?

    • Morgan’s Cannon: when there are many intepretations, give precedence to simplest one