Behavioral neuroscience
The biopsychology and biological psychology or psychobiology ( engl. partially biopsychology, or behavioral neuroscience ) is a branch of psychology. It deals with relationships between biological ( neural, hormonal, biochemical ) processes or mechanisms in the body and behavior.
Biopsychological research examines firstly the influence of biological structures and processes - such as the brain, cardiovascular, endocrine and immune system - on behavior, emotions, dreams and thinking / cognition. On the other hand, such as mental states and processes affect biological structures and functions.
Sections of biopsychology and delimitation
We can distinguish six main areas of biopsychology.
- Physiological Psychology
Examines the neural mechanisms of behavior by manipulating the nervous system. Thus, the contribution of the hippocampus was investigated in memory performance by these surgically removed in rats and the performance of the rats was examined in a variety of memory functions. A popular experiment resulted in the Spanish neurologist José Manuel Rodriguez Delgado in the 1960s by a bull. He was targeting the caudate nucleus irritate electrically by radio so that it always did when he started to attack, stopped and instead began to turn in circles.
Sometimes the Physiological psychology but is used as a direct synonym for biopsychology. The Biological Psychology and Physiological Psychology have developed almost parallel to the other neurosciences and also partly considered as branches of neuroscience.
While the Biological Psychology explores the relationships between the biological processes in all organs of the body and the behavior, the physiological psychology deals exclusively with the interdisciplinary relationships between brain and behavior.
- Psychopharmacology
Examines the effect of pharmaceuticals and drugs on brain and behavior. For example, as by the administration of drugs that increase the availability of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, the memory can be improved by Alzheimer's patients.
- Neuropsychology
Examines psychological effects of brain damage on human patients. Because here, for ethical reasons, no experiments are conducted, investigated one specific individual cases, such as Henry Gustav Molaison, also known as HM, who suffered from a special memory impairment or Phineas Gage the event of an accident, an iron rod through his skull flew while lesions suffered in the orbitofrontal and prefrontal cortex.
In 1934, British scientists found that blind monkey could be trained in such a way that they reacted to certain images with fear. Only recently has succeeded in a man with a rare disease, so that was detected: Despite destroyed the visual cortex is an " unconscious seeing" possible; even though the person claimed to be able to see anything, she could dodge objects while wandering around in a space ( see cortical blindness ).
Examines the relationship between physiological activity and psychological processes in humans using non-invasive psychological measurements. It was found that even in patients who reported after a brain injury to be able to perceive any more faces, familiar faces elicited the usual changes in the activity of the autonomic nervous system.
- Cognitive Neuroscience
Examines the neural mechanisms of human cognition, mainly using functional imaging techniques. Using this method changes in activity in various parts of the brain can be visualized while subjects solve eg memory tasks.
- Comparative Psychology
Examines the evolution, genetics and adaptivity of the behavior of various species. This may be close relatives of humans ( primates) or other types. So, for example, could be shown that bird species, the seeds inventories hide, have relatively large hippocampi, indicating that the hippocampus for spatial memory is important.
Historical development
The Biological Psychology began as a research discipline in German-speaking countries, but there has been almost completely destroyed in the years 1933-1945 and only was able to recover sufficiently.
Already in the founding of psychology as a science, the physiological and biological psychology played a major formative role sometimes. With the textbook Fundamentals of Physiological Psychology by Wilhelm Wundt began the science of psychology in 1874. While in the Anglo- American psychology about 20 percent of scientific papers published in the field of neuroscience of biological psychologists, this looks in the German-speaking countries, in spite of some excellent research groups, different.
While thousands of psychologists employ in the United States as part of their research with physiological or biological psychological issues, can the number of scientists who deal in the Federal Republic of Germany with the biological psychology perspective, on about 100 to 150 quantify active researchers.
Methods
Overall, biological psychology relies heavily on the use of animals, which is an indispensable core component of the field. Since the German psychology animal testing is facing a rather negative, which is one reason why the subject is limited to a few institutions in Germany.
From the perspective of cognitive neuroscience but also find all kinds of imaging methods use, in particular magnetoencephalography (MEG ), electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI ). These allow non-invasive cortical and subcortical brain insights into areas and their way of working.
In order for the Biopsychology is closely linked to the development of new research methods and technologies, such as the Trier Stress Test.