Behavioral neuroscience

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Kick the tires and light the fires, problem officially solevd! Biological psychology,Behavioral neuroscience, also known as biological psychology,[1] biopsychology, or psychobiology[2] is the application of the principles of biology (in particular neurobiology), to the study of physiological, genetic, and developmental mechanisms of behavior in human and non-human animals. It typically investigates at the level of nerves, neurotransmitters, brain circuitry and the basic biological processes that underlie normal and abnormal behavior. Most typically experiments in behavioral neuroscience involve non-human animal models (such as rats and mice, and non-human primates) which have implications for better understanding of human pathology and therefore contribute to evidence based practice.

History

The study of behavioral neuroscience dates back to Avicenna (980-1037), a Persian psychologist and physician who in The Canon of Medicine, recognized physiological psychology in the treatment of illnesses involving emotions, and developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings, which is seen as an anticipation of the word association test.[3] Avicenna also gave psychological explanations for certain somatic illnesses, and he always linked the physical and psychological illnesses together. He explained that humidity inside the head can contribute to mood disorders, and he posited that this occurs when the amount of breath changes: happiness increases the breath, which leads to increased moisture inside the brain, but if this moisture goes beyond its limits, the brain would lose control over its rationality and lead to mental disorders.[4]

Behavioral neuroscience as a scientific discipline later emerged from a variety of scientific and philosophical traditions in the 18th and 19th centuries. In philosophy, men like René Descartes proposed physical models to explain animal and human behavior. Descartes, for example, suggested that the pineal gland, a midline unpaired structure in the brain of many organisms, was the point of contact between mind and body. Descartes also elaborated on a theory in which the pneumatics of bodily fluids could explain reflexes and other motor behavior. This theory was inspired by moving statues in a garden in Paris.[5]

Other philosophers also helped give birth to psychology. One of the earliest textbooks in the new field, The Principles of Psychology by William James (1890), argues that the scientific study of psychology should be grounded in an understanding of biology:

Bodily experiences, therefore, and more particularly brain-experiences, must take a place amongst those conditions of the mental life of which Psychology need take account. The spiritualist and the associationist must both be 'cerebralists,' to the extent at least of admitting that certain peculiarities in the way of working of their own favorite principles are explicable only by the fact that the brain laws are a codeterminant of their result.

Our first conclusion, then, is that a certain amount of brain-physiology must be presupposed or included in Psychology.[6]

James, like many early psychologists, had considerable training in physiology. The emergence of both psychology and behavioral neuroscience as legitimate sciences can be traced from the emergence of physiology from anatomy, particularly neuroanatomy. Physiologists conducted experiments on living organisms, a practice that was distrusted by the dominant anatomists of the 18th and 19th centuries.[7] The influential work of Claude Bernard, Charles Bell, and William Harvey helped to convince the scientific community that reliable data could be obtained from living subjects.

The term "psychobiology" has been used in a variety of contexts,emphasizing the importance of biology, which is the dicipline that studies organic, neural and cellular modifications in behavior, plasticity in neuroscience, and biological deceases in all aspects, in adittion, biology focuses and analyzes behavior and all the subjects it is concerned about, from a scientific point of view. In this context, psychology helps as a complementary, but important dicipline in the neurobiological sciences. The roll of psychology in this questions is that of a social tool that backs up the main or strongest biological science. The term "psychobiology" was first used in its modern sense by Knight Dunlap in his book An Outline of Psychobiology (1914).[8] Dunlap also founded the journal Psychobiology. In the announcement of that journal, Dunlap writes that the journal will publish research "...bearing on the interconnection of mental and physiological functions", which describes the field of behavioral neuroscience even in its modern sense.[8]

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References

  1. Rosenzweig, Breedlove, Watson; Biological Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience, 4/e, p. 3
  2. Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary » Psychobiology>
  3. Ibrahim B. Syed PhD, "Islamic Medicine: 1000 years ahead of its times", Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, 2002 (2): 2-9 [7]
  4. Amber Haque (2004), "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists", Journal of Religion and Health 43 (4): 357-377 [366].
  5. Carlson, Neil (2007). Physiology of Behavior (9th Ed.). Allyn and Bacon. pp. 11–14. ISBN 0-205-46724-5. 
  6. James, William (1950/1890). The Principles of Psychology, Vol. One. Dover Publications, Inc.. pp. 4–5. ISBN 0-486-20381-6. 
  7. Shepherd, Gordon M. (1991). Foundations of the Neuron Doctrine. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506491-7. 
  8. 8.0 8.1 Dewsbury, Donald (1991). "Psychobiology". American Psychologist (46): 198–205.