Introduction to Biological Psychology PDF

**[Monday 4^th^ November 2024]** **[Introduction to Biological Psychology:]** **What is biological psychology?** Known by several different names, including Behavioural Neuroscience (U.S term) or Psychobiology (older term) - Biological Psychology is the application of the principles of bio...

**[Monday 4^th^ November 2024]** **[Introduction to Biological Psychology:]** **What is biological psychology?** Known by several different names, including Behavioural Neuroscience (U.S term) or Psychobiology (older term) - Biological Psychology is the application of the principles of biology to the study of the physiological, genetic and developmental mechanisms of behaviour in the human and animal subject - Biological Psychology is "the study of the influences of biological systems, especially the nervous system, on behaviour" (Klein & Thorne, pp.2) - In the context of Biological Psychology, behaviour refers to anything that an organism does that involves action and response to stimulation. - It links biology with behaviour (e.g., the mechanisms in the brain that cause behaviour. - However, it also links the environment to processes in the brain (e.g., social contact influences events in the brain) - Biological Psychology is also multidisciplinary, in which draws on a wide variety of disciplines (e.g., biology, neuroscience, physiological psychology, genetics and evolution) to make sense of the human experience. **Methods of Biological Psychology:** 1. **Experiments --** Biological Psychologists use a wide range of methods, from knock-out mice models (e.g., knocking out specific genes in mice) to optogenetics (e.g., controlling the behaviour of organisms with light) in which subjects are randomised to specific groups 2. **Quasi-experimental studies --** as above but subjects are not randomized 3. **Case studies --** individual organisms, as opposed to groups, who are experimented on **Instruments of Biological Psychology:** 1. **Animals:** are typically used in Biological Psychological studies, including the humble rat and mouse; to monkeys and cats 2. **Imaging:** such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and electroencephalogram (EEG) along with others (more with Elena in Cognitive Psychology) 3. **Stimulation:** transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), tMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) and deep brain stimulation (DBS) 4. **Biological Measurements:** hormone levels, heart rate, skin conductance response, genetic sequencing. **The level of Analysis: Deoxyribonucleic Acid** - Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA): The fundamental building blocks of genes, which carries the genetic instructions for the growth, functioning and reproduction of all living organisms - Behavioural Genetics is a subdiscipline of Biological Psychology that focuses on the impact that genes have on behaviour **The Level of Analysis: The Neurone** - Neurones are the fundamental base unit of all brain behaviour, and indeed, behaviour. - The computer processor, after data is inputted, processes the information, breaks it down and relays messages to different parts of the computer - The neurone can be thought of as an analogy: the brain processes information, and the neurones relay messages to different parts of the body - In other words: brain = CPU, body = computer, neurones = communication/information-processing **The Level of Analysis: The Brain** - The brain: the organ that is responsible for all sensing and perceiving. It is made up of over 86 billion neurones - The brain is not fully developed until the age of 21 (e.g., full myelination). **Levels of Analysis: The Social Level** - The Social Level: DNA, neurones and the brain all contribute to then human experience, at the social level - Essentially, Biological Psychology explains how we function in the world or, what the human experience is. ***Reductionism*** = philosophy whose proponents argue that behaviour can be reduced to the smallest possible level of analysis. - Reducing psychological phenomenon to the biological level can provide valuable insight but, it needs contextualising, so nuance is not lost - For example, events within the nervous system can cause behaviour; and for every event a cause can be, at least in principle, identified. - The task of Biological Psychology is to identify and characterise these causes. **[Evolutionary Psychology:]** - As a framework, Evolutionary Psychology can be used in tandem with Biological Psychology, despite the obvious contradictions, to investigate the human experience - Nikolas Tinbergen asked four key questions: the mechanism (causation) and development (ontogeny) are proximate questions that ask how something developed; while the Evolution (phylogeny) and adaptative value (function) are ultimate questions that ask why something should develop - Here, Evolutionary and Biological Psychology can complement each other. Tinbergen's Four Questions can be applied to any trait or behaviour and will be the framework I will be using from the Schizophrenia sessions onwards. - The crying human infant (Zeifman, 2001) is an example of how we could explain the biological process of crying, in babies, by utilising Tinbergen's four questions - The external causes of crying are hunger, pain, physical discomfort, lack of proximity to parent. The internal causes are regulating physiological homeostasis (more about this next year), consequences of maturational changes in the central nervous system and, at a neurobiological level, the limbic system and cortical control. These are the mechanisms of crying. - In terms of the ontogeny of crying, endogenous opioids, and serotonin influences crying (in the first three months, crying follows a fixed trajectory). After this, the environment influences crying - In terms of evolution, we have comparative (e.g., non-human) evidence: primates provide continuous care and feed to their infants. suggesting that humans originally provided continuous care to infants. There is also hunter-gather evidence in which there was continuous contact and responding to infants before the crying occurs. - Finally, the function of crying is that it is an honest signal though, it is a modern phenomenon in western societies. However, it has costs (e.g., metabolically, predation and abuse from parents) but also benefits (e.g., elicits care and nurturance). Ultimately, it is a function in that mothers are physiologically primed to respond to the crying infant, in that there is a Universal response to infant crying and it conveys information on health and status of the infant. *By using Tinbergen's Four Questions, we can see that the information is more in-depth, and it provides a multidisciplinary approach. This is the approach we shall be taking in Biological Psychology.*