What is biopsychology

Multidisciplinary study of the nervous system and its role in behaviour. Understanding brain demands incredible level of effort, ingenuity, and technological innovation. US Congress declares 1990s as being ” Decade of the Brain” Not only expand the horizon of human knowledge but also advances treatment of: neurological disease, emotional disorders, and addictions 300 years of scientific past The branch ofpsychologythat studies the relationship between behaviour and the body, particularly the brain. Behaviour:

Internal events such as: learning thinking emotion Overt (Done or shown openly; plainly or readily apparent, not secret or hidden) acts Biopsychology attempts to answer: What changes in the brain when a person learns? Why does one person developdepression, another becomes anxious, and another is normal? What is the physiological explanation for emotions? How do we recognise the face of a friend? How does the brain ‘s activity result in consciousness? Biological psychologists use a variety of research techniques to answer these uestions.

Ex: Staining and Imaging neurons Light and electron microscopy Measuring and manipulating brain activity Brain imaging techniques Genetics Main focus is on the brain’s role in behaviour Main tocus is on the brain s role in behaviour. Thinkers have struggled with the question of behaviour and experience for more than two millennia. Psychology as a separate discipline fairly recently (1879, Wilhelm Wundt). Biological approach could answer significant questions about behaviour.