ASSIGNMENT

NAME :​ HUMAIRA FABIHA

STUDENT ID​ : 201932026
ASSIGNMENT NAME: ​BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY AND IT’S
IMPORTANCE
COURSE NAME : ​HUM-2113, PSYCHOLOGY AND
BEHAVIOUR

LEVEL-01, TERM- 02
ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT.

1
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Biological psychology, of biopsychology, is the application of the

principles of biology to the study of mental processes and behavior, that
is the study of psychology in terms of bodily mechanisms. The view that
psychological processes have biological (or physiological) correlates, is
the basic assumption of the whole field of biological psychology.
Through a variety of research methods, psychologists in this field hope
to uncover information that enriches human understanding of their own
mental processes, as well as providing valuable data that enable those
in medical fields to better treat patients with a variety of disorders, both
physical and mental.

Biopsychology has been a prominent field of psychology from the start in

Europe and North America and remains a major area of research and
instruction in many countries. In the last two centuries, biopsychology
has found new ways to answer old questions, has tackled important new
questions, and has abandoned some problems as poorly defined.
Carefully designed behavioral experiments and innovative biomedical
techniques have been essential to its progress. The current scope of
biological psychology includes the following themes: Evolution of brain
and behavior; development of the nervous system and behavior over the
life span; psychopharmacology; sensory and perceptual processes;
control and coordination of movement and actions; control of behavioral
states (motivation), including sex and reproductive behavior, and
regulation of internal states; biological rhythms and sleep; emotions and
mental disorders; neural mechanisms of learning and memory, language
and cognition; and recovery of function after damage to the nervous
system. Developing from biological psychology and overlapping with
parts of it are such fields as behavior genetics as well as hormones and
behavior. Through all these methods, biological psychology is a hopeful
domain, one that has much to offer in terms of improving the quality of
life of the healthy as well as those suffering from disorders.
HISTORY

The history of biological psychology is a major part of the history of

modern scientific psychology. The study of biological psychology can be
dated back to Avicenna (980-1037 C.E.), a 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. 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
recognized 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.
Biological psychology as a scientific discipline later emerged from a
variety of scientific and philosophical traditions in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. In philosophy, the first issue is how to approach
what is known as the "mind-body problem," namely the explanation of
the relationship, if any, that obtains between minds, or mental
processes, and bodily states or processes. Dualism is a family of views
about the relationship between mind and physical matter. It begins with
the claim that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical. In
Western Philosophy, some of the earliest discussions of dualist ideas
are in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. Each of these maintained, but
for different reasons, that human "intelligence" (a faculty of the mind or
soul) could not be identified with, or explained in terms of, his physical
body. However, the best-known version of dualism is due to Rene
Descartes (expressed in his 1641, Meditations on First Philosophy), and
holds that the mind is a non-extended, non-physical substance.
Descartes was the first to clearly identify the mind with consciousness
and self-awareness, and to distinguish this from the brain, which was the
seat of intelligence.

The question then, is how do these separate and entirely different

aspects of living beings, the mind and the body, relate? Some, like
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.

Other philosophers also helped to give birth to psychology, also relating

its subject matter to biology. This view, that psychological processes
have biological (or physiological) correlates, is the basic assumption of
the whole field of biological 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 determinant of their
result. Our first conclusion, then, is that a certain amount of
brain-physiology must be presupposed or included in Psychology.

William James, like many early psychologists, had considerable training

in psychology. The emergence of both psychology and biological
psychology 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 eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. 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, but

was likely first used in its modern sense by Knight Dunlap in his book,
An Outline of Psychobiology (1914). Although a "forgotten man" of
American psychology, 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 biological
psychology even in its modern sense.
CONTEMPORARY BIOPSYCHOLOGY LINKS
PSYCHOLOGY AND BIOLOGY

For many decades, biopsychology or psychobiology has been a site of

exchange of concepts, information and techniques between psychology
and the biological sciences. In many cases, humans may serve as
experimental subjects in biological psychology experiments; however, a
great deal of the experimental literature in biological psychology comes
from the study of non-human species, most frequently rats, mice, and
monkeys. As a result, a critical assumption in biological psychology is
that organisms share biological and behavioral similarities, enough to
permit extrapolations across species. This allies biological psychology
closely with comparative psychology, evolutionary psychology, and
evolutionary biology. Biological psychology also has paradigmatic and
methodological similarities to neuropsychology, which relies heavily on
the study of the behavior of humans with nervous system dysfunction (a
non-experimentally based biological manipulation).

A psychobiologist or biopsychologist may compare the imprinting

behavior in goslings to the early attachment behavior in human infants
and construct theory around these two phenomena. Biological
psychologists may often be interested in measuring some biological
variable, such as an anatomical, physiological, or genetic variable, in an
attempt to relate it quantitatively or qualitatively to a psychological or
behavioral variable, and thus, contribute to evidence based practice.

Unlike other subdivisions within biological psychology, the main focus of

physiological psychological research is the development of theories that
explain brain-behavior relationships rather than the development of
research that has translational value. It is sometimes alternatively called
"psychophysiology," and in recent years also "cognitive neuroscience."
One example of physiological psychology research is the study of the
role of the hippocampus in learning and memory. This can be achieved
by surgical removal of the hippocampus from the rat brain followed by an
assessment of memory tasks by that same rat.

IMPORTANCE

In order to understand the importance of biological psychology one must

understand first, The Biological Perspective in Psychology

This field of psychology is often referred to as biopsychology or

physiological psychology. This branch of psychology has grown
tremendously in recent years and is linked to other areas of science
including biology, neurology, and genetics.
The study of physiology and biological processes has played a
significant role in psychology since its earliest beginnings. It was Charles
Darwin who first introduced the idea that evolution and genetics play a
role in human behavior. Natural selection influences whether certain
behavior patterns are passed down to future generations. Behaviors that
aid in survival are more likely to be passed down while those that prove
dangerous are less likely to be inherited.
The biological perspective is essentially a way of looking at human
problems and actions. Consider an issue like aggression, for example.
Someone using the psychoanalytic perspective might view aggression
as the result of childhood experiences and unconscious urges. Another
person might take a behavioral perspective and consider how the
behavior was shaped by association, reinforcement, and punishment. A
psychologist with a social perspective might look at the group dynamics
and pressures that contribute to such behavior.
The biological viewpoint, on the other hand, would involve looking at the
biological roots that lie behind aggressive behaviors. Someone who
takes the biological perspective might consider how certain types of
brain injury might lead to aggressive actions. Or they might consider
genetic factors that can contribute to such displays of behavior.

Biopsychologists study many of the same things that other psychologists

do, but they are interested in looking at how biological forces shape
human behaviors. Some topics that a psychologist might explore using
this perspective include:

* Analyzing how trauma to the brain influences behaviors

* Investigating how degenerative brain diseases impact how people act
* Exploring how genetic factors influence such things as aggression
* Studying how genetics and brain damage are linked to mental
disorders
* Assessing the differences and similarities in twins to determine which
characteristics are tied to genetics and which are linked to
environmental
influences

This perspective has grown considerably in recent years as the

technology used to study the brain and nervous system has grown
increasingly advanced.Today, scientists use tools such as PET and MRI
scans to look at how brain development, drugs, disease, and brain
damage impact behavior and cognitive functioning.There are also
reasons to take a biological perspective.One of the strengths of using
the biological perspective to analyze psychological problems is that the
approach is usually very scientific. Researchers utilize rigorous empirical
methods, and their results are often reliable and practical. Biological
research has helped yield useful treatments for a variety of psychological
disorders.The weakness of this approach is that it often fails to account
for other influences on behavior. Things such as emotions, social
pressures, environmental factors, childhood experiences, and cultural
variables can also play a role in the formation of psychological problems.

For that reason, it is important to remember that the biological approach

is just one of the many different perspectives in psychology. By utilizing
a variety of ways of looking at a problem, researchers can come up with
different solutions that can have helpful real-world applications. There
are many different perspectives from which to view the human mind and
behavior and the biological perspective represents just one of these
approaches. By looking at the biological bases of human behavior,
psychologists are better able to understand how the brain and
physiological processes might influence the way people think, act, and
feel. This perspective also allows researchers to come up with new
treatments that target the biological influences on psychological
well-being.