CLPS 150 Behavioral Psychiatry: Intro
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<Chapter 1> Biopsychology as a Neuroscience - What is Biopsychology Anyway?
Chapter Overview and Learning Objectives (look at the learning objectives for exams - straight
out)
Core Aspects of Biopsychology
 Where does behavior emerge from?
 Is the Human brain all that special?
o Large prefrontal cortex for processing and evaluating different info coming into
nervous system, but other animals have amazing qualities as well - so maybe not
THAT special? But human brain does a lot of things - maybe just elaborate
 Is thought or cognition dependent upon the brain?
o Engagement in thought and running and guiding behaviors of individual
 Is thought and cognition unique to humans?
o It is an open question since we do not have access to other animals. Again, just more
elaborate not special to humans
Themes from the textbook
 Thinking creatively: dogma, misinformation, and fake news…etc
o Example: neuro-immunology - immune system is excised from blood brain barrier so no cold/virus will get into the brain - if you get it in the brain, will die in 2 days by
meningitis. However, it has been overturned
o Nature/nurture -still a hot topic
o Brain/behavior mapping - lifestyle that affects psychology - experiments on twins
placed into different homes
o Genotype/phenotype o Blob-ology
o Outcomes based work
 (Neuroplasticity - visual cortical development (genetics, Ca++ waves, experience)
 Clinical implications
o "pathological behaviors" are still rooted in the brain - anxiety is good and bad
depending on the situation
 Evolutionary perspective
o Force to think not only about what and how, but also why
o Ethological approach (understanding behavior in natural context) o Trouble with so much of research
o What is the role/origins of hedonic response? Hedonic response is what drives a
pleasurable response. Related to survival of the fittest - reproduction, food
consumption, sugar and dopaminergic response, etc.
Defining Biopsychology
 Understanding relationship between brain and behavior = biopsychology
 Understanding how the brain is guiding and how the brain is changing behavior
Origins
 Emerged end of 19th century
 Hebb's The Organization of Behaviour - CNS in the brain is guiding behavior
 What bio psychologists study
o

How the brain and the rest of the nervous system determine what we perceive, feel,
think, say, and do
o Can we predict all the behaviors by studying the brain?
The ultimate challenge
o Does our brain have the capacity to understand something as complex as itself?
What differentiates a Neuroscientist from a Bio psychologist?
 Intersection between the two
 Biopsychology is related to what disciplines of neuroscience?
o 6: neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, neurophysiology, neuroendocrinology,
neuropharmacology, neuropathology
Neuroanatomy:
 Cajal - identified different cells in the brain
o Describing of the nervous system - important in understanding
 Karl Lashley and the Engram
o 1950s Engram – neuro extension of memory
o Still labs trying to figure out: Xu Liu and Steve Ramirez - a mouse laser beam
manipulated memory - they can reactivate the fear memory and expressing the
memory
o Activating the mood state
Neurophysiology:
 Started Barlow 1953 mapping retinotopic maps, visual streams, etc (EEG recordings) retinotopic map is represented in mirror image from the visual image
 The techniques still being used at Brown - BrainGate
Neuropharmacology:
 Religious tradition - Andes Freud - 1884 "On Coca" - use of cocaine in religious tribes,
psychoactive component of the plant
 How different drugs have an impact on behavior - can help with depression, migraine, etc.
 SSRIs - usually identified by accident and modifying, we are not discovering new drugs
 Example: Ketamine - used for anesthetic with paralytic for certain procedures, does have
psychoactive components. Helps depression (Lisa Monteggia study on animals and
depressive properties) - moved into clinical trials
Neuropathology:
 Phineas Gage - missing prefrontal cortex after the rod went into the brain, but massive
change in behavior - different person
 CTE - Bennet Omalu, many football and boxing players have changes
Neurochemistry:
 Acetylcholine - first neurotransmitter by Henry Dale then Otto Loewi - contraction of the
heart, also signaling between cells for cognition and behavior
 Continuation: Oxytocin - the love molecule, important for pair bonding or prosocial and
mating behavior
o 1910-20s - it was for reproductive physiology when first discovered - to induce labor
in uterus and feeding babies
Neuroendocrinology:
 Stress, puberty- How stress changes behavior

Misattribution of arousal - regulating the perception of things (social psych) - perception of
the world is dependent upon physio state (state of the body)
o Took series of images of attractiveness, also on suspension bridges. Feel stronger
feelings of level of attractiveness by physiological arousal
Approaches to studying biopsychology
 Human vs non-human subjects
o Pluses and minuses?
 Humans are easier, animals need to be more effort to understand
 Non-human subjects are faster to look at birth to death - developmental studies,
also access to different body tissues
What
is
the
premise for this comparison?

o Studying basic behaviors - but might be invalid in some
 Animal research and IACUC?
o How is animal research regulated? Highly regulated by different gov committees. Has
to be submitted by vets, scientists, etc. usually more regulated than humans (IRB
board)
Humans and Nonhuman subjects (BOOKs rationale) - some are good and some are bad
 Advantages of humans (e.g. Milgram's studies)
o Follow directions
o Report subjective experience
o Less expensive
o Human brain
Advantages
of nonhuman subjects

o Simpler nervous systems
o Comparative approach
o Fewer ethical constraints
Experimental Approach
 Experiments
o Used for cause and effect relationships
o between and within subjects’ design
o Independent variables (things you manipulate)
o Dependent variables (thing you measure)
o Confounding variables (possible contributing factors)
 Sleep study example
 Population, Group assignment, manipulation, testing conditions,
confounding variables?
 Random assignment
Quasiexperimets
 Used when controlled experiments are impossible - developmental studies in orphanages,
placed half in foster care
 Self-selected subjects (not always)
 Key problem-can't control confounds
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Pure and applied research

Pure research
o Curiosity of the researcher
o Focus on basic concepts
o Core principles of science
o Issues (ethical, justification, etc) benefits?
o Example?
 Applied research
o Use basic research to answer specific problems – immediate impact, tangible
present problems
o Examples – individuals suffering a disorder
o Not necessarily applied to humans, etc. can be for basic science
Six divisions of biopsychology
 Physiological psychology
o Direct manipulation of nervous system
o Mostly lab animals (most study done in animal models)
o Focus on pure research
o (Ephys, Opto, Wilder Penfield)
o You can drive change in behavior, state of animals, based on how you stimulate
certain regions of the brain
 Psychopharmacology
o Manipulation of nervous system pharmacologically
o Focuses on drug effects on behavior
o Drug effects change neural activity
o Conduct both pure and applied questions
o New approaches – DREADDs
 Insert a designer receptor
 Insert a drug that responds specifically to the receptor
o Describe a psychopharm experiment
 Ketamine – how it affects suicidality
 IV: ketamine, DV: suicidality
 Neuropsychology
o Focuses on behavioral effects of brain damage
o Uses case studies and quasi-experimental designs
o Applied research
o What kind of subject?
o What kind of experiment can be done?
 Psychophysiology
o Focuses on physiological and psychological processes
o Uses non-invasive recordings from humans (physical responses)
 Muscle tension
 Eye movement
 Pupil dilation
 Electrical conductance of the skin
o Stress and perception
o EEG and attention
o Visual tracking
 Tacking of a pendulum by a normal control participant and people with
schizophrenia
 Cognitive neuroscience
o Newest division
o Focus: neural basis of cognitive processes (test which regions of the brain are
most active)

 Learning/ memory
 Attention
 Perceptual processes
o Use noninvasive, functional brain imaging (can use human subjects, not limited to
animals)
o Often collaborative between varied scientists
o Restricted to humans?
o Benefits and limitations?
o Functional brain imaging – control scan (reveal high levels of neural activity at
one level of the brain)
Comparative psychology
o Focus on biology of behavior
o Features comparative and functional approaches
 Example of comparative approach – genetic risk for depression and
treatments – identify particular mutations of genes, which was rich in
certain individuals with depression
o Features laboratory and ethological studies
 Whether mutation change in animals brings changes
 B, d, and f gene
o Includes evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics
 Development of clinical trials in humans
Converging operations: how do bio psychologists work together?
 Each area has a weakness
 Must collaborate to ask good questions
 Converging operations
o Progress made using different approaches
o Each compensates for the shortcomings of others
Chapter 2
 Idea of dichotomous to …
 Nature vs nurture
 Fundamental of genetics
 Epigenetics (development of organism)
The origins of dichotomous thinking
 Is it physiological or psychological?
o Product of sensory experience or more?
 Is it inherited or is it learned? (nature vs nurture)
o Product of gene, environment, or both?
o Watson (nurture) vs Ethology (nature – instinctive behaviors)
o May combine, not always one or the other
