Introduction to
Biological Psychology
BA (Hons) Psychology
First Year
Module Aim and Overview
• The aim of this module is to
provide you with a foundation
in psychobiology and
neuroscience and in particular
an understanding of the
relationship between the brain
and behaviour, including how
physiological and biological
processes of the body
contribute to various aspects
of behaviour and psychology
Module Learning Outcomes
• Identify and describe the key concepts, theories and
perspectives in biological psychology
• List the main structures within the brain and central
nervous system and relate their function to key
psychological processes
• Describe how the central, autonomic and endocrine
systems are involved in these key psychological
processes
• Explain the biopsychosocial bases for a range of
affective, neurological and psychiatric disorders
Module Outline
• Introduction to Biological
Psychology
• The Nervous System,
Neurons and
Neurotransmitters
• Organisation of the
Nervous System and
Hemispheric Function
• Genetics, Physiological
and Evolutionary
Psychology
• Psychopharmacology
• Stress, Anxiety and Emotion
• Sleep, Arousal and Biological
Rhythms
• Visual, Auditory, Spatial,
Somatosensory, Gustatory and
Olfactory Perception
• Neurological and Affective
Disorders
• Neural basis of Human
Communication
• Current controversies and
Debates in the area
Reading List (Call Number 152/612.8)
• Carlson, N. and Birkett, M. (2021).
Foundations of Behavioural Neuroscience
(10th Edition). London: Pearson
Publishing
• Garrett B. (2021) Brain and Behavior: An
Introduction to Behavioural
Neuroscience (6th edition). London: Sage
Publication
• Kalat, J.W. (2023). Biological Psychology
(14th edition). Belmont: Thomson
Wadsworth
• Wickens, A. (2021) Introduction to
Biopsychology (4th Edition). London:
Sage Publishing
Methodology and Assessment
• Teaching Methodology - Two hours of
lectures per week and one tutorial hour
(please note that there will be images of
the brain)
• Assessment - 100% Final Exam (Five
essay style questions, you must answer
two)
• One issue …. The mobile phone….!!! Can
you please place it out of sight
Contact Details
• Dr Fiona Nutty
• Department of Applied Arts
• Room F22 Cork Road Campus
• Tel: 00353 (0) 51 302000 Ext:2667
• e-mail: fnutty@wit.ie
(This is the best option)
The Third Years and Thesis
• Be aware that from the middle of
January to the middle of March the
third years will be collecting their
research data for their thesis in class
and via Moodle
• It is a very, very stressful time for
them
• Please be kind, as you will be a third
year soon
The Introductory Lecture
Learning Outcomes For This Lecture
• To define Biological
Psychology and examine
the main historical question
examined in the area
• The Mind - Body Dilemma
Lecture Learning Outcomes
• To examine the
contributions to the
modern field of
Biological Psychology
and behavioural
neuroscience made by
individuals involved in
philosophy, physiology,
or other disciplines
• To describe the role of
natural selection in the
evolution of
behavioural traits
What is The Function of The Brain?
• Think about it, take a minute, what are your
thoughts?
The Biological Bases of Behaviour
”Nemo psychologus nisi physiologus"
“One is not a psychologist who is not
also a physiologist”
Johannes Peter Müller
19th century physiologist and anatomist
Defining Biopsychology
• Biopsychology is the scientific study of the biology of
behaviour (Dewsbury, 2022)
• According to Kalat (2023) "Biological psychology is
the study of the physiological, evolutionary, and
developmental mechanisms of behaviour and
experience“
Key Assumptions in Biopsychology
• All that is psychological is first physiological, all
thoughts, feelings, and behaviours ultimately have a
physiological/biological cause
• Human genes have evolved over millions of years to
adapt physiology and behaviour to the environment,
therefore, much of human behaviour will have a
genetic basis
Biopsychology
• Biopsychologists study how the brain and the rest of
the nervous system influence behaviours, thoughts and
feelings
• The key element of biological psychology is that
behaviour is caused by identifiable events within the
nervous system
• A biopsychologist uses an eclectic combination of
theories and research from many different areas
(psychology, biology, physiology, pharmacology, and
anatomy) to better describe, understand and predict
behaviour
Differing Academic Names
– Analogous Terms:
• Biological Psychology
• Physiological Psychology
• Biopsychology
• Psychobiology
• Behavioral Neuroscience
• Overlapping fields include neurology and
experimental neuropsychology (cognitive
neuroscience) etc.
The Nature of Biopsychology
• The task of Biopsychologists is to explain behaviour
by studying the physiological processes that control it
• Two forms of explanation are used
I. Generalisation a type of scientific explanation, a
general conclusion based on many observations of
similar phenomena
II. Reduction a type of scientific explanation, a
phenomenon is described in terms of the more
elementary processes that underlie it
The Biological Roots of Biopsychology
– Hippocrates (460-370 BCE)
• Considered the brain to be the
center of thought and emotions
– Rene Descartes (1596-1650 CE)
• Father of Modern Philosophy
• Reflexes - automatic, stereotyped
movement that is produced as a
direct result of a stimulus
• Dualism
• Pineal Body
Descartes Explanation of a Reflex
Action to a Painful Stimulus
The Mind/Brain Dilemma
• Is the mind and the brain the
same thing?
• What is the relationship
between the mind and the
brain?
• Does the mind control the brain
or the brain control the mind?
• What is consciousness?
Consciousness
• Consciousness (mind) refers to self-awareness and
the ability to communicate our thoughts,
perceptions, feelings, and memories
• Consciousness can vary across the day/night cycle
(sleep and dreaming are special states of
consciousness)
• Drugs can alter consciousness
The Mind/Body Problem
• Many philosophers have addressed
the 'mind-body problem ‟by
asking‘ how are the mind and brain
related'?
• Some argued that the
mind/brain/body are separate
entities
• This is called dualism ‟the most
famous exponent being Descartes
who stated ‘cogito ergo sum’
‘I think therefore I am’
The Mind/Body Problem
• He argued that while animals were simply machines
lacking a higher form of consciousness, humans
possessed souls that controlled the body via the
pineal gland in the brain
• Many people still hold dualist views - the survival of
the mind after the physical death of the body
• But the mind is not part of the material world how
can it exert a force that can influence physical
matter?
The Early Automata
Descartes and Automata
• Descartes believed that
the “soul” (what we
now call the mind)
controls the
movements of the
muscles through its
influence on the pineal
body
• According to his theory,
the eyes sent visual
information to the brain,
where it could be
examined by the soul,
when the soul decided to
act, it would tilt the
pineal body (labeled H in
the diagram), which
would divert pressurised
fluid through nerves to
the appropriate muscles
Dualism and Monism
• Most philosophers and neuroscientists now reject
dualism in favour of 'monism‘ (Materialism)
• This argues for the singularity of mind and brain, that
human thoughts, feelings, experiences are simply the
product of complex neurological / neurochemical /
neuroelectrical / neurohormonal activity
• Many human behaviours can be explained in such
terms (but is that it, it is rather depressing)
• The fundamental question of why humans possess
self-consciousness and what kinds of physical activity
is necessary to produce a conscious being remain
unanswered
The Mind-Brain Relationship
• Explanations of the mind-body relationship do not
answer some fundamental questions:
– Why is consciousness a property of brain activity?
– What kind of brain activity produces
consciousness?
– How does brain activity produce consciousness?
The Split Brain
• Sperry (1961) Split Brain Study
• In a healthy brain, stimuli is communicated between
the two hemispheres via the corpus callosum, when
this is severed, a split brain exists
• Split brain research has sparked questions regarding
human conscious experience
• Is consciousness a function of one or both
hemispheres?
• What role does each hemisphere play in conscious
experience?
Different Aspects of Consciousness
• Consciousness is ‘talking to
ourselves’ (the left hemisphere)
• Areas of the brain proposed for
the seat of consciousness in the
past have included the
hippocampus (O'Keefe, 1985)
• Activity from the upper brain
stem (Penfield, 1940s and
1950s) and the cerebral cortex
(a large number of
investigators)
The Mind-Body Problem and
Greenfield’s Solution
• ‘Consciousness is spatially distributed
but effectively single at any one time’
• It emerges because of the continuous
activity of groups of neurons in relation
to an epicentre
• This is analogous to an orchestra, in that
the symphony is only created when the
instruments are in unison
Early Developments
The Nature of Biopsychology
– Luigi Galvani (1737-1798)
• Electrical stimulation of the nerve in a frog’s leg
produced contraction of the leg muscle
Early Developments
The Nature of Biopsychology
– Johannes Muller
(1801-1858)
• Doctrine of Specific
Nerve Energies
• Because all nerve fibers
carry the same type of
message, sensory
information must be
specified by the
particular nerve fibers
that are active
Early Developments
The Nature of Biopsychology
– Pierre Flourens (1794-1867)
• Experimental ablation
• A research method where
the function of a particular
region of the brain is inferred
by observing the behaviors
an animal is no longer able
to perform after that area is
damaged
Early Developments
The Nature of Biopsychology
– Paul Broca (1824-1880)
• Extended the concept of ‘experimental
ablation’ to humans
• Broca’s area - A region of the left hemisphere
involved in speaking ability
Early Developments
The Nature of Biopsychology
– Gustav Fritsch and Eduard Hitzig (Rabbits and Dogs)
• Used electrical stimulation of the brain to
understand function 1870 (Primary Motor Cortex)
Early Developments
The Nature of Biopsychology
– Herman von Helmholtz (1821-1894)
– (90 feet per second)
• Responsible for developing the law of
conservation of energy, the ophthalmoscope, a
theory of colour vision and blindness, and the
first measurements of the speed of nerve
conduction
Hebb’s Rule
• Hebb’s The Organization of
Behavior (1949) is thought to
be key factor in the field’s
development
• When a cell persistently
activates another nearby cell,
the connection between the
two cells becomes stronger
Evolution and Psychology
• Linnaeus (1735) catalogued
4,000 plant and animal
species and proposed
connections among species
• Charles Darwin (1859) “On
the Origin of the Species”
• Evolutionary psychology looks
at the adaptive or survival
value of behaviours
Darwin, Evolution and Psychology
• By chance there would be variations across
individuals and they could be passed on genetically
• Natural selection proposed that if a particular
alteration in a gene helped people to live and breed,
then the gene was passed on
• Darwin was not only referring to what is inherited
across humans, but the evolutionary links between
humans and other animal species
• Led to a row with the church
• Eventually Darwin’s view of evolution
became dominant
Natural Selection and Evolution
Functionalism and the Inheritance of Traits
• Functionalism - the principle that the best way to
understand a biological phenomenon is to try to understand
its useful functions for the organism
• Natural Selection - process by which inherited traits that
confer a selective advantage become more prevalent in a
population
• Mutations - a change in the genetic information contained
in the chromosomes of sperms or eggs, which can be
passed on to an organism’s offspring
Natural Selection and Evolution
Natural Selection
and Evolution
• Evolution of the Human Species
– Evolution - a gradual change in the structure and
physiology of plant and animal species, generally
producing more complex organisms, as a result of
natural selection
• Evolution of Large Brains
– In terms of absolute size, the human brain is very
small compared to other animals such as the elephant
and whale
– Proportionally, however, the human brain makes up
2.3% of total body weight, where as the elephant
brain is only 0.2%. but the shrew brain is 3.3% of its
total body weight
Animal Brain Size and Behaviour
• Species with more complex
behaviours have brains
with more neurons that are
available for behaviour,
learning, remembering,
reasoning, and making
plans
• Primate brains especially
large ones contain many
more neurons per gram
than rodent brains and
many more neurons in the
cortex
Natural Selection and Evolution
– Critical issue for intellectual ability is the number
of neurons available for learning, remembering,
and making plans, as opposed to processing
sensory and motor information
– Neoteny a slowing of the process of maturation,
allowing more time for growth, it is an important
factor in the development of large brains
Controversial Social Implications
• The study of biological origins
of behaviour could lead to
genocide and eugenics aimed
at eliminating certain types of
people
• Could also be used to create
new categories of people,
such as people bred to be
good soldiers or manual
labourer’s etc.
A Brief History of The Field
Year
Recipients (country)
Field of Study
1906
Camillo Golgi (Italy) and Santiago Ramon y Cajal (Spain)
Structure of the nervous
system
1963
Sir John Carew Eccles (Australia), Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin
(U.K.), and Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley (U.K.)
Ionic mechanisms of nerve cell
membrane
1970
Julius Axelrod (U.S.), Sir Bernard Katz (Germany, U.S.), and Ulf
Svante von Euler (Sweden)
Neurotransmitters
1979
David Hubel (Canada, U.S.), Torsten Wiesel (Sweden, U.S.),
and Roger Sperry (U.S.)
Functions of the nervous system
2000
Arvid Carlsson (Sweden), Paul Greengard (U.S.), and Eric
Kandel (U.S.)
Neural communication
2014
John O’Keefe (U.S. U.K.), Edvard I. Moser (Norway), and MayBritt Moser (Norway)
Spatial positioning system in the
brain
Lecture Learning Activity
• Please take some time, grab a coffee
for yourself and just have a think
about the following two questions
• Could a computer/robot/AI ever
become self-aware?
• What useful functions are provided
by the fact that a human can be selfaware?
Conclusion
• The study of biopsychology has made it possible for a
better understanding of human behaviour and
function, as well as the function and behaviour of
other species we share our world with