4.8 • +11k Ratings
Save
Print
Edit
What is biopsychology? Let's look at a biopsychology example before diving into a biopsychology definition.
Suppose you see your friends – let's call them Sam and Kay – walking around with huge grins on their faces while crossing the schoolyard. Later you observe them getting quiet, moon-eyed and sweaty when the other one is near. You're starting to suspect that something is going on between them. At lunch, you observe the two sitting close to each other and casually touching each others' arms and legs.
With all the behavioural and biological evidence mounting, it doesn't take a psychologist to suspect that these two are ‘in love’.
Chestnut-tailed Starling birds in 'love', Touhid biplob, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
But what does this abstract concept of ‘being in love’ entail? How do we know this is what's happening to Sam and Kay? Can we find biological explanations for this behaviour? Everyone is, to some extent, a psychologist; we all analyse the world around us and try to explain behaviour by interpreting the actions of others as clues.
‘Being in love’ can be broken down into different aspects of behaviour, including sexual attraction, arousal, and bonding behaviours. These aspects of love are broken down again to look at the biological structures contributing to behaviour typical for lovers.
And that's where Biopsychology comes in. One of the most effective ways that science has been able to gather objective proof of abstract concepts like ‘love’, ‘altruism’ and ‘aggression’ that impact our lives is through Biopsychology.
Biopsychology is a subdivision of psychology that looks at the biological basis of thinking, behaviour and emotion. The most important biological structures are the brain and the nervous system.
Biopsychology includes many specialist areas such as:
The common thread for these different specializations in Biopsychology is they all analyze behaviour and thinking through the lens of the biopsychological approach and its core assumptions.
If a biopsychologist would look at behaviour such as what Sam and Kay are showing, they could use an array of methods to analyse what's happening to them on a biological level.
Couple in love, flaticon.com
Some examples of biological methods that could be used are:
In the following section, we'll have a closer look at the most important structures that determine behaviour, as well as more of the methods used to investigate them.
Biopsychology emphasizes the study of the nervous system and brain as these are the biological structures that most influence behaviour (as opposed to the liver or stomach). To figure out how physiology works to produce an emotion like love, you can look at several different levels. The lowest level is the most general, but the higher the level, the smaller the structures analyzed. In the following, we'll review what research has already determined to be the topmost influential biological structures determining behaviour in living beings.
Level of Analysis | Biopsychology Level of Analysis | Common Methods of Analysis |
Social level | Level 1 behaviour-social interactions | Observations, Twin Studies, Measurement of Physical Indicators |
Systems level | Level 2 Central Nervous System, Endocrine System, Immune System | Autopsies |
| Organ level | Level 3 brain | MRI, EEG |
Local level | Level 4 Localization of Brain Functions, Motor Centers | PET, fMRI |
Cellular level | Level 5 Neurones, Glial Cells, Immune Cells, Synapses | Microscopy, Stain, Voltmetres |
Molecular level | Level 6 neurotransmitters, hormones, receptors | Microscopy |
Let's start with the first level in which we can examine biological structures; the social level.
On the social level, biopsychologists overlap with social psychology to concentrate on observing the interactions of individuals within their environment. This is important in clinical psychology where observation is used to diagnose individuals with illnesses or to determine whether treatment is working. Another important application of gathering behavioural information is to be able to see the behavioural effects of neurochemicals.
It's been shown that young male monkeys display slightly more aggressive social behaviour than other males when their levels of testosterone are high. When trying to find out how testosterone affects behaviour, it's important to collect data about social interactions to better understand the connection between aggression and testosterone.
Research has shown that people who are "in love" have more of the neurochemical oxytocin. In one trial that investigated how this hormone contributes to monogamous behaviour in people. Researchers found that test subjects ignored other potential partners more when injected with oxytocin compared to a control group.
If we move up a level, we start looking at the individual. In individuals, the biological system that controls behaviour is the nervous system.
Three main systems influence behaviour.
Although the immune system is important, A-Level Psychology focuses on the nervous system and endocrine system.
The nervous system is a network of nerves and control centers that run through your entire body in parallel to your other body systems, such as the cardiovascular or respiratory system. Its main function is to pass on information via its specialized cells, the neurons, which when grouped are called a nerve. Nerves connect all the parts of the body the way that roads connect villages and cities. The nervous system has functional subdivisions.
The nervous system, Eucalyp, flaticon.com
The nervous system is divided into the peripheral nervous system and the central nervous system.
The central nervous system includes the brain and spinal cord. It's here that all information is filtered, integrated with memories, and all conscious and unconscious movement is controlled. This control system is separated from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier, which keeps toxins from getting into the central nervous system from the blood.
The peripheral nervous system connects the central nervous system to the senses and the muscles, enabling the body to perceive the outside world as well as react to it. If the central nervous system is like a motorway into and out of the brain, the peripheral nervous system would be similar to the rural roads. The peripheral nervous system again is subdivided into the somatic (voluntary) nervous system and the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system.
The autonomic nervous system has two distinct patterns that can be activated: the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for the rest-and-digest response and the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the fight-or-flight reaction.
It's been found that “being in love” creates a similar pattern of biological symptoms to when the sympathetic nervous system is activated by other emotions such as fear. Sweating, racing heartbeat and pupil dilation all are indicators of arousal that are linked to the sympathetic nervous system.
The endocrine system is a bodily system made of glands and specialized cells that produce hormones.
Glands are specialized organs that secrete substances in the body and endocrine glands specialise in hormone production.
Tear ducts are exocrine glands, meaning they produce non-hormone substances and the adrenal glands are an example of an endocrine gland because they produce hormones.
Hormones are molecular messengers that have profound long-lasting effects on biological processes and the development of the organism. They influence sleep, growth, development of sexual attributes, genetic expression, and they also interact to create biological rhythms.
If we move up another level to looking at the individual organs, we could look at the most important organ of the central nervous system – the brain.
The brain is the control center of the entire organism. It's made up of a thick network of neurons and glial cells suspended in a liquid called the interstitium. Information is stored in the brain as memories and these are used to make decisions. If the body is a country, the brain would be the capital city where the government decides what happens in the rest of the country.
Brain hemispheres, flaticon.com
The brain has two halves or hemispheres. Certain functions such as speech are processed on specific sides of the brain. The way that researchers found out about the different functions of the sides of the brain or hemispheric lateralization was by looking at split-brain patients – these are people who had a surgical procedure that severed the connection of the two halves of the brain (used to treat extreme cases of epilepsy). Depending on which side of their visual field they were shown an object, these patients could either name an object or reach for it, but not both.
In the past, researchers thought that once brain cells died, they were lost forever. But in recent years it's been found that the brain has remarkable healing properties. The brain cells' ability to adapt and still keep working after damage or brain cell loss is called neural plasticity and it's good news for anyone who's ever had to sit through an episode of Love Island.
In the next level, you can analyze brain functions by looking at the individual parts of the brain.
Cerebral lobes of the brain, Camazine, Wikimedia Commons
Advances in brain (neural) imaging have shown that different parts of the brain have different functions. There are different areas in the brain in charge of various functions such as motor function, sensory perception and speech. These are located in four major subdivisions of the brain, called lobes:
Researchers have been able to pinpoint unilateral areas of the brain responsible for very specific aspects of functions, too. Take speech, for example, Wernicke's area which was found to be responsible for processing meaningful speech, and Broca's area was found to be responsible for making plans and generating speech sounds.
A variety of methods can be used to analyze physiology, and many of them concentrate on the brain. Depending on what you're trying to find out, they have different advantages.
fMRI output image, Miller et al., Wikimedia Commons
Electroencephalogram (EEG): Measures electrical currents on the surface of the head to reflect real-time changes in the brain. EEG can measure general changes in consciousness in the brain such as when we sleep or meditate or detect epilepsy, which is called a spontaneous EEG, but it can also measure small brain waves called Event-related potentials (or ERP) that are created by the reaction to specific stimuli, such as when a person hears a tone.
The downside of EEG is that we don't know where exactly the electrical currents measured stem from under the surface of the skull.
Post-mortem examinations: The most direct method to find out brain structures is the autopsy. Post-mortems on humans have led through many breakthroughs, such as the first maps of brain localisation created by Brodmann which is still in use today. Brodmann mapped different areas of the brain by how thick the outer tissue was in which area. If we were to look at a brain using modern microscopes or stain techniques, we could analyse the brain tissue on a cellular level, which is the next level up.
If you look at brain tissue with a microscope you'd see it's mostly made up of neurons and glial cells. Glial cells provide the structure of the network of the central nervous system and provide neurons with nutrients. Neurons are cells specialised in transmitting and receiving information. Accordingly, they have parts that other cells don't have: dendrites and an axon.
There are many variations of neurons, which can either be categorised according to how many dendrites or axons they have (the structural classification of neurons) or according to what function they have in the body (the functional classification of neurons).
On the cellular level, you can also look at where two neurons connect. This is called a synapse. A synapse includes the output from the cell transmitting the electrochemical impulse as well as the location on the cell receiving the electrochemical impulse. The neuron sending the impulse is called the presynaptic neuron and the cell receiving is called the postsynaptic cell. Between the two cells, there's a little space called the synaptic cleft that's filled with interstitium.
Neurons, flaticon.com
To transmit electrical impulses or action potentials to the next cell, neurochemicals are released into the synaptic cleft. Depending on the neurochemical released, the way the chemicals interact with the postsynaptic cell membrane can either make it more likely for the postsynaptic neurone to fire (this is called excitatory ) or less likely for the next neurone to fire (this is called inhibitory).
The next level up focuses on the specific neurochemicals and their functions.
When information is passed on through neurons via chemicals, these are called neurochemicals. Analysing these chemicals on a molecular level helps develop medicines and better understand behaviour. The way that different neurochemicals interact can create biological rhythms or cycles in the organisms that influence behaviour.
Neurochemicals include:
| Neurochemical | Effect of Neurochemical |
| Adrenaline | Fight or flight neurotransmitters |
| Noradrenaline | Concentration neurotransmitter |
| Dopamine | Pleasure neurotransmitter |
| Serotonin | Mood neurotransmitter |
| GABA | Calming neurotransmitter |
| Acetylcholine | Learning neurotransmitters |
| Glutamates | Memory neurotransmitter |
| Endorphins | Euphoria neurotransmitter |
Neurotransmitters: These are the short-distance molecular messengers produced in the neurons of the nervous system. Dopamine, serotonin, and GABA are some examples of neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters have to bind to gates in the cell membrane called receptors to create a reaction in the cell. You can think of neurotransmitters like specific keys that only open one type of lock.
Hormones: These are the long-distance molecular messengers that enter the bloodstream and are produced in endocrine cells or glands. Cortisol and testosterone are some examples of hormones. Some hormones act on receptors as the neurotransmitters do, but others can directly enter all the cells of the body, meaning they have all-access passes.
Immune system messengers: These are messenger molecules such as antibodies and cytokines which are produced by immune system cells. They can also enter the bloodstream, but they are responsible only for specific immune system responses.
In one fMRI study, people were shown pictures of their loved ones as well as of strangers. Pictures of their loved ones caused the parts of the brain that are associated with the neurotransmitter dopamine to become more active. Dopamine is a feel-good neurotransmitter. This means there's a possible biological explanation for why a person would feel good when seeing someone they love.
We've been looking at the different structures of the body in increasing detail. But you could also analyse biological rhythms, meaning biological changes over time that involve interactions between genetic, neurochemical, and environmental factors.
Biological rhythms can have different lengths such as:
The ultradian rhythm (shorter than 24 hours): An example of ultradian rhythms are the 90-minute sleep phases that humans repeat while sleeping, blinking or your pulse.
The circadian rhythm (24 hours): An example of circadian rhythm is the human sleep-wake cycle.
Infradian rhythm (more than 24 hours): An example of an infradian rhythm is a woman's menstrual cycle which usually lasts 28 days or seasonal fluctuations such as hibernation in animals.
In one study of a woman's cycle researchers found out that heterosexual women found photos of men with stereotypical facial features (square jawlines and facial hair) more attractive when ovulating than when menstruating. This suggests that biological rhythms also contribute to what we might think of as ‘being in love’.
Many research methods characterise the biopsychological approach, but they fall into two categories: ones that make the biological structures visible such as neural imaging or microscopy, or statistical ones such as twin and family studies to determine genetic similarities.
Biopsychology has significantly advanced the treatment of illnesses (both mental and physical) and the understanding of how genes determine behaviour.
The biopsychological perspective explains the working of the mind through biological structures and functions.
The biopsychological approach assumes that natural selection and neurochemicals determine behaviour, and that brain function is localised.
If a biopsychologist would look at behaviour, they could use an array of methods to analyse what's happening to them on a biological level. Some examples of biological methods that could be used are:
Be perfectly prepared on time with an individual plan.
Test your knowledge with gamified quizzes.
Create and find flashcards in record time.
Create beautiful notes faster than ever before.
Have all your study materials in one place.
Upload unlimited documents and save them online.
Identify your study strength and weaknesses.
Set individual study goals and earn points reaching them.
Stop procrastinating with our study reminders.
Earn points, unlock badges and level up while studying.
Create flashcards in notes completely automatically.
Create the most beautiful study materials using our templates.
Sign up to highlight and take notes. It’s 100% free.
