1.4 Why Studying Biopsychology Is Important

If you look at any textbook in developmental, cognitive, sensation and perception, abnormal psychology, clinical psychology, learning and memory, or introduction to psychology, you’ll often find the first or second chapter provides an overview of how the nervous system works, how neurons communicate, and the basics of neurochemistry, genetics, and some neuroanatomy. Many theories in psychology are rooted in how the nervous system functions. For example, theories of associative learning discuss excitation and inhibition of association, which are based on the different ways that neurons send signals to other neurons (Bouton, 2007). Stages in development often coincide with the growth and development of the brain. For example, humans are born with billions of brain cells that are not well connected, and it is early life experiences that form astonishingly complex patterns of organization (Tierney & Nelson, 2009). During adolescence, the part of the brain dealing with emotions (the limbic system) matures a bit sooner than areas involved in reason, planning, and inhibition of impulses (prefrontal lobe) (Casey et al., 2008). As we get older our brain shrinks a bit, resulting in some cognitive impairment. Also, with age comes greater susceptibility to neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease (Hung et al., 2010). Having a foundation of knowledge of these neurological changes can support a developmental psychologist’s understanding of life changes. People working with children in and out of schools should have a good understanding of developmental disorders. For example, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an estimated 1 in 150 children was diagnosed to be on the autism spectrum in 2000, but in 2014, the estimate was closer to 1 in 59 children (Baio et al., 2018). Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) increases a child’s risk for experiencing a traumatic brain injury (TBI), and about 30 percent of children that are diagnosed with ADHD had received a TBI sometime in their life (Eme, 2012; Karic et al., 2019; Nigg et al., 2010). Also, many of these children take a psychostimulant like Ritalin or Adderall—understanding how these drugs affect the brain and behavior will be an essential part of a career working with children.

People working in any form of applied psychology will also interact with and help those with neuropsychiatric and mood disorders. The National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) estimates that approximately one in five people in the United States have some form of psychological disorder, with 1 in 20 having a severe psychological disorder such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder (NAMI, 2023). In 2018, approximately 8.7 percent of U.S. adults were diagnosed with depression, but this number increased to 14.4 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic (Daly et al., 2021). There was also a significant increase in the prevalence of anxiety disorders, which showed about a 25 percent increase to about 35 percent of the U.S. population during the pandemic (Delpino et al., 2022). These disorders are highly influenced by genetics (Bray & O’Donovan, 2018) and are the product of specific neurological changes. To be most effective at treating these disorders, one should understand the symptomology and environmental influences, as well as the many neurological and genetic causes and predispositions. Finally, all of these disorders are treated with different forms of therapy (e.g., behavioral modification therapy and/or psychopharmacological therapy like medications). Advances in medications to help people with problems is nothing short of amazing and medications, when appropriately taken, can help people with pain, sleep disturbances, seizures, depression, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety, addiction, and many other mental and physical health issues. The number of people taking psychoactive medication has been increasing tremendously in the past few decades. An estimated one in six people in the United States is currently taking some form of a prescribed psychoactive medication (drugs that affect the brain to treat psychological disorders), with about 12 percent taking antidepressants, about eight percent taking anxiolytics (drugs for anxiety) or hypnotics (sleeping aid), and about one to two percent taking antipsychotics (for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder) (Miller, 2016). Prescriptions for antidepressants and anxiolytics also spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic (Benistand et al., 2022). These medications, however, do not always work for all people, can interact with other drugs and foods, and often produce unpleasant to severe side effects. To be the most effective at their job, a clinical psychologist, therapist, behavioral analyst, or counselor will want to know what psychoactive medications their client is taking, how these drugs affect the nervous system, how they modify behavior, and whether the drug has the potential for addiction.

Substance use disorder, or drug addiction, is a rather common psychological disorder. An estimated 107,000 died of drug overdoses in 2022 in part due to the rise of the use of opioids like oxycodone, heroin, and especially fentanyl (Kariisa et al., 2023). Legal drugs like alcohol and cigarettes are considered by some even more harmful to individuals and societies. However, some drugs such as LSD, psilocybin (magic mushrooms), ketamine, and marijuana are seeing a revival in their possible usage as therapeutic substances to help with depression and anxiety disorders. This research may develop necessary treatments for certain neuropsychiatric disorders, but the investigation is just beginning. Knowing how these drugs work on the brain, how the brain changes with addiction, and how treatment also changes the brain will give a psychologist or therapist a more complete understanding of treatments.

There are a lot of myths and misunderstandings about the brain and neuroscience. Taking a course in biopsychology can help dispel these confusions—here are a few examples. One of the most common myths is that we only use 10 percent of our brain or our brain’s capacity (whatever that means). I’ve heard this spouted by self-help gurus, and it shows up in movies and TV shows. For example, the film Lucy (Besson-Silla & Besson, 2014) is about a woman played by Scarlett Johansson who is exposed to some strange blue chemical, which causes her brain’s “capacity” to increase from 10 percent to 100 percent. The increase in her brain’s capacity gives her extraordinary abilities—these new abilities were predicted by a scientist played by Morgan Freeman. Entertaining as the movie was, we actually use our whole brain. Neurons take a lot of energy and maintenance, and if neurons are highly active, they grow and expand, but if they are not active, they wither away. It is a “use-it-or-lose-it” system. That doesn’t mean that certain areas of the brain are not more active at times or that activity isn’t affected by sleep, wakefulness, or relaxation. Also, you can certainly improve memory, understanding, or motor skills with practice and focus, and these all can change the brain.

Another myth is related to the idea that some people are more “right-brained,” making them more creative, and others are “left-brained,” making them more analytical. Each side of the brain does have its minor specialties; for example, language is typically processed on the left side. There is no evidence, however, that individuals show elevated activity on one side or the other. In addition, the right and left sides of the brain are continually communicating with each other through a large tract of nerve fibers called the corpus callosum. While there is some lateralization of actions and functions of the nervous system, it is overstating and simply not true that there are right-brained and left-brained people.

Another myth is that we only have the five senses of hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, and touch. In fact, we have many systems in our body and brain that sense levels of salts, sugars, fats, hormones, pheromones, oxygen, and water floating in our blood—we even have a sensory system for the passage of time, including short intervals or an entire day (circadian rhythms). We have sensory systems to detect pressure, vibration, stretching, dull pain, sharp pain, and where our hands are in relationship to other parts of the body. To date, however, there is no evidence that we have an extrasensory perception like telepathy (mind reading) or telekinesis (moving objects with our mind), but we are developing technologies that are already allowing us to do these extraordinary feats with fancy neuroimaging machines and brain–computer interface technology—but more on that later.

Finally, one of the most dangerous myths is that immunizations (vaccines) cause or contribute to the neurodevelopmental disorder of autism. We will discuss this issue in greater length in Chapter 15 “Addiction, Developmental Disorders, Anxiety, and Affective Disorders”, but there have been many extremely large studies to show that immunizations do not contribute to the risk of autism. Vaccinations save lives and have kept billions of people from developing avoidable diseases like polio for many decades. Recently, the misinformation about vaccines influenced many people to decline to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, which contributed to thousands of people needlessly dying from the disease (Gisondi et al., 2022; Lee et al., 2022). The stubborn myth about vaccines has caused an increase in people not vaccinating their children, resulting in the rise of diseases like measles, whooping cough, and influenza, which can all be deadly.

There are several misunderstandings about where neuroscience is today and what we can do. First, the revolutionary changes in brain scanning and imaging is incredible. Machines like functional MRIs, PET scans, BOLD (blood-oxygen-level imaging) imaging, and diffuse tensor imaging have produced fantastic images of the brain and the interconnection between neurons. They have advanced our understanding of the working brain in countless ways. Nevertheless, even the images that are at the most microscopic level of activity of the brain are still looking at millions of neurons and billions of connections between neurons. We may be able to identify tumors, the degeneration brought on by Parkinson’s disease, or the origins of epileptic seizures. However, we are not yet able to look at a brain scan and identify if people are criminal or potentially have an alcohol abuse disorder, or if they are kind to animals. The idea that one can tell a lot about a person by imaging their brain is often overstated. That said, there are many neuroimaging studies that are starting to identify brain activity with complex connections to such psychological processes as learning, decision-making, emotional reactions, and more. It’s an exciting time in neuroimaging, and these techniques are only getting better at helping us understand the complexity of the brain.

There can be several misunderstandings about neuropsychiatric disorders and pharmacological treatments. First, there is a certain amount of social stigma that comes with a diagnosis of a neuropsychiatric disorder that we typically do not see with other medical conditions such as cancer or heart disease. This can lead to associating people with schizophrenia as violent (Walsh et al., 2002), mothers with postpartum depression as poor mothers (Thorsteinsson et al., 2018), soldiers with PTSD as not being tough enough (Greene-Shortridge et al., 2007), and people with substance use disorder as lacking morals or having weak willpower (Szalavitz, 2016). These stigmas can lead to mistreatment or discrimination but can also reduce the likelihood of people seeking treatment. There is also a tendency for people to assume that once a person is given a diagnosis of a disorder, they have all possible symptoms. With any disorder there is a great deal of variability and individuality in symptoms, progression, and neurological changes. Finally, there have been tremendous advancements in medication that are effective treatments for many disorders, such as antidepressants to treat depression, antipsychotics to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, anxiolytics to treat anxiety disorders, and psychostimulants to treat ADHD. That said, finding the right treatment regimens can prove complicated. Often several medications must be tried to find one that works, or in some cases, medication may not reduce symptoms well at all. Also, many medications produce side effects that can range from unpleasant to severe. The complexity of these issues requires a fundamental understanding of neuroscience. These issues are addressed more in Chapter 15 “Addiction, Developmental Disorders, Anxiety, and Affective Disorders” and Chapter 16 “Other Neuropsychiatric Disorders, Brain Injuries, and Brain Pathologies”.

A good understanding of neuroscience will help protect you and the people around you from purchasing products with fraudulent claims about how they “help” the brain. Here are a few examples. HomeopathySupplements that claim to contain microscopic amounts of chemicals to help with ailments. These supplements are mostly ineffective and misleading. claims to be a medical system based on the idea that microscopic amounts of some chemicals, or the “essence” of a chemical, can cure the body of ailments. There are homeopathic “medications” for several disorders, including depression, anxiety, and pain, and many of these pills are expensive. Research with homeopathy finds that these pills typically work no better than a placebo (a sugar pill). Any feeling of change is likely due to the placebo effectThe feeling that a pill has changed symptoms though the medication has no active pharmacological effect. The placebo effect is typically temporary., which is a change in neurochemistry and behavior because someone believes that they have purchased a pill that works to relieve their symptoms. It’s been found that the more expensive the pill, the greater the placebo effect—“It must work if I spent so much money on it.” These effects are typically not long lasting and do nothing to remedy or alleviate the underlying causes of the symptoms. I find it a bit humorous, and a little sad, that a person can buy homeopathic products for their dog. I guess that for it to work, the dog has to “know” its owner spent a lot of money on the pill, and the dog has to believe it will work. Any changes in the dog from taking a homeopathic pill or oil is likely due to the placebo effect by proxy—the owner thinks they see a difference, or they are paying more attention to and taking better care of their pet.

Homeopathy includes any number of pills, creams, and drinks that are said to boost intelligence, cure depression, or reduce anxiety. In 2016, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (U.S. GAO) evaluated supplements that claimed to improve memory and mitigate the effects of Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. The industry doubled its sales from 2006 to 2015 to about $643 million. According to Bloomberg (2023), the global brain supplement market is estimated to be a 7.70 billion dollar industry and is projected to grow to over 16 billion dollars by 2030. The U. S. GAO found that in most cases, there was no scientific evidence to support the product’s claim and, in some cases, the supplement did not even contain the advertised ingredients (Memory Supplements, 2018). However, supplements, herbal remedies, and homeopathy are not regulated by the FDA in the same way as other drugs. Most, if not all, do not do what they claim. While writing this chapter, I saw a commercial for the supplement Prevagen, which is supposed to help with memory loss and is recommended for people with Alzheimer’s disease. The commercial said it is made from chemicals found in jellyfish, which for some reason seems more scientific, I guess. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) found that the claims of Prevagen were not valid and filed a lawsuit against the company that makes Prevagen, citing misleading statements in labeling and advertisements (Fair, 2017). A class in biopsychology will not only give you the ability to question the claims made by these fraudulent companies but will also demonstrate the importance of good research methodology.

There is a long history of wonderful, life-saving, and life-changing discoveries in neuroscience. However, there are also stories that we will address in this book about when research and medical practice produced tragic results. As mentioned briefly earlier, in the late 1800s and early 1900s, people used the size of a person’s skull and bumps on the head to make judgments about a person’s morality, intelligence, and character. These crude tests, along with poorly designed or misrepresented intelligence tests, were used to support racial bigotry, discrimination, sterilization, and mass murder (refer to Chapter 5 “Genetics and Evolution”). There was also a movement in the mid-1900s that thought that the symptoms of mental disorders could be fixed by drilling holes in the temple or behind the eye and swirling around metal rods in the forebrain. Thousands of people received these frontal lobotomies, resulting in horrible consequences (refer to Chapter 2 “Functional Anatomy”). During the early part of the 1900s, the Bayer Corporation developed and marketed a drug to help people kick their addiction to morphine, and they named it heroin (Sneader, 1998). In the 1990s, the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma created a time-release pain medication that they claimed was not as addictive as heroin or morphine called oxycodone, which is, in part, responsible for the current opioid epidemic. It may have been that the researchers and companies at the time thought they were doing the right thing or were inaccurate in their understanding, or perhaps they were unscrupulous, racist, or too profit-focused.

Neuroscience, genetics, pharmacology, and brain–computer interface technology are all moving forward at lightning speeds. In a way, we can “read” thoughts using brain scans (refer to Chapter 7 “Hearing, Language, and Lateralization”). We can add or eliminate simple memories in rats, or genetically engineer mice to have greater cognitive abilities such as improved memory- or problem-solving skills. Researchers can splice genes from bioluminescent jellyfish into mice to make the neurons in their brain glow different colors or make an entire animal like a monkey, pig, or fish glow in the dark. Surgeons can implant electrodes in the brains of patients so they can dial down tremors in Parkinson’s disease, stop seizures, and even elevate moods in people with severe depression. I am not saying whether these innovations are good or bad, only that they demonstrate the revolutionary changes that are happening today. Having a good understanding of neuroscience provides the tools to look at today’s innovations and thinkers with a more critical eye. Hopefully, this will give you a knowledgeable voice in policies and practices in the future.

Studying neuroscience and the brain is just fascinating. New tools and techniques are emerging, allowing us to peer into the workings of the mind, including thoughts, perception, and even consciousness. This could be a good textbook for students wanting to go into experimental psychology and neuroscience. Most areas of experimental psychology explore some aspect of underlying biological causes, whether research is in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, learning and decision-making, or sensation and perception. Also, this book could give directions for those not sure which area in psychology they want to study.

Neuroscience is also becoming more integrated into other subdisciplines in psychology, and in other fields like economics, media, nutrition, gerontology, and even winemaking. I am currently collaborating with a group in the department of enology and viticulture (winemaking) to create a physiological measure of people’s reaction to the smell and taste of wine. In our current research, participants smell different components of wine and rate them as pleasant or unpleasant while we measure heart rate, skin responses, and facial expression. It is an amazing time to study the brain and behavior, and the future is only going to get more interesting.