The 3 differences between neuropsychology and psychobiology

Psychology is a profession, an academic discipline, and a science that deals with the analysis and study of mental processes in human beings. When thinking about this branch of knowledge and clinical diagnosis, most people tend to resort to the figure of the psychologist and the psychiatrist, two professions well established in the global health panorama mental.

Even so, with the advancement of science, distinctions between different branches are becoming more and more necessary. For example, did you know that terms such as neuropsychology, psychobiology, neurobiology, or behavioral neurology are widely related to the world of human behavior?

Yes, knowledge has no borders, and therefore, it is increasingly necessary to specialize more to understand each process and engine that drives human behavior. Here we will see what are the differences between neuropsychology and psychobiology, relatively recent terms in the world of mental health.

• Related article: "Neuropsychology: what is it and what is its object of study?"

Differences between neuropsychology and psychobiology: from behavior to neurons

To understand the differences between the two terms, it is necessary to go to the etymological roots of both words. As we can see, both contain the prefixal element "psycho", from the Greek, which means "soul" or "mental activity".

The linguistic similarities end here, giving us a clue that both branches have some kind of relationship with the study of the human mind. In one of the terms we observe the prefixal element “neuro”, which again, in Greek, refers to the nerve or the nervous system. The rest of the word in the second term, “psychobiology”, is quite self-explanatory, since it refers to biology, the science that studies living beings and their vital processes.

Thus, only with words, we can already intuit that one of the disciplines will focus on the nervous system, and the other, on explaining behaviors from a biological point of view, truth?. Now, let's start with the differences between neuropsychology and psychobiology.

1. Question of focus

Neuropsychology is defined as a clinical discipline and specialty that converges between neurology (medical specialty of disorders of the nervous system) and psychology. In simpler words, it could be said that this branch studies the effects of an injury, accident or abnormality of the central nervous system on the different cognitive processes of the human being. Not everything is a question of diseases, as it also seeks knowledge of the neural bases of complex mental processes in healthy individuals.

These "complex mental processes" respond to mechanisms that humans put into practice continuously, even unconsciously. Some of them are attention, memory, language, perception, praxis (acquired motor skills), executive functions and emotions. All these components, taken together, define us both as a species and as individuals, and condition our day-to-day life and the way we relate to the environment.

Secondly, psychobiology takes a much more primal and evolutionary approach, as it bases its foundations on the understanding of animal behavior through biological processes.

From a purely psychobiological point of view, behavior is nothing more than the response that a living being gives to a stimulus from the environment that affects it. Like the rest of the activities carried out by animals, the behavior would respond to a function adaptive, a mere reflection of the adaptation of the species to the environment in which it is found, in order to from maximize your chances of survival and leave its genetic imprint on future generations. Let's delve more into this concept.

• You may be interested in: "Neurosciences: the new way of understanding the human mind"

2. What is behavior and how is it modulated?

Neuropsychology seeks, like any discipline related to psychology, the understanding of human behavior, but especially, its relationship with the functioning of the brain.

If we take into account that the brain is a highly plastic organ, we can postulate that it will undergo changes in its activity and structure throughout the individual's life (especially in the early years of development), which will lead to behavioral variations.

These statements are not merely speculative, since various studies have shown that, for example, experience modifies the human brain continuously, strengthening or weakening the synapses that connect neurons. The brain, as we see, is the central point and axis of this discipline. Some of the dogmas of neuropsychology are the following:

• The psychological and behavioral aspects depend on the brain structure.
• Each psychological faculty depends on the brain region that controls it.
• The quality and effectiveness of each faculty depends on the development of the brain mass associated with it.
• These powers are innate and inheritable.

As we can see, behavior, according to neuropsychology, cannot be understood without the brain and its possible modifications, both by alterations and pathologies and by natural processes, such as learning.

Psychobiology, on the other hand, does not seem to have a specific interest in the human brain. For example, the evolutionary branch of it tries to understand behavior as a product of natural selection. Natural selection, postulated by Darwin, tells us that individuals with characteristics that promote their survival are positively selected, since they will be the ones that will reproduce and give rise to offspring. Over time, populations will inherit these successful characteristics, since the less viable will remain halfway and will not have genetic representation in future generations of the species.

Therefore, the behavior itself can be understood as a product of a phylogenetic history within the human species. That is, as the set of responses that, in ancient times, promoted the survival and reproductive success of our ancestors, the "evolutionary achievements."

So that, human behavior, according to psychobiology, is not so dependent on the cerebral cortex and its components, such as the phylogenetic history of our species, the genetic endowment of each individual and how it modulates their responses, and the environmental factors that modulate the responses contained in the genes. Complex, right?

3. The response to aggressiveness: a practical case

The differences between neuropsychology and psychobiology can be understood when we turn to studies of both branches. For example, how will each of them approach the study of aggression in humans?

For instance, neuropsychology will look, first, at the structural differences in the anterior regions of the cortex that modulate violent responses. Questions such as: are cortical imbalances related to aggressive responses? What relationship does neuroanatomy have with antisocial and violent behaviors? What regions of the prefrontal cortex are associated with aggressive behavior and what happens if they change?

Instead, psychobiology will take a completely different approach. Faced with the violent behavior of certain humans, will look first at the relationships of the hormones that cause these behaviors and what evolutionary significance they have the same on humans and the rest of vertebrates.

In these cases, questions such as: what social agents cause changes in serotonin levels in the body of the aggressive person will be posed? What is the function of the components that promote violence and how are they expressed in animals? What is the ethological significance of this behavior? Did you maximize the survival of the beings that displayed it in your time?

Conclusions

As we have seen, neuropsychology and psychobiology are different terms, but not mutually exclusive. The first is responsible for explaining behavioral variations in humans using the brain as the central axis, especially in its morphological modifications. Psychobiology, on the other hand, is based on studying the phylogenetic inheritance of these behaviors, their hormonal mechanisms, and how these types of responses are translated in the animal world.

As complex as both branches may seem, one thing is clear: knowledge of human behavior, both from a physiological and an evolutionary point of view, is essential. The more we know about ourselves, the faster we will improve both as individuals and as a society as a whole.

Bibliographic references:

• Alcázar-Córcoles, M. Á., Verdejo-García, A., Bouso-Saiz, J. C., & Bezos-Saldaña, L. (2010). Neuropsychology of impulsive aggression. Journal of Neurology, 50 (5), 291-299.
• Moreno, L. M. G. (2002). Psychobiology and education. Complutense Journal of Education, 13 (1), 211-227.
• Pinel, J., & Barnes, S. J. (2018, April). Psychobiology. Edra.
• Vázquez, S. S., & Fernández, A. G. (1991). A conceptual approach to Psychobiology. Journal of general and applied psychology: Journal of the Spanish Federation of Psychology Associations, 44 (4), 389-394.