Physiological Psychology: Physiological psychology is the study of the physiological,

evolutionary, and developmental mechanisms of behavior and experience. The term

physiological psychology emphasizes that the goal is to relate biology to issues of
psychology.

Physiological psychology is the division of biopsychology that studies the neural mechanisms
of behavior through the direct manipulation and recording of the brain in controlled
experiments—surgical and electrical methods are most common. The subjects of
physiological psychology research are almost always laboratory animals because the focus on
direct brain manipulation and controlled experiments preclude the use of human participants
in most instances.

Relation between Physiological Psychology and Other disciplines of Neuroscience

● Neuropsychology is that branch of psychology that deals with the relationship

between the nervous system, especially the brain, and cerebral or mental functions
such as language, memory, and perception

Evolutionary Perspective
The brains of humans differ from the brains of other mammals primarily in their overall size
and the extent of their cortical development. In other words, the differences between the
brains of human and those of related species are more quantitative than
qualitative, and thus many of the principles of human brain function can be clarified by the
study of nonhumans.

Physiological psychology
It is the division of biopsychology that studies the neural mechanisms of behavior through the
direct manipulation and recording of the brain in controlled experiments—surgical and
electrical methods are most common. The subjects of physiological psychology research are
almost always laboratory animals because the focus on direct brain manipulation and
controlled experiments preclude the use of human participants in most instances. The
emphasis is usually on research that contributes to the development of theories of the neural
control of behavior.
Psychopharmacology is similar to physiological psychology except that it focuses on the
manipulation of neural activity and behavior with drugs. The study of the effects of drugs on
the brain and behavior has become so specialized that psychopharmacology is regarded as a
separate discipline. Although drugs are sometimes used by psychopharmacologists to study
the basic principles of brain–behavior interaction, the purpose of many
psychopharmacological experiments is to develop therapeutic drugs

Neuropsychology is the study of the psychological effects of brain damage in human

patients. Because human volunteers cannot ethically be exposed to experimental treatments
that endanger normal brain function, neuropsychology deals almost exclusively with case
studies and quasi-experimental studies of patients with brain damage resulting from disease,
accident, or neurosurgery. The outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres—the cerebral cortex—
is most likely to be damaged by accident or surgery; this is one reason why neuropsychology
has focused on this important part of the human brain.

Psychophysiology is the division of biopsychology that studies the relation between

physiological activity and psychological processes in human subjects. Because the subjects of
psychophysiological research are human, psychophysiological recording procedures are
typically noninvasive; that is, the physiological activity is recorded from the surface of the
body. The common psychophysiological measures are muscle tension, eye movement, and
several indicators of autonomic nervous system activity (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, pupil
dilation, and electrical conductance of the skin). The autonomic nervous system (ans) is the
division of the nervous system that regulates the body’s inner environment.

Cognitive neuroscience is the youngest division of biopsychology. Cognitive neuroscientists

study the neural bases of cognition, a term that generally refers to higher intellectual
processes such as thought, memory, attention and complex perceptual processes. Because of
its focus on cognition, most cognitive neuroscience research involves human participants, and
because of its focus on human participants, its methods tend to be noninvasive, rather than
involving penetration or direct manipulation of the brain.

An Evolutionary Perspective of Human Behaviour

Evolutionary psychology is a scientific discipline that approaches human behavior through a
lens that incorporates the effects of evolution. It combines the science of psychology with the
study of biology.

Evolutionary psychologists seek to explain people's emotions, thoughts, and responses based
on Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection,

According to evolutionary psychology, our ancestors who had psychological advantages

passed down these behavioral traits to future generations, resulting in a population of
offspring that then had these adaptive behaviors.

Psychological abilities, such as reading others' intentions, making friends, and gaining trust,
are known to help a person throughout life. Evolutionary psychologists believe that these
skills are rooted in deeply complex neural circuits in the brain and that they are inherited.
These innate behavioral tendencies are often tempered by input from our culture, family, and
individual factors, but the principle of evolutionary psychology is that the underlying neural
mechanisms are shaped by evolutionary forces.

At its most basic level, evolutionary psychology explains skills that we consider to be
relatively simple and common to most humans, such as language.

At some point in history, early man developed language skills beyond grunting and pointing.
The ability to communicate complex thoughts was beneficial for human survival, and, as a
result, language acquisition abilities evolved and advanced through the process of natural
selection. Evolutionary psychologists may argue that advanced language skills contribute to a
person's safety, survival, and reproduction.

There are five basic principles of evolutionary psychology:

1) Your brain is a physical system that instructs you to behave in a manner appropriate
and adaptive to your environment.

2) The neural circuitry of your brain helps you solve problems in an appropriate manner.
The specific ways that the neural circuitry is constructed were directed by natural
selection, over the course of generations.
 3) Most of your psychological behaviors are determined subconsciously by your neural
circuitry, and you are largely unaware of these subconscious processes. You rely on
conscious decision-making to guide you in your daily life, and you may be aware of
the conclusions resulting from the complex neural circuitry while remaining unaware
of the underlying process involved.

4) Neural circuits in the brain are specialized to solve different adaptive problems. For
example, the circuitry involved in vision is not the same as for vomiting.

5) Your mind is based on adaptive changes that originated in the Pleistocene era.

History of Traditional Methods

The structure of the brain is quite complex and understanding its working is all the more
challenging for the researchers. With the discovery of Broca's area, it was concluded that
different brain areas had different functions. In 1861, Paul Broca, a French neurologist, found
that one of his patients who had lost the ability to speak, had damage to the left frontal cortex.
More patients with loss of speech showed damage in and around this area, which is now
known as Broca's area. Thus, the research conducted in this area concludes that brain damage
causes effects like an increase or decrease in hunger, changes in emotional responses, to
mention just a few. Let us see the main methods used in the study of the brain.

Recording and Stimulating Neural Activity

• Stimulation 🡪 technique to see such changes

• Three types: Electrical stimulation, Chemical Stimulation, and Transcranial magnetic

stimulation

• Through stimulation neurons are activated.

Chemical Stimulation • Usually accomplished by injecting a small amount of
excitatory amino acid such as “kainic or glutamic acid”,
normally activates the neurons at their receptor sites
 • Injections of the chemicals are done through an
apparatus that is permanently attached to the skull of the
animal to observe it’s behavior several times

• Advantage🡪 only cell body is stimulated and the axon,

hence exciting only the cell bodies

• When chemicals are injected into the brain, its molecule

is diffused over a region that includes many different
types of neuron- excitatory neurons, inhibitory neurons,
interneurons, etc., resulting in affecting all these neurons
which later gives unlikely normal brain activity

Electrical Stimulation ● Involves passing an electrical current through a wire

inserted into the brain
● The electrical recordings can be made over a long
period of time, such as when the animal is
recovering from any surgery. This is known as
chronic recording.
● If the scientist is focusing to study a particular nerve
pathway or where the information is going, then the
acute recording is done. These recordings of the
electrical signals are then displayed through an
oscilloscope or ink writing oscilloscope.

Transcranial Magnetic • Magnetic fields are used to stimulate neurons by

Stimulation
inducing electrical current in brain tissue

• TMS requires a coil of wires in the shape of numeral 8

to stimulate neurons in the human cerebral cortex

• The coil is placed on the top of the skull to locate the

particular area
 • Pulses of electricity send magnetic field that activates
neurons in the cortex

• TMS has been used extensively in treating the symptoms

of neurological and mental disorders

Genetic Methods

Two of the most fundamental approaches in genetic engineering to better understand the
impact of genes entail creating organisms that lack certain genes or replacing genes that are
present in an organism. These two approaches are, respectively, gene knockout techniques
and gene replacement techniques.

Gene Knockout - gene knockout techniques are procedures for creating

technique organisms that lack a particular gene under
investigation
- Many gene knockout studies have been conducted to
clarify the neural mechanisms of behaviour.
For example,
- Ruby and colleagues (2002) and Hattar and colleagues
(2003) used melanopsin knockout mice (mice in whom
the gene for the synthesis of melanopsin has been
deleted) to study the role of melanopsin in regulating
the light–dark cycles that control circadian (about 24
hours) rhythms of bodily function—for example, daily
cycles of sleep, eating, and body temperature.

Gene Replacement - It is now possible to replace one gene with another.

Technique gene replacement techniques have created interesting
possibilities for research and therapy.
 - For example, Shen and colleagues (2008) created
transgenic mice by inserting a defective human gene
that had been found to be associated with schizophrenia
in a Scottish family with a particularly high incidence of
the condition. The transgenic mice displayed a variety
of cerebral abnormalities (e.g., reduced cerebral cortex
and enlarged ventricles) and atypical behaviours
reminiscent of human schizophrenia.

Neurochemical Method

Neurochemical Method • Particular types of neurons are responsible for

secreting particular neurotransmitters

• At times we also want to measure the amount of

chemical secretion by neurons in a specific region of
the brain

How do drugs affect • Farm workers were seen exposed to insecticides

behavior?
(organophosphates)

• Reported intense and bizarre dreams and even

hallucinations while awake

Explanation
• Drug stimulating the neural circuit involved in REM
sleep

How do these drugs work?

These are acetylcholine inhibitors 🡪 when released they
prevent the rapid destruction of it, hence prolonging the
activity.
LOCALISING RECEPTORS
Autoradiography

• Autoradiography: 2DG injected and slices of brain tissues are exposed to a solution
containing radioactive ligand

• The tissues are later rinsed in order to ascertain the availability of radioactivity remaining
with the molecules bound to the receptors

• Finally autoradiographic method is used to localise it

• Nowadays PET scans have replaced it.

•
Behaviour Genetics: Predicting Individual Differences

Definition: Behaviour genetics is the study of our differences and the

relative effects of heredity and environment.

Genes: Our Codes for Life Segments within DNA consist of genes that make proteins
to determine our development.

Genome - the common sequence within human DNA. It is

this shared genetic profile that makes us humans, rather than
chimpanzees or tulips

Twin and Adoption Study Separated Twins: A number of studies compared identical
twins reared separately from birth, or close thereafter, and
found numerous similarities
They will show similarities in personality, Intelligence
Abilities, Attitudes, Interests, Fears, Brain Waves and Heart
Rate

Biological vs. Adoptive Relatives: Adoption studies

suggest that adoptees (who may be biologically unrelated)
 tend to be different from their adoptive parents and siblings.

Molecular Genetics Molecular genetics studies the molecular structure and

function of genes

Find the genes that together orchestrate traits or reveal at-

risk populations for diseases

Heritability Heritability is the extent to which variation among

individuals can be attributed to their differing genes.

In other words, if the environment is equal, then the results

between two individuals would be more attributable to
genetic factors (high heritability).

Or, if the environment is vastly different, but the genetic

factors are similar, the results would be due to low
heritability.

Nature and Nurture Some human traits are fixed, such as having two eyes.
However, most psychological traits can change with
environmental experience. Genes provide choices for the
organism to change its form or traits when environmental
variables change. Therefore, genes are pliable or self-
regulating. In other words, genes react to the
environmental conditions.

Gene-Environment Genes can influence traits that affect responses, and the
Interaction environment can affect gene activity.

A genetic predisposition that makes a child restless and

hyperactive evokes an angry response from his parents. A
stressful environment can trigger genes to manufacture
neurotransmitters leading to depression.
Epigenetics Epigenetics studies the molecular mechanisms by which
environmental triggers can switch genes on or off.