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Psy 340 Biological Psychology Paper

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Psy 340 Biological Psychology Paper
Biological Psychology Worksheet July 17, 2012 PSY/340

Biological Psychology Psychoanalytic and behavioral perspectives in human behavior influenced the early views of psychology. This was because the role between behavior and the brain was not understood and science had not evolved far enough to understand the complexities of the human brain. However, as science and technology developed, the ability to learn what regions of the brain were associated with specific types of behavior was explored and the area of biological psychology evolved. Biological psychology focuses on the neural properties of psychology ranging from the fundamental unit of the brain, the neuron, to the highest levels of cortical organizations in the brain. It takes into account many different biological variations explored on the nature side of the nature vs. nurture debate. Topics that are in the field of biological psychology include neuroscience, neurochemistry, and neurophysiology. The development of brain scanning equipment, such as MRI, allows scientists to look at regions of the brain that become active due to working on certain tasks as well as looking for abnormal regions of the brain that are correlated with abnormal behavior.
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Even today, much is still not directly understood how the brain works. The 1950s marks the start of the field of biopsychology focusing on Penfield as he began to research into neurochemistry and underlying behavior it causes. From this, scientists began to learn about the structure of the brain and how neurotransmitters and electrochemical signals are used in order to communicate throughout the body. Development of more specialized equipment and research into pharmaceuticals and surgical techniques has lead to a greater understanding of how the brain works and the ways in which disorders can be treated in

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