Psychobiology: What Is It And What Does This Science Study?
When psychology and biology come together to find answers to the questions raised by human behavior, psychobiology appears, a scientific discipline that aims to understand how human behavior works based on biological criteria.
In this article we explain what psychobiology is and how it arises what are its areas of study and the most used types of research, as well as its relationship with other neurosciences.
Psychobiology or biopsychology is a scientific discipline that studies psychological phenomena and human behavior from a biological point of view The scope of this science includes topics such as the evolution of the brain, the functioning and development of the nervous system, the understanding of sensory and perceptual processes, and the study of basic behaviors such as sex or reproduction, among many other phenomena.
The study of behavior has a long history, but psychobiology did not become a major neuroscientific discipline until the 20th century. Although it is not possible to specify the exact date of the birth of this science, it should be noted that the publication of The organization of behavior Donald Hebb’s played a key role in its emergence.
In his book, Hebb developed the first comprehensive theory of how some complex psychological phenomena, such as emotions, thoughts or memories, can be produced by brain activity His theory did much to discredit the dogma that psychological functioning is too complex to be the result of the physiological and chemical activity of the brain.
Hebb based his theory on experiments involving both humans and laboratory animals, on clinical cases, and on logical arguments that he developed based on his own observations. This eclectic approach would later become the hallmark of psychobiological research.
Study areas
In general, psychobiology professionals study the same problems as academic psychologists, although they are sometimes limited by the need to use non-human species. As a result of this, most of the literature in psychobiology focuses on mental processes and behaviors that are shared among mammalian species.
Some examples of the most common areas of study in psychobiology They are: the processes of sensation and perception; behaviors that involve motivation (hunger, thirst, sex); learning and memory; sleep and biological rhythms; or aggressive emotions and behavior.
With increasing technical sophistication and the development of more precise non-invasive methods that can be applied to human subjects, from psychobiology it is beginning to contribute to other classic subject areas of psychology such as language, decision making and reasoning, or the implications of consciousness.
Psychobiology has also contributed its knowledge to advance other disciplines, such as medical disorders and psychopathology. Although there are no animal models for all mental illnesses, psychobiology has provided insights into a variety of disorders, including, for example:
1. Parkinson’s disease
A degenerative disorder of the nervous system that affects motor skills and speech.
2. Huntington’s disease
Hereditary neurological disorder whose main symptoms are abnormal movements and lack of coordination
3. Alzheimer’s disease:
This well-known neurodegenerative disease causes progressive cognitive deterioration that causes behavioral changes and neuropsychiatric alterations.
4. Clinical depression
A common psychiatric disorder characterized by a persistent decrease in mood, loss of interest in usual activities, and a decreased ability to experience pleasure.
5. Schizophrenia
Mental illness characterized by deficiencies in the perception or expression of reality most commonly manifesting as auditory hallucinations, delusions, disorganized speech and thinking in the context of significant social or occupational dysfunction.
Neurodevelopmental disorder that impairs social interaction and communication and causes restricted and repetitive behavior.
7. Anxiety
Physiological state that is characterized by the presence of cognitive, somatic, emotional and behavioral components. These combine to create feelings and sensations of fear, apprehension or worry.
What relationship does this discipline have with other neurosciences?
The sciences that study the nervous system and its relationship with cognition and human behavior or what have come to be called neurosciences, are disciplines in which teamwork and interdisciplinarity are very important.
Biopsychologists are scientists who bring knowledge of behavior and behavioral research methods to their research. It is this orientation towards the research of human behavior that makes its contribution to the rest of neurosciences so relevant.
In addition, Psychobiology would not be the integrative discipline that it is without the contribution of other neurosciences like those set out below:
Types of research in psychobiology
Psychobiology experts are responsible for studying many different psychological phenomena and they approach their research from different approaches. Psychobiological research can involve human and animal subjects; It can be done through experimental or observational research; and it can also be basic or applied. Let’s see in more detail what each of them consists of.
1. Experimentation with humans and animals
Psychobiological research has been carried out in both humans and animals, especially mice and rats, although cats, dogs and primates have also been used. The advantage of working with people is that they can follow instructions and can report their subjective experiences, and of course, that they have a human brain from which they can draw more accurate conclusions, compared to the brains of other animals.
With everything, the differences between human brains and those of related animal species are more quantitative than qualitative Additionally, non-human animals have the advantage of having a simpler nervous system, making it easier to reveal brain-behavior interactions. Likewise, the fact of researching with animals facilitates the comparative method when studying biological processes.
Research in psychobiology includes scientific experiments and observational studies; In the latter, no variable is manipulated and only the data that is observed naturally is collected.
Experimental studies are used to study causality ; that is, to discover what causes a certain phenomenon. To conduct an experiment involving living subjects, the experimenter must design two or more conditions under which they will be tested. Typically, a different group of subjects is tested in each experimental condition (between-subjects design), although it is sometimes possible to test the same group under each condition (within-subjects design).
The experimenter assigns the subjects to each condition, administers the tests and measures the result, in such a way that there is only one difference that can be compared between the different experimental conditions: the independent variable. The variable measured by the experimenter to evaluate the effect of the independent variable is called the dependent variable. If the experiment is done correctly, any differences in the dependent variable between the conditions must have been caused by the independent variable.
3. Basic and applied research
Research in psychobiology can be basic or applied. Basic research is motivated mainly by curiosity of the researcher; It is done solely for the purpose of acquiring new knowledge on the subject.
By contrast, with applied research we seek to generate some direct benefit for a given population.
Obviously, it is not necessary for a research project to be only basic or applied, since many programs have elements of both approaches and feed off each other because the knowledge generated in basic research is later used to generate new practical applications from applied research. .
