Neuropsychology: What Is It And What Is Its Object Of Study?
Before learning about this branch of psychology, it is advisable to know what neurosciences are, since Neuropsychology is just that, a science dedicated to the nervous system
Neuroscience, as its name indicates, is a discipline that includes many sciences, which are responsible for studying the nervous system from different points of view, thus contributing to a better understanding and comprehension of it: we talk about neurology, psychology , biology, chemistry, pharmacology, genetics, among others.
Once the above is understood, it is now appropriate to ask ourselves, what is neuropsychology then? It is a neuroscience whose main objective the study of the brain and the relationship between this organ and people’s behavior He is interested in studying both healthy people and those who have suffered brain damage.
Thus, neuropsychology is a scientific discipline that integrates neurology and psychology, so It can be defined as the study of the relationship between different brain functions and people’s behavior
It is a branch of study and application that has experienced a real boom in recent decades due to the great scientific advances in the field of neuroscience and behavioral sciences, and also to the great variety of areas in which This discipline has been useful, mainly in the treatment of various brain disorders.
Some of the main objectives of neuropsychology are identification, detailed description and rehabilitation and therapeutic intervention in various cognitive and functional disorders and also the exploration of the extent of the effects generated by lesions of the human brain or in any region of the central nervous system.
Some of the areas in which neuropsychology professionals intervene and rehabilitate are trauma, vascular accidents, cognitive deterioration due to old age or the deterioration of specific cognitive functions such as attention, memory, language or executive functions. .
In any case, a complete neuropsychological intervention must be based on the application of various therapies and techniques based on scientific evidence and of course must be put into practice by a sufficiently qualified professional specializing in the subject.
Features of neuropsychology
These are the aspects that characterize neuropsychology.
1. Neuroscientific character
As it was mentioned already, It is a behavioral neuroscience that is based on the natural scientific method In order to study the brain, it uses the hypothetico-deductive procedure (it develops a hypothesis, and then disproves or corroborates it, depending on the results that exist after the experimentation) and sometimes the analytical-inductive procedure (it carries out experiments, so that you can test the functional relationship between different controlled variables).
2. Study of higher mental functions
He is interested in studying the neural bases of any human being and how these correlate with various mental processes such as: thinking, executive functions, language, memory, motor skills, perception, etc.
3. He has a great interest in the associative cerebral cortex
Neuropsychology cares a lot about this cortex for two specific reasons. The first is because this area of the brain has as its main responsibility all higher cognitive processes And the second, due to the fact that unfortunately it is one of the parts that tends to be affected the most when there is a disease or disorder; This then results in very diverse damages to the mental functions already mentioned above.
Although it is not the only area that can lead to it, effects on the corpus callosum, basal ganglia, hippocampus, amygdala, thalamus and cerebellum also trigger cognitive and emotional deterioration.
4. Conducts a study of the adverse effects that arise from brain injuries
The following must be made clear: neuropsychology and clinical neuropsychology are not the same The first focuses on studying the brain-behavior relationship in healthy subjects, and to a certain extent it can be understood and seen as cognitive neuroscience. And the second treats only those people who acquire some damage to their nervous system and disorders that derive from it: aphasias, amnesias, apraxias, agnosias, etc.
5. It focuses solely and exclusively on the human being
Just as there is “human” neuropsychology, so to speak, there is also neuropsychology that is interested in the brain-behavior relationship of other mammalian species, each one has its own field, its own specificity.
It should be noted that there are notable differences between the two, one of them is the fact that the cognitive processes of humans are very different on a qualitative and quantitative level from those of animals; For example, the proportion and extension in the neocortex of some animals differs greatly from that of man.
The knowledge that can be acquired from both species also goes in different directions, It is not possible, for example, to induce experimental lesions of the nervous system in people (only in rare cases in which there is therapeutic neurosurgery). That is why psychophysiological research with animals has been valuable to understand in a certain way some basic processes of human beings, but it is in no way the same, total generalizations cannot be established between what happens with them and us, for The same as mentioned above, there are notable differences between one nervous system and another.
Neuropsychology was born as an autonomous entity thanks to the contributions and work of many other disciplines such as neurology, biology, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, experimental psychology, pharmacology, cognitive psychology, among others.
This interdisciplinary character It also goes in the sense that clinical neuropsychologists work hand in hand with other health professionals for the evaluation and treatment of brain damage: neurologists, neurosurgeons, physiotherapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists, clinical psychologists, etc.
