Biopsychology+and+Neuroscience

Biopsychology is the field of psychology that focuses on the way the brain influences both cognition and behavior. Interest in biopsychology began to rise after the advent of neuroscience in the late eighteenth century. It was recognized in 1944 by the American Psychological Association as Physiological Psychology and Comparative Psychology. These two fields were combined by 1962 to form Biopsychology. Today, the field is known as Behavioral Neuroscience and Comparative Psychology. Biopsychology researchers focus on a variety of topics such as memory, the role of the left and right hemispheres, and neurons. Karl Lashley conducted research on mice in search of the location of memories in the brain. After countless attempts, Lashley concluded that memory was distributed throughout the brain. Roger Sperry and his work with humans who had a separation of the corpus callosum as a treatment for epilepsy greatly furthered the knowledge of the roles of the right and left hemisphere in various functions. Recently developed technologies promise further advances in this field. For instance, the positron emission topography (PET) scans allow researchers to examine the movement of blood flow while participants engage in various activities. This promises to provide new insight into the locations in the brain of abilities, skills and though processes.