Behavioral neuroscience

Behavioral neuroscience is the study of the role of the nervous system in human and animal behavior. In approaching behavior from a biological framework, behavioral neuroscience considers not only the roles of the physical structures of the brain and other elements of the nervous system in both normal and abnormal behaviors but also the evolution and development of these roles over time.

Behavioral neuroscience is one of several fields in which biology and psychology intersect. It is distinguished from neuropsychology primarily in that while both are experimental fields of psychology, behavioral neuroscience mostly involves experiments using animals, often those whose biology has some correlation to that of humans, while neuropsychology deals more with human subjects, typically with a narrower focus on the structures and functions of the brain and nervous system. Other related fields include evolutionary psychology, affective neuroscience, social neuroscience, behavioral genetics, and neurobiology.

Brief History

While biological models of behavior are not a modern innovation as such, behavioral neuroscience is grounded in both a modern understanding of biology—including evolution, the inheritance of genes, and the functions of hormones and neurotransmitters—and the science of psychology. Though philosophers and scientists have discussed the mind since ancient times, psychology as an experimental discipline is a product of the nineteenth century, growing out of the Enlightenment’s interests in education and in finding humane treatments for mental illness, both of which were served by seeking a way to better understand the workings of the human mind. In a sense, modern biology and modern psychology developed alongside each other: the basic foundations of each were discovered or formulated concurrently, and in the mid-nineteenth century they were brought together in the famous case of Phineas Gage.

A railroad construction foreman, Gage survived an accident in which an iron rod was driven through his head, destroying most of the left frontal lobe of his brain. It left him blind in the affected eye, but less predictably, it changed his personality for the remainder of his life. Reports of the changes in his personality vary, with those dating from after his death being notably more dramatic than the firsthand accounts written during his life, but they concur in the broad strokes—namely, that Gage’s behavior after the accident reflected an absence of social inhibition and an increased degree of impulsivity. Popular culture often depicts Gage as becoming violent, depraved, even psychopathic after his accident; few now believe the change to have been this extreme. Reports from later in his life suggest that he was able to eventually relearn and adapt to social and interpersonal mores.

As significant as any change was the simple fact of Gage’s survival, as well as the fact that his mental faculties remained intact with so much brain tissue destroyed. In a sense, the details and degree of Gage’s personality change are not as important as the excuse he provided for the scientific community to newly address the "mind-body problem" that had concerned the Western intellectual community for centuries. In modern terms, the mind-body problem is the problem of explaining the relationship between the experiences of the nonphysical mind and those of the physical body within which it resides.

Overview

Since Gage’s time, biologists have learned more and more about the brain and related structures, and psychologists have conducted countless experiments relating to the mind and behavior. Research in behavioral neuroscience is conducted by observing the behavior of animals in experimental conditions in which some aspect of the animal’s nervous system is measured or altered through various means. (Numerous such means exist, including surgical modifications, psychopharmaceuticals, electrical or magnetic stimulation, and genetic engineering.) One of the classic methods is lesion research, which studies animal subjects that have suffered damage to a particular region of the brain. The infliction of surgical lesions, in which brain or other neural tissue is destroyed through surgical removal, has long been a common research method, while the use of neurotoxins to inflict chemical lesions is a more recent development. An even more recent innovation is the use of special anesthetics and other methods to induce "temporary lesions" by temporarily disabling neural tissue instead of destroying it entirely.

The study of lesions and their effect on behavior helps inform scientific understanding of which structures in the brain contribute to which of its functions. While early models were based on simple one-to-one correlation, demonstrated by literal maps of the brain that showed where various emotions and mental abilities were believed to be generated or exercised, behavioral neuroscience and other disciplines that study the brain have since shown that its workings are far more complicated than that.

Areas of research in behavioral neuroscience focus on broad categories of behavior that humans have in common with animals, namely needs-motivated behaviors, the senses, movement, memory, learning, sleep, emotion, and the relationships among these areas. Behavioral neuroscientists working with certain species—especially cetaceans, cephalopods, and corvids—may also study consciousness, language, or decision-making, but these are more controversial areas of inquiry.

Science has always been informed by philosophy. Only in the modern era have science and philosophy truly been separate disciplines, modern science having descended from what Aristotle called "natural philosophy." That said, although both the philosophy of science and the philosophy of biology are esteemed subfields, the philosophy of neuroscience is more newly developed. Until the 1980s, philosophers in the main proceeded without having integrated much specific understanding of neuroscience into their field—and, by extension, were not equipped to comment or contribute specifically to neuroscience.

This changed with Patricia Churchland’s Neurophilosophy (1986), which was aimed specifically at bridging the gap. Although Churchland included her own views on the philosophy of neuroscience, she also took the time to include a primer on philosophy for neuroscientists and a primer on neuroscience for philosophers. The interdisciplinary relationship between the fields has continued to develop since, and in the twenty-first century, neuroethics became a prominent field, examining the ethical choices and ramifications of neuroscience. In recent years, neuroethicists have raised critical questions about human cognitive enhancements, the ethics of treating neurological impairments, and animal experimentation in behavioral neuroscience.

Bibliography

"Behavioral Neurology." Mayo Clinic, 19 June 2024, www.mayoclinic.org/departments-centers/division-behavioral-neurology/overview/ovc-20443621. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

Bickle, John, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience. New York: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

Carlson, Neil R. Foundations of Behavioral Neuroscience. 9th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2014. Print.

Churchland, Patricia Smith. Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind-Brain. Cambridge: MIT P, 1986. Print.

Churchland, Patricia S. Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain. New York: Norton, 2013. Print.

Kean, Sam. The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons: The History of the Human Brain as Revealed by True Stories of Trauma, Madness, and Recovery. New York: Little, 2014. Print.

Mele, Alfred R. Free: Why Science Hasn’t Disproved Free Will. New York: Oxford UP, 2014. Print.

Ramachandran, V. S. The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human. New York: Norton, 2011. Print.