Neuropsychology & psychofarmacology 2025-2026
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING NEUROSCIENCE
Wilder Penfield was doing research on epileptic patients and removed several parts of the brain
to reduce the seizures. This was a last solution in getting the disease under control. The
patients were awake during these surgeries and the neurosurgeon could communicate with
them during the procedure. During these surgeries he used electrical signals. The patients were
unaware of when these signals were given and where. Despite this, patients reported several
things during the surgery:
- A patient stated he saw a star that came down his nose when the occipital lobe was
stimulated.
- A patient said that his fingers and his thumb gave a jump when the region near the
central sulcus was stimulated.
- Another patient reported that he heard music during the surgery when the temporal lobe
was stimulated. After the procedure he could sing the song even though there was no
radio in the ok.
The mind-body problem is a philosophical thought about how a physical substance can give
rise to a mental experience. There were different ideas about the mind-body problem:
1) Dualism: the mind and the body are two separate substances. Descartes saw the pineal
gland as the middle of this, the two systems interacted there. The pineal gland lies in the
centre of the brain and is now considered as part of the endocrine system. According to
Descartes, stimulation of the sense organs would cause vibrations in the body/brain
that would be picked up in the pineal gland and this would create a nonphysical
awareness.
2) Dual-aspect theory: the belief that the mind and the brain are two levels of description
of the same thing, Spinoza.
3) Reductionism: the belief that mind-based concepts will eventually be replaced by
neuroscientific concepts. Psychology will eventually reduce to biology if we learn more
of the brain.
There were also some scientific approaches to the mind-body problem:
Early anatomists believed the ventricles were important. The cortex was often schematically
drawn or misrepresented like intestins in the 18th century. There was a lack /of interest in the
cortex. Gall and Spurzheim proved an accurate depiction of the features of the brain in 1810.
This lead to the thought of the phrenology. They stated that different parts of the brain were
responsible for different cognitive functions. By measuring the different bumbs of the brain,
they found related personality traits. The phrenology had three claims:
1) Different parts of the cortex serve different functions
2) Differences in personality traits manifest in differences in cortical size and bumbs on
the skull
3) Crude division of psychological traits
Only the first claim ought to be true. The other ones are false.
,Neuropsychology & psychofarmacology 2025-2026
The sphenoid bone is a complex butterfly shaped bone at the base of the skull, behind the eyes
and above the nasal cavity.
Based on the differences in cytoarchitecture (the microscopic structure and organization of
neurons. The classification has remained influential because many of the areas he described
correlate with functional specializations.
Although phrenology is discredited, the notion that different regions of the brain serve different
functions has stood the test of time. Modern cognitive neuroscience uses empirical
neuroscience methods to ascertain different cognitive functions. It does not assume that each
region has one function, or that each function has a discrete location (unlike phrenology), but
,Neuropsychology & psychofarmacology 2025-2026
does assume and empirically shows some degree of functional specialization. Functional
specialization means that different regions of the brain are specialized for different functions.
Functional specialization: Broca’s observations:
He observed a patient with a Tan’s lesion. The patient had no problems in understanding, but he
had problems in the speech production. When the patient died they cut open his brain and they
found the location where the lesion was. Because of this lesion the patient couldn’t speak. He
could understand perfectly, but was unable to produce spoken language.
Functional specialization: after Broca:
Wernicke later observed a patient with poor speech comprehension, but good production. This
suggests that there are at least two language faculties in the brain that can be independently
affected by brain damage. This inference can be made without necessarily knowing where in
the brain they are located. This is cognitive neuropsychology, the study of brain damaged
patients to inform theories of normal cognition.
The computer metaphor: much of 20th century psychology was concerned with observations of
behavior, rather than observations of the brain during behavior. This led to models of cognitions
that do not make direct reference to the brain like the information processing models. The
models were inspired by thinking of the mind as a series of routines, like those found in
computers.
Connectionist models are mathematical in nature but don’t involve serial processing and
discrete routines. The advanced computer science wasn’t as advanced to match these
complexer models at the time.
, Neuropsychology & psychofarmacology 2025-2026
In cognitive neuroscience there was a return of the brain. In the 1970s structural imaging
methods (CT and MRI) enable precise images of the brain and brain lesions. In the 1980s PET
adapted to models of cognition developed by psychologists. In 1985 TMS is first used. In 1990
the level of oxygen in the blood is used as a measure of cognitive function, the principle behind
fMRI, the start of the decade of the brain.
Methods of cognitive neuroscience:
We can identify to resolutions, the spatial and the temporal resolution:
1) Temporal resolution: the accuracy with which one can measure when an event is
occurring.
2) Spatial resolution: the accuracy with which one can measure where an event is
occurring.
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCING NEUROSCIENCE
Wilder Penfield was doing research on epileptic patients and removed several parts of the brain
to reduce the seizures. This was a last solution in getting the disease under control. The
patients were awake during these surgeries and the neurosurgeon could communicate with
them during the procedure. During these surgeries he used electrical signals. The patients were
unaware of when these signals were given and where. Despite this, patients reported several
things during the surgery:
- A patient stated he saw a star that came down his nose when the occipital lobe was
stimulated.
- A patient said that his fingers and his thumb gave a jump when the region near the
central sulcus was stimulated.
- Another patient reported that he heard music during the surgery when the temporal lobe
was stimulated. After the procedure he could sing the song even though there was no
radio in the ok.
The mind-body problem is a philosophical thought about how a physical substance can give
rise to a mental experience. There were different ideas about the mind-body problem:
1) Dualism: the mind and the body are two separate substances. Descartes saw the pineal
gland as the middle of this, the two systems interacted there. The pineal gland lies in the
centre of the brain and is now considered as part of the endocrine system. According to
Descartes, stimulation of the sense organs would cause vibrations in the body/brain
that would be picked up in the pineal gland and this would create a nonphysical
awareness.
2) Dual-aspect theory: the belief that the mind and the brain are two levels of description
of the same thing, Spinoza.
3) Reductionism: the belief that mind-based concepts will eventually be replaced by
neuroscientific concepts. Psychology will eventually reduce to biology if we learn more
of the brain.
There were also some scientific approaches to the mind-body problem:
Early anatomists believed the ventricles were important. The cortex was often schematically
drawn or misrepresented like intestins in the 18th century. There was a lack /of interest in the
cortex. Gall and Spurzheim proved an accurate depiction of the features of the brain in 1810.
This lead to the thought of the phrenology. They stated that different parts of the brain were
responsible for different cognitive functions. By measuring the different bumbs of the brain,
they found related personality traits. The phrenology had three claims:
1) Different parts of the cortex serve different functions
2) Differences in personality traits manifest in differences in cortical size and bumbs on
the skull
3) Crude division of psychological traits
Only the first claim ought to be true. The other ones are false.
,Neuropsychology & psychofarmacology 2025-2026
The sphenoid bone is a complex butterfly shaped bone at the base of the skull, behind the eyes
and above the nasal cavity.
Based on the differences in cytoarchitecture (the microscopic structure and organization of
neurons. The classification has remained influential because many of the areas he described
correlate with functional specializations.
Although phrenology is discredited, the notion that different regions of the brain serve different
functions has stood the test of time. Modern cognitive neuroscience uses empirical
neuroscience methods to ascertain different cognitive functions. It does not assume that each
region has one function, or that each function has a discrete location (unlike phrenology), but
,Neuropsychology & psychofarmacology 2025-2026
does assume and empirically shows some degree of functional specialization. Functional
specialization means that different regions of the brain are specialized for different functions.
Functional specialization: Broca’s observations:
He observed a patient with a Tan’s lesion. The patient had no problems in understanding, but he
had problems in the speech production. When the patient died they cut open his brain and they
found the location where the lesion was. Because of this lesion the patient couldn’t speak. He
could understand perfectly, but was unable to produce spoken language.
Functional specialization: after Broca:
Wernicke later observed a patient with poor speech comprehension, but good production. This
suggests that there are at least two language faculties in the brain that can be independently
affected by brain damage. This inference can be made without necessarily knowing where in
the brain they are located. This is cognitive neuropsychology, the study of brain damaged
patients to inform theories of normal cognition.
The computer metaphor: much of 20th century psychology was concerned with observations of
behavior, rather than observations of the brain during behavior. This led to models of cognitions
that do not make direct reference to the brain like the information processing models. The
models were inspired by thinking of the mind as a series of routines, like those found in
computers.
Connectionist models are mathematical in nature but don’t involve serial processing and
discrete routines. The advanced computer science wasn’t as advanced to match these
complexer models at the time.
, Neuropsychology & psychofarmacology 2025-2026
In cognitive neuroscience there was a return of the brain. In the 1970s structural imaging
methods (CT and MRI) enable precise images of the brain and brain lesions. In the 1980s PET
adapted to models of cognition developed by psychologists. In 1985 TMS is first used. In 1990
the level of oxygen in the blood is used as a measure of cognitive function, the principle behind
fMRI, the start of the decade of the brain.
Methods of cognitive neuroscience:
We can identify to resolutions, the spatial and the temporal resolution:
1) Temporal resolution: the accuracy with which one can measure when an event is
occurring.
2) Spatial resolution: the accuracy with which one can measure where an event is
occurring.
