Stylized glowing blue human head in profile with an illuminated brain, neural networks, and chemical structures against a dark background.

Psychopharmacology is similar to physiological psychology except that it focuses on the manipulation of neural activity and behavior with drugs. In fact, many of the early psychopharmacologists were simply physiological psychologists who moved into drug research, and many of today’s biopsychologists identify closely with both approaches. However, the study of the effects of drugs on brain and behavior has become so specialized that psychopharmacology is regarded as a separate discipline. A substantial portion of psychopharmacological research is applied. Although drugs are sometimes used by psychopharmacologists to study the basic principles of brain–behavior interaction, the purpose of many psychopharmacological experiments is to develop therapeutic drugs (see Chapter 18) or to reduce drug abuse (see Chapter 15). Psychopharmacologists study the effects of drugs on laboratory species—and on humans, if the ethics of the situation permits it. Neuropsychology LO 1.9 Describe the division of biopsychology known as neuropsychology. Neuropsychology is the study of the psychological effects of brain dysfunction in human patients. Because human volunteers cannot ethically be exposed to experimental treatments that endanger normal brain function, neuropsychology deals almost exclusively with case studies and quasiexperimental studies of patients with brain dysfunction resulting from disease, accident, or neurosurgery. The outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres—the cerebral cortex—is See more