by Joseph Vanburen

Created on: January 16, 2009

Where do thoughts come from? What happens within the body when emotions are felt? Does the human mind exist as a sole entity, or does it have a distinct connection to the brain? The study of biopsychology attempts to answer these questions and more.

Biopsychology is a branch of psychology that applies the principles of biology to the study of mental processes and human behavior. It is the discovery of how our emotions, thoughts, and other cognitive processes are influenced by our physiology. Whereas most branches of psychology remain in an almost abstract, mental realm of correlation (which can be very effective in its own right), biopsychology uses empirical evidence regarding what we know about our bodies to explain how we act and feel. Some consider it simply a combination of psychology and neuroscience.

The documented history of this type of scientific thinking dates back to the second century of the Common Era. Avicenna, a Persian scientist of multiple studies, was among the first to associate people's feelings with changes in their heart rates. He is often considered a pioneer of psychosomatic medicine and the study of neuropsychiatry. In the seventeenth century, Rene Descartes formulated an extensive theory of how the mind and body interact with each other. In one of the first psychology textbooks ever published, The Principles of Psychology by William James (1890), it was said that "a certain amount of brain-physiology must be presupposed or included in Psychology."

Despite nearly a millennium of scientists and philosophers involved in the mind-body conversation, it wasn't until the 1950's that biopsychology truly began to emerge. With the sudden development and distribution of psychoactive drugs for treatment of various disorders, scientists were beginning to better understand the chemical activity in the human brain and its relationship to psychological studies. In 1954, neurosurgeon Wilder G. Penfield published a mapping of the cerebral cortex, which set the stage for the brain-imaging procedures that scientists use today.

Studying the connections between the body and the mind can be a daunting and elusive endeavor. As such, biopsychology remains a field very much open to new findings. What we do know and can learn are mostly based on research of the Central Nervous System (CNS) and chemicals inside of our bodies called neurotransmitters. These parts of us represent the core of our information processing and reaction functions.

The human brain is considered

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