Key Concepts
    1. Biological psychology seeks to explain behavior in terms of its underlying physiology, its development, its evolution, and its function. A central premise of biological psychology is that bodily processes, particularly those of the nervous system, are the basis of all behavior.
    2. Biological psychology is multidisciplinary in scope and draws on knowledge produced in diverse scientific fields in an effort to produce integrated descriptions of the generation of behavior. This involves work at many levels of analysis, from molecular interactions to views of the activity of the brain as a whole and the behavior of organisms in their natural settings.
    3. The perspectives of biological psychology can be placed into five main groups. Analytic and functional descriptions of behavior provide information about the exact patterning and significance of the acts that make up a behavior. Evolutionary and comparative studies emphasize the continuity of behaviors across species, reveal principles of neural processes through example, and place behavioral acts in an ecological setting. Developmental perspectives reveal principles of neural organization, the effects of environmental inputs in changes in neural systems, and the systematic alterations in the nervous system across the life span. Studies relating behavior to specific neural mechanisms reveal how the brain processes and integrates information and produces behavior. Applied research relates the findings of biological psychology to areas of concern to human society, such as the treatment of diseases, social issues, and issues of significant economic importance.
    4. Research in biological psychology has three general approaches. In the correlational approach, the covariance of behavioral and neural events may give rise to hypotheses about the function of the nervous system. In experiments involving somatic intervention, bodily variables are manipulated in a precisely controlled manner, and consequent effects on behavior are noted. In experiments involving behavioral interventions, the behavior of individuals is altered in a precisely controlled manner, and the consequent alterations of neural structure and function are noted. Mature areas of research employ all three approaches.
    5. The study of the bodily basis of behavior has a long history, ranging from ancient concerns over the precise organs and factors involved in behavior, through metaphysical arguments concerning the role of an immaterial mind/soul, to more recent theorizing about neural plasticity and the nature–nurture controversy.
    6. Psychiatric and neurological disorders exact a heavy toll on human communities, in terms of both well-being and economic loss. This suffering makes imperative the need to understand the structure, function, and malfunction of the nervous system.