The New philosophy

This article gives descriptive explanation between the correlation of mental illness and neurology. The author attempts explain these solutions using evidence from conflicting approaches which are the chemical imbalances and Freudian approach. Which coincides with the nurture nature debate? This article focuses on brain impairments that result in symptoms of mental illness. This theorisation is called Evolutionary Nero-psychiatry

The author distinguished the difference between a normal person who has free will to innovate movement of his motor muscles in relations to a person who has hysteria who is unable to wilfully move his leg or arm. A PET scan will show that both patients have the intention to move the arm or leg because the brain would show activation in the pre-motor cortex and ventromedial frontal lobes. However when analysing the anterior Cingular, results show that there is no activation with patient diagnosed with hysteria therefore suggesting that signal are being block in this area inhabiting the arm or leg from moving. Pervious research would suggest that this was due to psychological trauma, effecting that arm or leg as they were unable to detect any lesions in the brain. Now there are empirical evidences to suggest that the anterior Cingular is closely related to the limbic emotional centre giving plausible reasons why they may be an emotional connection.   

The writer also draws on other related theories such as Darwin perspective on evolution where the writer identifies that mental processes tend to coincide with physical movement rather than brain processes this enabled the conscious to feel that a command evokes the movement at the same time. Whereas the brain kicks in about a second prior to the commanded action. This therefore suggests that there is a innervated neural delay. This makes it easier for humans to understand and react to the world. Unlike those who suffer with Catard syndrome.

The structure of the articles is clear and understandable as it uses definitions, causes, theoretical explanations and examples to explain the disorder. Such as Capgras delusion this is when a normal person believes that his mother is an impostor this may be caused by an accident which led to head injuries. The theoretical argument is that the visual area is able to recognise the face however it is unable to show emotional significance therefore the patient reject the idea that there is mother as they are unable to produce a galvanic skin response which is a response that you get when you're shown s stimuli with emotional importance through sweating.

Catard’s syndrome is when all the senses are disconnected from the emotional centre in the brain; patients with this disorder may claim that they are dead. As they are unable to respond to the world and have any emotional ties. This relates to the authors theory that mind and matter are intertwined with each other and that they are two ways of experiencing the world as each of them complete itself.as a result if once missing may explain why some people experience derealisation and depersonalisation. This is when the world feels like a dream or person feels unreal. The mental process in the brain shows that the   anterior Cingular and parts of the frontal lobes in the brain become extremely active this then causes a temporary shutdown to the amygdala and the limbic emotional centre which suppress potential emotions, such as fear and anxiety. This also occurs with epileptic patients because during their seizure they are in dreamy state.

Schizophrenia are unable to identify the differences between images and ideas that are generated by thought and actual stimuli that are in the environment. The author demonstrates this through a written experiment where he tells the reader to use their left index finger to tap repeatedly on the right index finger to express how schizophrenic interpret information. Finding of experiments claims that the mechanism used to send the information to the motor centre is flawed resulting in patients claiming that someone else is controlling the actions.

The History of Neuropsychology

The article gives a brief description using empirical evidence to explain in chorological order, how neuropsychology developed from its earliest form into   how it is used in modern day. The author uses subheadings to break down keywords and definition, such as identifying psychology as a discipline. this is the study of human behaviour and explaining how it influences neuropsychology where it is state that it is a study that identifies the relationship between brain function and human behaviour. It also uses pictures to demonstrate detailed descriptions for example Trephanation was demonstrated by pictures of skull fractures, one showing the effect of survival , another the effect of death and last of all picture showing multiple Trephanation. Trephanation was a method of scraping, chiselling or cutting bone from skull it was a surgical procedure to get rid of evil spirit. An examination was conducted by Verona and Williams (1992) on the techniques, location, size, healing, and pressure of the fracture. Finding show that most of the surgeries was performed at the frontal and upper parietal region. This therefore suggests that they may have associated the “evil spirit” with a specific area in the brain. In additions the Stacking and circular grooving procedure had a higher success rate in contrast to straight cutting and drilling. The Ancient Greeks had broken away from this concept into another perspective, identifying the heart as a mental function this was theorised by Aristotle’s, he believed that the heart was the organ of the human mind this was called the Cardiocentric hypothesis. He argued that it was the root of intelligence, motion and sensation. Using ideas from dualism he developed the notions that it was through the heart that the physical body and the mind interacted. This conception was then modified by Pythagoras where he stated that the process of thought was located in the brain rather that the heart, however he also portrayed that he had four prior lives and remembers them vividly. Although the author credit Pythagoras him stating this additional fact shows that he believes that Pythagoras is a bit eccentric. Furthermore he shows approval of Hippocrates accomplishments suggesting that he is an “outstanding figure” and is known as the “father of medicine” and the founder of “Hippocratic School of medicine”. Hippocrates distinguish that paralysis occurs on the opposite side of the body in relation to the head injury. The author identifies key figures the in chronological order provides brief details on their contribution to neuropsychology and how their ideas led to further development through other key figures such as nemesium and saint Augustine it were influenced by studies from Galen and his version of psychic and humours. It was not until Vesalius that that imperial evidences triumph over supernatural ides. Using detail observation of brain anatomy to study the cell doctrine, the authors also show how theory build upon theories this can be seen through the development of localisations starting with phrenology – gall perspective that the brain was composed of different organ each responsible for different basic psychological traits based on categories such as cautiontiousness, combativeness, agreeableness even though he was wrong. Broca also did investigation on localization and found that expression of language is located at the left frontal lobe this was then furthered by Wernicke that complex mental function for example language- is a combined process of a number of subcomponents process represented in different area of the brain. This also influences other area in psychology such as Freud when we’re had his own theories which were different to the Broca and Wernicke.