Neuropsychology: Definition, Research, & History

Neuropsychology: Definition, Research, & History

Neuropsychology is the study of how the functioning of our nervous systems – and our brains in particular – is related to our behaviors and thinking.

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One of the skills that typically distinguishes a clinical psychologist from nearly every other mental health provider is their knowledge of neuropsychology and ability to conduct neuropsychological testing. In the clinical psychology training I received, few tasks were as complex and intensive as neuropsychological testing. To really understand whether a person’s behavior and thinking fall outside what we call the

What Is Neuropsychology? (A Definition)​

Why Is Neuropsychology Important?​

Examples of Neuropsychology

To take one example of where neuropsychology studies the intersection of brain functioning and psychological characteristics, we can look at the concept of executive functioning, sometimes abbreviated as EF (Clancy et al., 2005). EF is a grouping of cognitive skills that, when utilized, make us effective at completing tasks and solving problems. These skills include inhibiting one’s impulses to work on something else, staying focused when distractions come up, and keeping a goal in mind across a task with multiple steps.
 
While other psychologists might think of executive functioning (EF) as a set of cognitive skills, neuropsychologists think about EF as a set of abilities related to the development and healthy functioning of important regions in the brain – in particular, the prefrontal cortex (Clancy et al., 2005). This is the part of your brain right behind your forehead; it is what allows you to engage in complex kinds of thinking. If a person’s prefrontal cortex does not develop in a typical way, they may have difficulty focusing on and completing important tasks, and lots of research indicates that this has serious implications for their academic and professional success, as well as their emotional well-being (Diamond, 2016). This makes it especially important for neuropsychologists to identify children with challenges in executive functioning and help parents and teachers give them additional support and training (Clancy et al., 2005).

Neuropsychology Disorders

Neuropsychologists focus more on mental health disorders that have a clear component of brain functioning looking different. For example, many neuropsychologists study the effects of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) on people’s cognitive and behavioral functioning (Azouvi et al., 2017). They have found that people who sustained brain damage as the result of an injury have more difficulty with their executive functioning, experience more mental fatigue, and can even undergo changes to their personality. Neuropsychologists also know that some people recover from traumatic brain injuries within a few weeks, while others take months to recover or face permanent effects of the injury.
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Neuropsychologists try to use their scientific understanding of what is functioning differently in the brain in order to guide their treatment of people with neurological disorders. For example, a neuropsychologist might assess somebody with epilepsy – another neurological disorder – to identify whether their epileptic episodes have compromised their brain functioning. Then, they would use techniques of cognitive rehabilitation therapy to help the client relearn or strengthen key cognitive abilities (Baxendale, 2020).

Neuropsychology Research

Video: Neuropsychology Basics​

Neuropsychology Therapy

Neuropsychology History

The field of neuropsychology was formally established in the 1960s when the term itself was first used (Bilder, 2011). This distinction became necessary as psychologists and medical doctors treating people with brain injuries and neurodegenerative diseases started to recognize how closely affected people’s psychological functioning was by their brain functioning. It was also motivated by the growing consensus among researchers that specific parts of the brain seemed to have specific functions, and that pathological activity in those brain regions was associated with breakdowns in cognitive and behavioral functioning (Casaletto & Heaton, 2017). Finally, the field of neuropsychology developed in response to a lack of scientifically validated tools for measuring brain function – while many techniques existed, it was not clear how effective or accurate they were for people of different ages or from different backgrounds.
 
In the 1970s and 1980s, training in the field of neuropsychology became more commonplace and more codified. The specificity and scientific validity of neuropsychological tests also increased as neuropsychologists realized more and more the importance of establishing normative scores on their measures. Nowadays, most clinical psychologists receive training in neuropsychological assessment, as do any and all research psychologists studying the brain directly.

Neuropsychology and Rehabilitation

Neuropsychology views rehabilitation from brain injury as having to focus on the psychological effects of brain injury – to heal one’s brain, one must practice and build strength in core psychological skills (Wilson, 2013). For this reason, rehabilitation following brain injuries often involves psychotherapy as well as cognitive training.

Neuropsychology of Autism

The neuropsychology research conducted on autism spectrum disorder suggests that functioning is different in “social” areas of the brain and in areas related to language processing and production (Ruggeri et al., 2014). I will not go into further detail here because each person with autism is different and the symptoms of autism are not simply a result of abnormal brain activity – we should not draw conclusions about any particular person’s brain based on research conducted on other people.

Neuropsychology of ADHD

​Similar to research on autism, research on people with ADHD has also found abnormal brain functioning, in this case in the brain systems involved in executive functioning and in regulating attention and reward (Mostert et al., 2015). This does not mean every person with ADHD has the exact same brain functioning or psychological challenges, though.

Neuropsychology of Self Discipline

Neuropsychology of Learning Disabilities

Neuropsychologists also know that learning disabilities such as dyslexia are often related to abnormal brain development or functioning (Fletcher & Grigorenko, 2017). This topic is a good example of neuropsychology research showing interesting results: when children with dyslexia participate in training to support them in learning how to read effectively, the brain regions that are most affected in dyslexia show positive changes over time.

Neuropsychology of Schizophrenia

Neuropsychology has also looked extensively at how the brains of people with schizophrenia may function differently (Van Den Heuvel & Fornito, 2014). In broad strokes, this research has shown that the amount of connections between key prefrontal parts of the brain (the areas involved in complex thought) is often different in people with schizophrenia and that some of these brain regions communicate more with each other, while others communicate less with each other, than they do in “neurotypical” people (in other words, people without schizophrenia).

Articles Related to Neuropsychology

Books Related to Neuropsychology

Final Thoughts on Neuropsychology​

It probably seems intuitive to us now that brain functioning and psychological functioning should be very closely related, but the field of neuropsychology is still relatively young and has much to learn about how these two areas are connected. I have seen firsthand the usefulness of high-quality neuropsychology research and assessment; if you are interested in better understanding the implications of how our brains work for our daily lives, this may be a rewarding field of study to consider.

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