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Asked by anon-266952 on 30 Oct 2020.
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Naomi Fisher answered on 30 Oct 2020:
Whenever we are thinking about humans, we can think at different levels of explanation. Brain cells are at the biological level. We can look at how our brains work in a biological level by looking at MRI scans or neurotransmitters, or sometimes scientists will look at slices of brain after a person has died. Biology makes it possible for our brain to do what it does. Without brain cells, we would not function.
Psychology (at least, applied psychology which is what I do) is about the processes, the thoughts and feelings and responses in our brain. If something happens to us, we will have an emotional response to that. That emotional response will be visible in our brain – but if we describe it purely in terms of brain cells, it doesn’t really explain what the person is thinking and feeling.
If we’re thinking about brain cells, on a biological level we might say that when someone sees a dog which scares them, their brain cells respond to that and neurotransmitters send messages through the brain which activate a survival response. On a psychological level we might say, when a person sees a frightening dog they feel the emotion of fear and they have thoughts that they want to get away. They might run away. Brain cells make it possible for them to feel, think and behave that way.
So the answer is that psychology would not exist without brain cells, but that thinking psychologically offers us a different way of thinking about people’s experience than if we were to focus only on brain cells and biology.
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Madeleine Steeds answered on 30 Oct 2020: last edited 30 Oct 2020 10:51 am
Brain cells are an important part of psychology because they respond to what we see and feel and cause the person to react. Without brain cells we wouldn’t be able to do anything so biological psychologists and neuroscientists who study the brain can help us understand what’s happening inside.
Nature is pretty cool and brains are one of the most complicated things in nature so understanding the cells and chemicals in the brain that cause people to like things, to be happy or sad, and even just see and hear is a big task undertaken by psychologists and other people like biologists and chemists.
But psychology also goes further than that and says “well what are people thinking?” measuring brain cells doesn’t let us see what someone else is seeing in their head (although that would be cool). So some psychologists spend less time thinking about brain cells and ask other questions instead.
I really don’t like brain cells (I’m squeamish and get ill when I see blood) so if you don’t like brains and biology things that’s ok there’s a lot more to psychology than that! If you do like it though there are some pretty cool things people do in psychology that look at brains.
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Clare Lally answered on 30 Oct 2020:
Great question! Brain cells make up the human brain, which is the organ we use to do our thinking. The most common brain cells are called neurons, and the average adult human brain contains around 100 billion neurons!
Brain cells are useful to look at when we are using neuroscience to answer psychology questions. Part of psychology is studying thoughts, feelings and processes in the mind. Sometimes, we can see how to mind is working by observing what happens in the brain. We can do this using neuroscience methods including fMRI and EEG.
For example, there is evidence that there is a reward circuit in the brain. These brain cells is ‘switched on’ by something we enjoy, such as eating an ice cream or being in love! Whenever this reward circuit is activated, our brains make a note to remember it and repeat to keep us feeling good. This is just one example of how we can see our thoughts as activation in the brain.
It can be useful to see how things are represented in the human brain, but neuroscience can only tell us so much. For some questions, it is not helpful at all. We can use neuroscience to find out which part of our brains we use to perform certain tasks (e.g. which parts of the brain we used when we are talking), but we can’t use it to read people’s minds or control their thoughts!
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Anon answered on 30 Oct 2020:
neuroscience psychology helps us understand how biological and chemical processes in the brain make us think, feel, and respond to certain situations đź§
Kai Thomas answered on 1 Nov 2020:
Such an interesting question! The main link between psychology and brain cells is the way our psychology (such as how we think, feel, and act/behave), is made possible by our brain. Biologically speaking, your brain is formed of billions of brain cells, with the main cells called neurons. Neurons are interlinked in the brain and they can communicate with each other to send messages to different parts of our body. So the part of your brain responsible for decision making, the frontal lobe, will become more active during this process as the neurons in this area fire.
We can study how this happens in the brain by measuring neural activity from the scalp. We use electroencephalography (EEG) which involves little sensors placed in a cap being put on your scalp. We use some conductive gel to help us pick up the activity more clearly, and then we can see how much activity there is during certain points in a task. For example, if we were interested in how you responded to different emotion faces when they are presented on a screen, then we could measure your neural activity during this presentation. We could then look at lots of different interesting things such as impulsivity (if we had you performing a button-pressing task at the same time), or even how your brain responds when you make an error on a task. So we can study how your brain responds as well as how you behave simultaneously, ultimately linking your brain with your behaviour. We do also need to take into account other factors which also play a part in how you think/feel/behave though, as just studying biological processes in the brain alone won’t tell us everything.
Maggi Laurie answered on 2 Nov 2020:
Excellent question! The brain is like a giant computer that controls our bodies and our minds, everything that we do comes from our brain. Lots of researchers have found that many of the things we do (actions, like reading or writing, and thoughts or feelings) are conducted by specialised parts of our brain (e.g. the motor cortex which controls how our bodies move, and the limbic system, which is the part of the brain responsible for our emotions). We also know that damage to certain parts of the brain can cause very specific disabilities, and that human development shapes the way that particular areas of the brain function. In essense, psychology is the study of behaviour which directly results from our brain cells and the activity of these brain cells. We can make links between behaviour at a micro-level in the brain (i.e. between specific neurons or brain areas, or specific chemicals in the brain) and at a macro-level (i.e. between larger areas of the brain which are clusters of cells). We can also make good guesses about what the brain is doing through our behaviour – I used to study this by showing people really tiny pictures on a computer screen and asking them whether they could or could not see a specific pattern on the screen (mostly black and white stripes). By looking at their behaviour responses, I was able to tell what the eyes (and brain) were able to detect and distinguish or not.
Simona Skripkauskaite answered on 2 Nov 2020:
Science of brain cells (also known as neuroscience) is one of the areas of psychology. It allows us to construct a more biological view on how our brain works and how that relates to our thoughts, believes, and behaviours. We, for example, know that certain areas of the brain are responsible for controlling certain parts of the body (e.g. our fingers) and others for certain actions (e.g. speech). We also know that a damage to some areas can result in different changes in behaviour.
My favourite, although quite gruesome example is Phineas Gage. This bloke in 1840s, who had a metal rod go through his brain in an accident. He was very lucky ( don’t try this at home!!) and recovered with relatively minor behavioural changes.
Everyone’s brain is quite different, but also similar at the same time. So neuroscience is not an easy thing to figure out!
Katie Lightfoot answered on 2 Nov 2020:
Well, brain cells (neurons) are fire chemical and electrical signals and messages throughout the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord) and onto the peripheral nervous system (nerves around the body). These chemicals pockets contain messages that influence how we think, feel, act and experience bodily sensations. Therefore, psychology generally is the scientific study of human mind and behaviour and brain cells have a lot to do with it as they are involved in the complex electrical and chemical signalling process that ultimately informs how we perceive the World around us and how we behave in it.
Natalie Jenkins answered on 2 Nov 2020:
This is an excellent question! Like Maggi explained “psychology is the study of behaviour which directly results from our brain cells and the activity of these brain cells” (Great answer Maggi!).
Dementia is a useful example of this. There are lots of different types of dementia, like Alzheimer’s Disease and Frontotemporal dementia. In Alzheimer’s Disease we tend to see a reduction in the number and size of cells (also called atrophy) that first occurs in an area called the hippocampus (named after the Greek word for seahorse because it looks like a seahorse). Losing cells here results in memory loss and problems finding the way around. In frontotemporal dementia we tend to see a reduction in the number and size of cells in the frontal and temporal areas of the brain. Losing cells here results in the behaviours like personality changes, and inappropriate behaviour. So, as you can see, brain cells are closely linked to our behaviours, and we can study these with Psychology.
Part of my job is looking at pictures of the brain (taken by an MRI scanner – like a giant camera that takes pictures of the inside of your head). When I look at these pictures, I can measure all sorts of things like the size of certain areas of the brain, or how much energy the cells in different areas of the brain are using. Right now, I am looking to see if the size of certain areas of the brain is related to how well people do in tests of memory and thinking skills!
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