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10 - Biopsychological Aspects of Motivation
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- By O. C. Schultheiss, Professor, Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen, Nürnberg, Germany, M. M. Wirth, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Wisconsin
- Edited by Jutta Heckhausen, University of California, Irvine, Heinz Heckhausen, Max-Planck-Institut für Psychologische Forschung, Munich
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- Book:
- Motivation and Action
- Published online:
- 08 August 2009
- Print publication:
- 18 February 2008, pp 247-271
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
A Primer on Biopsychology and Its Methods
DEFINITION
As a discipline, biopsychology aims to explain experience and behavior based on how the brain and the rest of the central nervous system work. Biopsychological approaches to motivation, then, seek to explain motivational phenomena based on an understanding of specific functions of the brain. Most research in this area uses mammalian animal models, such as rats, mice, and sometimes primates, on the assumption that the way motivational processes and functions are carried out by the brain is highly similar across related species, and that findings obtained in other mammals will therefore also hold for humans.
When studying motivational processes, biopsychologists often use lesioning (i.e., selective damaging) techniques to explore the contributions of specific brain areas or endocrine glands to motivational behavior, reasoning that if destroying a specific brain area or gland alters a motivational function, then the lesioned substrate must be involved in that function. Other techniques often utilized in this type of research include direct recordings from neuron assemblies in the behaving animal to determine, for instance, which brain cells fire in response to a reward, and brain dialysis, which allows the researcher to examine how much of a neurotransmitter is released in a behaving animal in response to motivationally relevant stimuli. Finally, biopsychologists frequently use pharmacological techniques; for instance, to increase synaptic activity associated with a specific neurotransmitter by administering a transmitter agonist (which mimics the action of the neurotransmitter) or to decrease synaptic activity by administering a transmitter antagonist (which blocks neurotransmitter activity).