The History Of Neuropsychology

Neuropsychology is concerned with the effect the brain and the nervous system have on an organisms behaviour. It is a science which attempts to study the components of the brain in order to understand how the brain functions. The study of the nervous system dates back to 1700 B.C. At this time the majority of people believed that illness and brain abnormalities were caused by the supernatural. The most common treatment at this time was trephining, it was the first surgical treatment to be used and involved drilling a hole in to the patients head to release the evil spirits, it was thought that it would cure problems such as migraines, epileptic seizures and mental disorders. However at this time scientific knowledge was very limited and this treatment often resulted in death from loss of blood, it had little scientific basis. The next important marker in the history of neuropsychology came from the ancient Egyptians. The first writings of medical treatments were found on papyrus and detail the first attempt to localise brain function. Unfortunately scientific advancements were limited in the following years since the Ancient Greeks had a strong aversion to dissections meaning that the approach was less scientific and thus less accurate . Hippocrates is one of the most well known figures in medicine and he is best known for his theory of the four humours. He believed that all illness was a result of an imbalance of four fluids within the body; blood, phlegm , black bile and yellow bile. This belief lasted for a long time and influenced other physicians such as Galen.. However In the 16th Century Vesalius made a breakthrough, he was the first person to make accurate observations of the human brain. He is often thought of as representing the period of time when empirical research and careful observations triumphed over long standing beliefs of Galen and Aristotle.  In the 19th Century Wernicke showed that the cerebral cortex is linked to understanding speech, and Broca found an area of the brain which was involved in speech production. Since these findings there have been a number of new techniques that have been used to map the brain and there functions, such as scanning techniques and stereotoxic equipment and surgery. Technology has played a vital role in assisting advancements in neurobiology and without it our knowledge would be very limited.