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This is a branch of cognitive psychology that aims to understand how the structure and function of the brain relates to specific psychological processes, with a particular emphasis on studying the cognitive effects of brain injury or neurological illness with a view to inferring models of normal cognitive functioning.
Paul Broca's 1861 post mortem study of an aphasic patient, known as "Tan" after the only word which he could speak, showed that an area of the left frontal lobe (now known as Broca's area) was damaged.
1960s: Information processing became the dominant model in psychology for understanding mental processes
Phineas Gage: earliest in which a brain injury provided clues to the function of a particular brain area
World War I: studies of soliders with wounds caused by mall bore ammuntion to the back of their head showed ares of blindness in the visual field were dependant on which part of the occipital love had been damaged
This provided an important theoretical basis for cognitive neuropsychology, as it allowed an explanation of what areas of the brain might be doing and also allowed brain injury to be understood in abstract terms as impairment in the information processing abilities of larger cognitive systems.
Patient HM: “beginning of modern cognitive neuropsychology”, had parts of his medial temporal lobes surgically removed to treat intractable epilepsy in 1953. The treatment proved successful in reducing his dangerous seizures, but left him with a profound but selective amnesia.
HISTORY
COGNITIVE NEUROPSYCHOTHERAPY
