Neuropsychology is a science that combines neuroscience and psychology. As its most common field of application, clinical neuropsychology deals with disorders and abnormalities of the central nervous system, especially the brain.
What is neuropsychology?
As its most common field of application, clinical neuropsychology deals with disorders and abnormalities of the central nervous system, primarily the brain. One of the subfields of neuropsychology is physiological psychology. This deals with the structure and function of the central nervous system and its effects on experience and behavior. One focus is on cognitive processes as well as perceptual processes. Clinical neuropsychology, on the other hand, deals primarily with diseases of the nervous system and is thus one of the most prominent fields of application of neuropsychology. Clinical neuropsychology focuses in particular on diseases of the brain, for example various forms of dementia. As another subdiscipline of neuropsychology, neurochemopsychology deals with the intersection of neuroscience, (bio)chemistry and psychology. Neurochemopsychology studies the interrelationships of neurochemical and psychological processes, with a particular focus on neurotransmitters (messengers between cells). Similarly, pharmacopsychology focuses on the effects of drugs and other chemical substances on the psyche and nervous system.
Treatments and therapies
Neuropsychology researches, diagnoses, and treats a variety of disorders that affect the central nervous system. Dementia-related disorders play a major role in clinical neuropsychology. In Alzheimer’s dementia, for example, specific impairments of cognitive functions occur. They mainly affect short-term memory as well as temporal and spatial orientation: the affected person does not remember recent events or remembers them only with difficulty, loses his sense of time, among other things, cannot name the date correctly or does not know where he is. Depending on the severity of Alzheimer’s dementia, these symptoms can vary in severity. The impairments are caused by the death of nerve cells in a specific part of the brain, the entorhinal cortex. Another disorder that is studied and treated by neuropsychology is learning disorder in children. A learning disorder is when the child shows significant deficits in reading, writing, and/or math that cannot be explained by below-average intelligence or inadequate schooling. Depending on which skill cannot be learned or is learned less effectively, the learning disorder is referred to as dyslexia (impairment in reading), dyscalculia (impairment in arithmetic), or dysgraphia (impairment in writing). In addition, clinical neuropsychology deals with a variety of different disorders of memory and consciousness, language, action execution, and orientation. In many cases, treatment is interdisciplinary. In the case of some disorders, for example Alzheimer’s dementia, it is not possible to restore the original cognitive performance. In these cases, treatment is aimed at achieving minor improvements, making it easier to cope with the disease in everyday life, and preventing further deterioration or at least slowing down the course of the disease. Other diseases, such as neurological vision disorders or learning disorders, often have a better prognosis.
Diagnosis and examination methods
One of the most important tasks of clinical neuropsychology is accurate diagnosis. Using a variety of psychological tests, neuropsychologists can determine whether a person has a cognitive impairment and what type of impairment it is. These tests are standardized and thus allow an objective assessment. In the case of the above-mentioned learning disorder, the task of neuropsychologists is not only to independently and reliably determine the deficits in the academic areas of reading, writing and arithmetic; they must also take into account the intelligence of the child concerned as well as social and school circumstances.Motivational and other problems are also checked to rule out a cause other than the learning disorder. One of the most widely used neuropsychological tests is the “Mini-Mental Status Test”, which is also frequently used by doctors. In this test, the person being tested is first asked for the exact date (year, month, day, day of the week) in order to roughly assess his or her orientation in time. The test person then completes smaller tasks, for example, repeating and remembering words, spelling forwards and backwards, and naming two objects. These tasks often seem mundane and simple to healthy individuals; however, people with cognitive impairments show difficulty using these basic skills. It can also detect temporary impairments due to drug use and the like. In another neuropsychological test procedure, the “clock test,” the subject is asked to first draw the face of an analog clock and then a specific time in a given circle. This test is a procedure that is particularly sensitive to Alzheimer’s dementia and may be able to detect deficits even when imaging procedures such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have not yet revealed any changes in the subject’s brain. The neuropsychological tests thus represent not only an economical but also a very sensitive measuring instrument that can detect even minor deviations. In practice, different tests are always combined in order to cover different ability areas and to be able to exclude alternative explanations such as intelligence, motor impairments, motivation and others. In addition, neuropsychology makes use of various imaging techniques: For example, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), electroencephalography (EEG), magnetoencephalography (MEG), or positron emission tomography (PET) are frequently used. These are able to visualize brain function to detect irregularities.
