Marc L. Zeise (editor) - Neuroscience for Psychologists: An Introduction

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Do you know that nature has invented digitalization and what it is good for? What does the word drug mean? Such and similar questions I ask in class to stimulate interest for neuroscience. It typically works with the second question, but only sometimes with the first one. To arouse motivation is certainly a crucial ingredient for a teachers success in a learning process and texts used to teach should also be motivating coinciding with the particular interest of students. When I started lecturing about the basics of neuroscience at the School of Psychology, University of Santiago de Chile, nearly 15 years ago, I found that existing textbooks that introduce the field were not very motivating for my students. This is in spite of the fact that there are excellent texts written by outstanding scientists providing pregraduate and graduate students with a wealth of up-to-date information about the nervous system, well written and well presented, systematic and quite complete, but destined for and written by people of the biomedical sciences.

Psychology students are not easy to convince that they have to learn about transduction mechanisms or enzymes involved in the synthesis of neuroactive substances. On the other hand, questions like the above about digitalization and the concept of drug need to be discussed when psychology students are to learn about neuroscience in a way that will serve them in their professional activity. They need to comprehend concepts of neuroscience relevant for their future, but not so much details of biological mechanisms. For example, traditionally, psychology students would learn about GABA receptors sometimes without having a clear notion of what a receptor is, often confusing cellular and molecular receptors. The situation can be described by the German saying seeing the trees, but not the forest.

I started to write notes for use in my classes, mainly about electrical and chemical signals in the nervous system. Then I added short texts about transmitters and clinical neuropharmacology. Talking to various people in Social Science and Humanities, but also from Informatics and colleagues from Physics, I realized that there was a need for an introduction to Neuroscience for psychologists and other ignorants, ignorants meaning the crowd who is not familiar with biomedical terms and facts. The last phrase of that working title, of course, had to be abandoned, while the idea behind was maintained.

I received support as intramural project for a text on neurophysiology and neuropharmacology from the academic vice rectory of my university, the University of Santiago de Chile. The resulting text while useful was very incomplete. Fortunately, I was given a suggestion by my colleague Jaime Barrientos putting me in contact with Bruno Fiuza, the representative of Springer International for South America, who, after checking with his colleagues, recommended to write a textbook Neuroscience for Psychologists An Introduction intending to cover all fields of interest for psychologists.

This, of course, was a big challenge. I knew I had to look for help from colleagues. I looked in the literature and contacted my own, very limited circle of colleagues who might be willing to contribute to the project. I was lucky to receive collaboration from two young, very active scientists: Ryan Smith, now working at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, Tulsa, OK, USA, and Tim Rohe of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the University of Tbingen, Germany. Two more Chilean scientists belonging to this category who joined the project are Patricio Orio, professor at the Interdisciplinary Center of Neuroscience of the University of Valparaiso in Chile, and Pablo Fredes, a physicist of my university with very original application-oriented research and experience in explaining methods of brain imaging to medical professionals. I also had the privilege to find two collaborators who are of my generation, Hubert Dinse, director and founder of the Neural Plasticity Laboratory, Department of Neuroinformatics, at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and Ulrich Raff of the Department of Physics at the University of Santiago de Chile. Last but not least, Bernardo Morales, a colleague from the Biology Department of my university rendered crucial help in writing Chap. The Transmitters. Only with the help of all these colleagues the present work could be realized.

The idea was to join several traits in one book: It should be readable for people without knowledge in natural sciences and try to explain or even to define all not self-evident concepts. Further, this book attempts to focus on issues that are of special interest for psychologists, but it also tries to avoid treating subjects in detail that are covered in regular courses for psychology students. In this context, cognitive neuroscience is not covered at all, and, in the chapter about methods, behavioral tests are left out. Finally, as the most difficult goal, the present text attempts to catalyze active investigative thinking and foster a critical posture that appreciates the amazing work done, but is also aware of the huge challenge and big problems ahead for neuroscience.

I started Chap. tries to explain techniques used especially in neuroscience, i.e., mainly electrophysiology and brain imaging.

I hope that the present text makes neuroscience not only better known but also more attractive for psychologists as well as for students and professionals of other non-biomedical fields and be a contribution to linking neuroscience better to psychological and social issues of today.