neuropsychology

Branch of neurology that overlaps with psychiatry and psychology and is mainly concerned with the cerebral cortex, specifically those disorders of perception, memory, language, and behaviour that result from brain injury or disease.

A central concern of neuropsychology has been the question of how such mental functions as perception, memory, and the initiation and control of actions are related to the structure of the brain. Some researchers, for example the French surgeon Paul Broca (1824–1880) and Carl Wernicke, have favoured a holistic approach, believing that the whole brain is involved in any type of mental activity or action. Others, for example the English neurologist John Huglings Jackson (1835–1911) and Kurt Goldstein (1878–1965), have searched for evidence of the localization of specific functions in separate areas. The ultimate aim, however, has always been to understand the mechanisms of cognition and behaviour – in short, to discover how the brain works. Studies of the effects of specific brain injuries and the changes in cognition and behaviour associated with them – as, for example, in aphasia – together with carefully conducted experimental work with animals, have thrown light on certain aspects of cerebral functioning and also indicated ways of treating brain-damaged patients and helping them to understand their disease.