Developmental Psychobiology (PDF)

The multidisciplinary field of developmental psychobiology has uncovered new findings in behavioral progressions that have led to exciting avenues for therapeutic intervention. Developmental Psychobiology examines typical and atypical behavioral and neural development, reflecting a broad sampling of this multidisciplinary field in its five densely informative chapters. Here, ten contributors discuss early attachment, face processing, reading disability, Tourette's syndrome, and schizophrenia as a disorder of neurodevelopment -- emphasizing three fundamental topics that are especially relevant to biological and child psychiatry: Learning and development and the methods for studying them -- Understanding normal progressions as a dynamic behavioral and neural process will have a significant impact in determining the biological substrates of clinical disorders and how we can target effective treatments and interventions for behaviors such as the waxing and waning of symptoms in Tourette's syndrome and OCD, eye contact and gaze in autism, word reading in dyslexia, and working memory in schizophrenia. The establishment of typical and atypical developmental progressions in systems -- Both plasticity and stability are critical in the normal development of behavioral and neural systems. For example, certain behaviors are appropriate at one age but inappropriate at other ages, whereas some clinical disorders may not diminish or change with age and may be viewed instead as developmental delays or deficiencies. The impact of methodological advances on imaging and genetics in understanding typical and atypical behavioral and neural development -- How have developments in noninvasive tools for looking into the developing, behaving human brain -- imaging, computational modeling and genetic techniques -- helped us to inform or constrain our understanding of typical and atypical development? Until now, biological psychiatry has been based on psychopharmacological work, but now, with imaging and genetic techniques, we can further characterize the biological mechanisms underlying a disorder.

With chapters that elucidate the newest research in the field, Developmental Psychobiology provides clinicians an abundance of insight that can provide practical help to patients and a richer understanding of the underpinnings of cognitive and emotional disorders.