Bio psychology: Peter Dews

UFE1103 & UCC 1103

General Psychology
Title of the paper: Bio psychology (Peter Dews)
Group Members:
1. Lee Kuen Ting (I14005066)
2. Leow Wen Jun (I14004840)
3. Sun Jen Yue (I14005099)
4. Sebastian Khek Xuan Yong (I14004807)
5. Lam Wan Ying (I12001585)
6. Lee Si Min (11008314)
7. Yip Shin Yi (I11008053)

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

Abstract of Approach
Dr. Dews built a psychobiology laboratory within the pharmacology department at Harvart.
He studied the effects of marijuana, caffeine, and artificial sweeteners on behaviour through
animal experiment. His study is mainly penetrating insights came in the study of
behaviorally-active drugs. Dew has combined a rigorous assessment of the behavioral effects
of drugs with a corresponding emphasis on principles of behavior analysis.
Dews was impressed by the studies in Skinners laboratory; the manner in which behavioral
responses of pigeons were recorded cumulatively in real time resembled the kymograph
recordings that were of enormous value to physiology and pharmacology. In a retrospective,
Dews commented that it was immediately apparent from the counters and cumulative
records that behavioral phenomena were being studied in a way that was well suited for
application to pharmacology.
Dews incorporated those techniques into his first studies with drugs and thereafter were
committed to an experimental analysis of behavior and to the detailed analysis of the
behavioral effects of drugs. The influence of the schedule of reinforcement in determining the
effects of pentobarbital was striking and led to a recurring emphasis on the importance of
examining behavioral consequences in studying the behavioral effects of drugs.
Dews had an exceptional sense for language and he addressed complex issues with a clarity
of thought and expression. He viewed schedules as central principles that governed behavior
and considered them to be as fundamental to behavior as osmosis is to physiology and
evolution is to the selection and propagation of species. The emphasis on schedules of
reinforcement weaves together many threads in the fabric of his work. The disciplines of both
behavioral pharmacology and the experimental analysis of behavior are enduring testimonies
to his spirited and profound contributions.

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

Title of Approach
History of Peter Dews
Peter Dews was born in England, in Yorkshire. He had education in University of Leeds to
study medicine. Dews liked physiology and pharmacology the best of all subjects. Dew
becomes the Demonstrator and lecturer in sub-department of Pharmacology under W.A Bain
after he finished his internship. Dews began to study the action of red oil on the behaviour
through animal experiment with Bain, but no success at all. However, this explores the
interest of Dews to behavioural effects of drug.
In 1946, Dews was invited by J.H. Burn to join the research in Oxford and starts studied the
diverse pharmacological effects of the antihistamine pyrilamine with J.D.P Graharm. Dews
was becomes the candidate for fellowship position at Burroughs Wellcome in Tuckahoe, New
York. He did collaborative research on the histamine liberator 4880, and conducted an
independent study on the effects of various psychomotor stimulants and convulsants on what
he termed "voluntary activity" in mice. During this time, he realized that he was interested in
the CNS effects of drugs on behaviour.
In 1950, Dews moved to Mayo Clinic and worked on the effects of cortisone, ACTH, and
adrenalectomy on anaphylaxis in the Section on Physiology with Code, which formed the
basis of his Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Minnesota. In 1952, Otto Krayer
meets Dews to find a person who interest in CNS to fill the position in his Department of
Pharmacology at Harvart. In his initial experiment, Dews followed Ferster's advice and
studied pecking in pigeons where a brief presentation of food followed a peck fewer than two
different scheduling conditions. He realized that he had, at last, quantitative assay procedures
for studying the effects of drugs on behavior in a pharmacologically rigorous way.
After that, Dews starts discovered the behaviour controlled space without extraneous
influences and describing it in objective physical term followed the Skinner theory. Neither
traditional psychological explanations of behavior nor the pharmacological classification of
drugs as stimulants or depressants appeared to be useful in interpreting the details of his
results. Finally Dews concluded that the behavioral effects of drugs depended predominantly
on the behavior engendered by the controlling scheduling conditions and could be changed
by changing the scheduling conditions.

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

The general principles

A. Brain function
The psychological views of brain involve the receiving information, interpreting
information and producing response. The input of the brain information is from our
five senses. The brain helps perform all vital operations in our body.

The brain is made of three main parts: the forebrain, midbrain, and hindbrain. The
forebrain consists of the cerebrum, thalamus, and hypothalamus (part of the limbic
system). The midbrain consists of the tectum and tegmentum. The hindbrain is made
of the cerebellum, pons and medulla. Often the midbrain, pons, and medulla are
referred to together as the brainstem.
The cerebrum is the largest part of the brain. It is responsible for memory, speech, the
senses, emotional response, and more. It is divided into several sections called lobes.
These lobes are referred to as the frontal, temporal, parietal, and occipital; each
handles a specific segment of the cerebrum's jobs. The cerebellum is below and
behind the cerebrum and is attached to the brain stem. It controls motor function, the
body's ability to balance, and its ability to interpret information sent to the brain by
the eyes, ears, and other sensory organs.
The limbic system contains the thalamus, hypothalamus, amygdala, and hippocampus.
This structure is responsible for basic vital life functions such as breathing, heartbeat,
and blood pressure.
B. Neurons
The nervous system is our body's decision and communication centre. The central
nervous system (CNS) is made of the brain and the spinal cord and the peripheral
nervous system (PNS) are made of nerves. Sensory nerves gather information from
the environment; send that info to the spinal cord, which then speed the message to
the brain. The brain then makes sense of that message and fires off a response. Motor
neurons deliver the instructions from the brain to the rest of your body. The spinal

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

cord, made of a bundle of nerves running up and down the spine, is similar to a
superhighway, speeding messages to and from the brain at every second.
Neuro transmitters
Neurotransmitters are chemicals located and released in the brain to allow an impulse
from one nerve cell to pass to another nerve cell. Neurotransmitters can excite or
inhibit neurons (nerve cells). Mechanism of impulse transmission called synapse,
impulses move along the axon and reached presynaptic membrane. Neurotransmitters
released in synaptic cleft and coated by a vesicle, and then passed through synaptic
cleft. The vesicles bind with the receptors on the postsynaptic membrane. The
neurotransmitters will release into the adjacent neurons to transmit the impulses to the
next neuron cell. However, in certain disease states, the flow of the neurotransmitter is
defective.
C. Hormones
To understand the hormone-behavior relationship, it is important briefly to describe
hormones. Hormones are organic chemical messengers produced and released by
specialized glands called endocrine glands into blood where they may travel to act on
target structures. Hormones are similar in function to neurotransmitters, the chemicals
used by the nervous system in coordinating animals activities. Examples of hormones
such as androgens, estrogen, and progesterone.

D. Genetic
The study of how traits are passed from parent to child is knows as genetics. Genes arethe
chemical packets of information that the child gets from the parent. These genes make up
larger units called chromosomes. Humans have 46 chromosomes; 23 come from the
father and the other 23 come from the mother. The human genome is the term for all the
genetic information contained in humans.

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

Behavioral genetics is a study that tries to find out what role inherited factors play in how
people act and what kinds of genes may lead to different patterns of behavior. It works to
discover how much of people's behavior is determined by the genetic information they
inherited from their parents and how much is caused by their living conditions, learning
choices, and other influences from the world around them. Besides, genes have also been
linked to many other diverse traits and diseases, including addiction of alcohol and
tobacco, handedness, bipolar disorder, depression, and dyslexia.
Twin study is one of the methods used by the researchers study the environmental and
genetic backgrounds of the traits, from aggression to intelligence to schizophrenia to
alcohol dependence. It studies the twins raised in the same family environments.
Researcher compares the similarity between sets of identical twins to the similarity
between sets of fraternal twins for a particular trait and finds out is there any excess
likeness between the identical twins should be due to genes rather than environment.
E. Pharmacology
Drugs and Behaviour
Drugs are chemicals which alter the neurotransmission process. They can be generally
classified into antagonist and agonist. These drugs can act pre-synaptically by influencing
the production, storage, release, or termination of action of neurotransmitters or postsynaptically by blocking postsynaptic receptors.
Antagonist is a type of drugs that inhibits the effects of neurotransmitter, also known as
inhibitors. The most common antagonist is alcohol. Alcohol inhibits the flow of sodium
ions across the membrane, which expands the surface of membranes, decreases serotonin
activity, facilitates response by GABAA receptors and increases dopamine activity. This
multiple forms of mechanism of actions of alcohol also explain why alcohol can cause
such diverse effects on behavior. Other examples of antagonist are caffeine, marijuana,
etc.
On the other hand, agonist is a type of drugs that encourages the effects of
neurotransmitter, also known as facilitators. For example, methylphenidate is used to treat
people with a disease called attention deficit disorder. This is a condition marked by
impulsiveness and poor control of attention. The pharmacological mechanism of action
for methylphenidate is by blocking the reuptake of dopamine at the same receptors in the

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

brain, as well as increasing the release of serotonin, thereby helping people to improve
their attention. Another example is amphetamine, which causes the cell to excrete
dopamine than reabsorbing it. Stimulant drugs normally have only short term effects.
However high dosage of stimulants for long-term use will cause permanent disruption to
brain functions.

Comparisons
A. Humanism by Maslow
Dews study mainly examines thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological and
thus physical point of view. His theories are also study of the relationship between our
nervous system and our behaviors. The biopsychology theories are more focus on the
transmission of neurons (known as synapse) and hormonal functions. Besides that, it
also emphasising on the reaction of drug and chemical to our brain. Conversely, the
humanistic perspective centres on the view that each person is unique and individual,
and has the free will to change at any time in his or her lives. But the basic concepts
of biopsychology declare that even if biology plays no direct role in personality

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

because biopsychology believes that the genetic factors make up different personal
behavior.
Similar to Dewss study, Humanistic psychologists is also look at human behavior.
However, Humanism believes that an individual's behavior is connected to his inner
feelings and self-image. The humanistic perspective suggests that we are each
responsible for our own happiness and well-being as humans. In simple words,
humanism tells us everyone has their freedom to think and right to choose their future.
According to biopsychology, they are not agreeing with this theory because there is no
biological prove to support this statement.
B. Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
Freud explained the human mind divided in unconscious, subconscious and
conscious. Conversely, Biopsychology theories stated that all behaviors are control by
our nervous system by every impulse that carried in neurons. Besides that, Peter Dews
combined a rigorous assessment of the behavioral effects of drugs with a
corresponding emphasis on principles of behavior analysis which can prove that there
is something controls the role of our brain.
A similarity of Biopsychology and psychoanalysis is both of them believe that gender
may affect the behaviors but there are not totally same. According to Freuds study,
stimulation of different areas of the body is important as the child progresses through
the important developmental stages. Besides that Freuds study focusing on the libido
while Dews theories is more focus on the changes of behaviour due to different
gender and the changes of hormone secretion during growth. He stated that there is
several hormones secretion such as progesterone and testosterone may affect the
behaviours. Furthermore, he believes this indirect affect determines how a person
develops into adulthood.
C. Behavioral Perspective by B.F. Skinner
Same with Dewss theory, Skinners study is also studying on the behavior and both
theories are influenced by theory of classical conditioning which studied by the
Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov. However, Dews is acknowledged that the
techniques developed by B. F. Skinner and colleagues provided an operational
approach to objectively and quantifiably study behavior and cited some early work
conducted by Skinner .

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

Behavioural view people and animals as controlled by their environment and
specifically that we are the result of what we have learned from our environment. It
looks at motivations, desires, purpose, and other existential concepts to explain why
we feel or act a certain way. But according to Dews, our behaviors are not affected by
environment but affected by hormonal secretion, neurotransmitters and even drugs
effects. He investigates the drug reaction and biokinetic changes in human brain bring
about some form of change in perception, mood, thought patterns, and behavior.
Skinner has a very scientific basis and uses experimentation as a means of
understanding behaviour. Skinner felt that some behavior could be explained by the
person's motive. But Dews is study from the biological and medical views. Dews also
study various recreational drugs and substances, such as alcohol and marijuana. These
substances alter the moods and behaviors of people in a variety of drastic ways.
Besides that, Dews also emphasises on the habit- forming due to addiction of drug,
which means people can develop very strong and detrimental addictions to them.
D. Cognitive Perspective by Ulrich Neisser
Both Dews and Ulrich are investigating the process in nervous system. However,
Cognitive psychology refers to the study of human mental processes and their role in
perception, attention, language, memory and thinking while Dews is more examines
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors from a biological and thus pharmacology views.
Cognitive psychology focuses on the way human process information, looking at how
we treat information that comes in to the person and how this treatment leads to
responses. Psychopharmacology that emphasised by Dews is the study of drugs which
have the ability to alter someone's state of mind. In addition, Dews is more emphases
on the chemical reactions of drug and how does the brain produce response under the
drug effect.
Besides that, Ulrich invented scientists as a tool for imaging the structure and activity
of living brain. Therefore, Ulrichs study is represents the process of brain through
imaging technique such as magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission
tomography. Conversely, Dews does not represent the brain process through vision or
imaging but focus on the behaviour and human mental state.

Conclusion

Bio psychology: Peter Dews

Peter Dews study is investigation of the behavioural due to the effects of the genetic factors,
hormonal changes and the drug influences. Besides that, he also more focuses on the
behavioural pharmacology which is the relationship between the biokinetic change and
chemical reaction of drug and human behaviors.

References
http://www.abpp.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3358
http://www.simplypsychology.org/behaviorism.html
http://www.psychologistworld.com/behavior/