Neuropsychiatry

Neuropsychiatry is a branch of medicine that deals with psychiatry as it relates to neurology, in an effort to understand and attribute behavior to the interaction of neurobiology and social psychology factors. Within neuropsychiatry, the mind is considered "as an emergent property of the brain", whereas other behavioral and neurological specialties might consider the two as separate entities. Those disciplines are typically practiced separately. Currently, neuropsychiatry has become a growing subspecialty of psychiatry as it closely relates the fields of neuropsychology and behavioral neurology, and attempts to utilize this understanding to better treat illnesses that fall under both neurological and mental disorder classifications (e.g., autism, ADHD, Tourette's syndrome). Given the considerable overlap between these subspecialities, there has been a resurgence of interest and debate relating to neuropsychiatry in academia over the last decade. Most of this work argues for a rapprochement of neurology and psychiatry, forming a specialty above and beyond a subspecialty of psychiatry. For example, Professor Joseph B. Martin, former Dean of Harvard Medical School and a neurologist by training, has summarized the argument for reunion: "the separation of the two categories is arbitrary, often influenced by beliefs rather than proven scientific observations. And the fact that the brain and mind are one makes the separation artificial anyway." These points and some of the other major arguments are detailed below. Neurologists have focused objectively on organic nervous system pathology, especially of the brain, whereas psychiatrists have laid claim to illnesses of the mind. This antipodal distinction between brain and mind as two different entities has characterized many of the differences between the two specialties. However, it has been argued that this division is fictional; evidence from the last century of research has shown that our mental life has its roots in the brain.