In today's world, newspapers, magazines, and television are filled with interesting and sometimes astonishing articles about how the brain works. Every day, our website posts three or more articles related to news in the field of biopsychology, all sourced from online services and major news agencies.

Neuroscience shows that it is ready to answer many previously unanswered questions: Can stem cell research fulfill its promise of finding treatments for neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease? Does the brain create new neurons throughout life, in a number large enough to make a functional difference? Can we control this process? Can we improve memory performance through proper gene management, diet, or pharmaceuticals? Does a strong preference for sweet foods involve the same brain mechanisms as drug addiction? How can recent discoveries about the neurological mechanisms controlling appetite help us tackle the 'plague' of obesity? Can a gene that predisposes individuals to Alzheimer’s disease cause memory disturbances even in those who ultimately do not develop the disease?

These are important questions, but the fundamental issues surrounding them cannot be reduced to 'oral tastes of answers'. A significant approach to questions like these requires understanding the bodily systems underlying behavior and experience.

Our goal in 'Biological Psychology' is to provide the foundations for placing these and other significant problems within a unified scientific framework. This book explores the biological bases of our experience and behavior: the ways in which bodily states and processes produce and control behavior and knowledge, and—equally important—the ways in which behavior, knowledge, and the environment influence bodily systems. We approach biology in the broadest sense.