What is a Neuropsychologist and what is their area of expertise?

“Neuropsychology studies the structure and function of the brain as they relate to specific psychological processes and behaviors. It is seen as a clinical and experimental field of psychology that aims to study, assess, understand and treat behaviors directly related to brain functioning. The term neuropsychology has been applied to lesion studies in humans and animals. It has also been applied to efforts to record electrical activity from individual cells (or groups of cells) in higher primates (including some studies of human patients).[1] It is scientific in its approach, making use of neuroscience, and shares an information processing view of the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science.

In practice neuropsychologists tend to work in research settings (universities, laboratories or research institutions), clinical settings (involved in assessing or treating patients with neuropsychological problems), forensic settings or industry (often as consultants where neuropsychological knowledge is applied to product design or in the management of pharmaceutical clinical-trials research for drugs that might have a potential impact on CNS functioning).”

Source: Wikipedia

Um. That ^^^^. I wouldn’t have known, technically, but the word “neuro” has to do with the brain (like, “neuron” and “psychology” has to do with behavior. So, just guessing, I would say the study would be how the brain impacts our behavior. For example, when someone is in a car wreck and suffers brain injury, their behavior changes. The Neuropsychologist would say, “Why is that?”

From the Mayo Clinic site:

“Clinical training for neuropsychology”:

Patients in the clinical neuropsychology service present with a variety of adult neurocognitive disorders, including:

Degenerative brain diseases
Cerebrovascular disorders
Infectious diseases
Autoimmune and rheumatologic conditions
Epileptic and non-epileptic seizure disorders
Psychiatric conditions
Hepatic encephalopathy
Neoplastic disorders
Neurosurgical conditions
General medical conditions affecting behavior and cognition
Learning disability/attention deficit disorder

My ex has taught this course for many years and I assure you he’s definitely nuts. I doubt that helps but I had to say it.

LOLL!! @Aster!

Had my appointment with one today. He put me through some tough memory tests on the computer that taxed me on words, letters, numbers, coordination, response time, and spatial relationships. It was tough and I saw the weak areas. I’m gaining though.

May I ask why you went to him?

@Dutchess_III I was referred by my Dr. I suffered a concussion in May, it’s still giving me grief. I’ve had a bunch of concussions. They wanted to make sure all of the above isn’t happening to me.

I’m sorry! Why so many concussions?

Lack of fear and lack of brains growing up. And I still haven’t grown up yet.

Are you my husband??

An expert in neurobiology and psychology.

What is a biochemist? What is a computer linguist?

@mattbrowne..?

@Dutchess_III..?