Neuropsychology is a field of discipline that is focused on the investigation of the structure and function of the brain associated with psychological processes and overt behaviors. It has been applied to lesion studies in humans and animals as well as in attempts to record electrical activity from individual cells in higher primates. It uses the scientific approach and shares information processing view of the mind with both cognitive psychology and science. It is among the ecclectic branches in the field of psychology and overlaps with disciplines such as neuroscience, philosophy, neurology, psychiatry, and computer science.
Neuropsychology integrates methods in experimental psychology in order to determine the connection between the nervous system and cognitive processes. Most of the work requires a study of a healthy human in a laboratory setting although some researchers use animals to conduct the experiments. The humans in the area utilizes specific features of the nervous system in order to establish a link between neuroanatomy and psychological processes.
Clinical neuropsychology applies neuropsychological concepts in assessing, managing, and rehabilitating people suffering from illness or injuries which has led to neurocognitive problems. It applies a psychological perspective to treatment, in understanding the illness and injury which can impact or be affected by psychological factors. Likewise, neuropsychologists provide opinions as to whether the cause of their difficulties resulted from brain pathology or due to an emotional or other possible reversible cause. Aside from that, a clinical neuropsychologist is assigned in a hospital setting working with an interdisciplinary medical unit.
Cognitive neuropsychology is a relatively new discipline and was borne out of the distillation of the complementary approaches of experimental and clinical neuropsychology. It aims to develop an understanding of the mind and brain by studying patients who have brain injuries or neurological disorders. A model of neuropsychologival functioning is known as functional localization is based on the concept that if a certain cognitive problems are located after an injury to a particular area of the brain, it is likely that this region will be involved in a certain way.
However, there are logical reasons to think that the connection between mental functions and neural regions is not as simple as it may seem. Parallel processing, the alternative model establishing the connection between the mind and brain, provides more explanation for the processes and dysfunction of the human brain.
Connectionism is the practice of using artificaial nueral networks to model specific cognitive processes with the use of a simplified but erroneous models of how the neurons function. Once these neurons have mastered a specific cognitive task these networks are often damaged to do a simulation of brain injury or impairment in order to have an understanding and comparison of the results of the effects of brain injury in humans.
These approaches are not entirely exclusive and most neuropsychologists choose the best approach or approaches in order to complete a task. For more information on neuropsychology, check out Psychology Fitness, the complete resource for psychology online.
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuropsychology