If both fields study problems with brain function, shouldn’t they be studied in unison? Shouldn’t a neurologist be a psychiatrist and vice versa?
In: 5
No, not really.
A Software engineer, esports player and Intel CPU architect all attempt to manipulate how a computer processes information, but in extremely different ways.
You can address the brain electrically, physically, chemically, or through external stimulus and internal processes.
Usually a problem will have different methods suit it…you’re not going to do brain surgery to help someone cope with the death of their father, and you’re not going to do talk therapy to fix a brain tumor.
The brain is too complex and too poorly understood for us to (currently) treat psychiatric problems directly from our understanding of the brain in most cases. It’s like of like predicting the weather – yeah, in principle you could track every particle of gas in the air everywhere, but in practice you rely on general trends like “there’s a cold front”. The two fields do overlap, but one deals more with the underlying theory and the other with the clinical practice, and that clinical practice isn’t always based on theory so much as “we tried this thing and it worked”.
To use a rough analogy, it’s like comparing a skilled car driving teacher and a mechanic. They are both good at making your car driving experience better, but through very different methods. A psychiatrist can talk to you about your problems, teach you different ways of thinking about them, and possibly prescribe medication to help resolve some issues, but is more focused on the mental side of things, whereas a neurologist is more concerned with the physical side of things.
psychiatry and neuroscience are different medical fields because they focus on different aspects of the brain. psychiatry focuses on mental disorders, while neuroscience focuses on the structure and function of the nervous system.
Psyachiatry is a medical practice that specializes in studying and improving human health as it relates to behaviour.
Neurology is a medical practice that specializes in studying and improving human health as it relates to the brain and nervous system.
Neuroscience is the study of nervous systems of organisms, including vertebrate and non-vertebrates.
First of all, you are correct in the fact that there is a whole lot of things that are the same between them, and a lot of study of psychiatry uses neroscience.
The thing is that psychiatry, as a study, is based both on understanding the physical mechanics of psychological issues (such as the affect of dopamine on certain receptors) which is indeed 100% part of the neuroscience field, but also they study behavior on the outcome levels that aren’t looking at the neurological level, like for example how stress affects different types of mental health issues on a behavioral way.
Basically, psychiatry uses studies both from neuroscience and psychology together (and combines them).
A neuroscientist is a researcher in biology who tries to find out how the nervous system works. Which areas of the brain are connected to, for example, feelings of social inclusion, or language learning, which molecules are responsible for nervous system signaling, etc…
A psychiatrist is a medical doctor who specializes in treating psychiatric illness: the treatment of brain function which is thought to be at the root of disorders of thinking, feeling, conduct, etc…. They usually treat psychiatric patients with medication to affect nervous system function, but are often also involved in long term multi-disciplinary follow-up and coordination of the treatment patients.
So one is doing scientific investigation, one is treating patients.
There’s a big ol’ pyramid of things to study. But inverted like. At the very bottom is fundamental physics. Upon that is atoms and nuclear chemistry. Then regular chemistry. Then biochemistry. Then neuroscience on top of that. While it’s good to know about how protons stick to neutrons, it’s not super pertinent to why the presynaptic part is located on an axon. Likewise, up above the layer of how neurons fire, is how the system works on the whole, the brain. Above that is how brains work within a collection of other people and scenarios. That would be psychology. Even THAT isn’t actually psychiatry yet. Not all psychologists are psychiatrists. Psychiatrists study all the disorders. Those that deviate from the norm.
Will a psychiatrist know a good deal of psychology? You betcha. Will a nuclear chemist know what’s going on in a neuron? Parts of it. There’s a lot of overlap. But there’s a lot of distance between neuroscience and psychiatry.
“We’re all quarks and leptons and stuff, shouldn’t we be studying about quarks instead of macro-economics?”
Its actually more normal to divide structural and functional problems in medicine than not.
Examples
– rheumatologist deals with immune or inflammatory joint issues, physiotherapist and sports medicine deals with function, orthopaedic surgeon deals with structure.
– cardiologist deals with heart function, vascular surgeon does the plumbing, electrophysiologist does the electrics.
– gastroenterologist deals with gut issues medically, surgeons with operative issues.
In light of this, the division of brain issues into behavioural / mental health issues for psychiatrist, functions effecting the nervous system to neurology, and surgical stuff to neurosurgeons makes sense.
The divisions get blurry across certain conditions, but generally conditions get sorted to the people with the skills best suited to deal with them, rather than strictly by system necessarily, and many conditions need multiple specialities working together – rheumatoid arthritis might be predominantly under a rheumatologist because they need to deal with the medications involved, but may need an orthopaedic surgeon to operate on badly damaged joints, for example.
Psychiatrists focus on prescribing and managing drugs to treat conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Neurologists diagnose and treat conditions like strokes, brain injuries from blows to the head, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s. There is a bit of overlap, and in fact some doctors are board certified in both. Some psychiatric drugs will cause serious movement disorders that are usually treated by neurologists. Clinical psychologists give counseling to manage mood disorders and the like.
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