Psychological treatments and brain plasticity.

For number of years there existed two groups amongst those involved in treating mental disorders, the psychological and biological camps. Psychological camp recommending that "psychological disorders" require psychological treatments, whilst biological camp argued for biological treatment for "biological disorders". Here, I will provide emerging evidence that both forms of treatments have similar underlying neurobiological basis. Beginning at the molecular level, the fields of gene expression, functional genomics, epigenetics have become increasingly important in expanding our knowledge and providing an understanding of the mechanisms that are likely to be involved in changes that occur as result of psychological treatments. Understanding the biological basis of memory systems that include, the concepts of long-term potentiation (LTP) and long-term depression (LTD) through which synaptic plasticity is thought to occur go some way towards explaining how various psychotherapies modify memories and learning in a positive way. Finally various neuroimaging studies have provided a further insight in to the neural changes occurring as a result of psychological treatments.