neurology vs clinical cognitive neuroscience

[toby jones]

Can anyone help me out with the differences between neurology and clinical cognitive neuroscience? I get that neurology is a field within medicine and that cognitive neuroscience is a field within psychology (the clinical aspect of it anyway) but what are the practical differences with respect to:

1) The kinds of conditions you are dealing with
2) What it is that you do with those people

I'd much appreciate it, thanks.

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[socialcog]

Can anyone help me out with the differences between neurology and clinical cognitive neuroscience? I get that neurology is a field within medicine and that cognitive neuroscience is a field within psychology (the clinical aspect of it anyway) but what are the practical differences with respect to:

1) The kinds of conditions you are dealing with
2) What it is that you do with those people

I'd much appreciate it, thanks.

One of my mentors is a psychiatrist and a medical director at a midsize medical facility. He says one of the main differences between an MD and a PhD (scientist) is that the MD is really only interested if there is some pathology involved. The scientist will investigate more broadly if there is a compelling question.

I know what a cognitive neuroscientist is, but I confess that I don't know what a clinical cognitive neuroscientist is.

 

[Ollie123]

I know what a cognitive neuroscientist is, but I confess that I don't know what a clinical cognitive neuroscientist is.

I've never heard of it either, though I think I might be one.

Maybe its someone who uses traditional cognitive neuroscience tools to investigate psychopathology? For example, examining the effects of alcohol, nicotine, etc. have on EEG/ERP responses to images, behavioral tasks, etc.? I do some of this kind of stuff (more soon...I'm excited ), and I'm probably closer to the cognitive neuroscience domain than most other clinicals I know.

Cognitive neuroscience is not a branch of clinical, its a branch of...well, cognitive and neuroscience. They don't traditionally study pathology per se, these are the folks doing things like using neuroimaging to look at attention, memory, learning, perception, etc.

 

[PsyDr]

in short: there is no such thing as a clinical cognitive neuroscientist. cognitive neuroscience is largely its own discipline, with its own phd in a different department. there are no licenses for this title. there is also no way to bill for "cognitive neuroscientist" services.


however, i believe what you are referring to is clinical neuropsychology, which is a branch of clinical psychology.

 

[socialcog]

in short: there is no such thing as a clinical cognitive neuroscientist. cognitive neuroscience is largely its own discipline, with its own phd in a different department. there are no licenses for this title. there is also no way to bill for "cognitive neuroscientist" services.

Bummer Ollie!!! I was rooting for you!

 

[Ollie123]

Bummer Ollie!!! I was rooting for you!

Psh. Billing for things would require me to interact with clients. My dream job consists of me reading articles all day, designing a study to test my crazy, arcane ideas, and then having the dataset emailed to me a year later after others do that whole talking to humans thing. I intend on finding a university willing to foot the bill, so not being able to bill clients for services won't be an issue

 

[toby jones]

> i believe what you are referring to is clinical neuropsychology, which is a branch of clinical psychology.

Ah, good, progress. Yes, thats what I mean. Cognitive neuroscience applied to... Well... Diagnosing pathology? Treating pathology? Um...

If it is an established field (that you can train in and that there are jobs in) then how would the patient contact be different from neurology???

The guy who taught psychometrics at my undergrad institution worked part time in the head trauma unit up at the hospital. I never got the opportunity to ask him what he did up there (e.g., diagnostics / rehab / bit of both) before he left.

Thanks.

 

[PsyDr]

remember last month when you challenged my advice on clinical neuropsychology?


seems like you would want to know the field exists before you give advice.

 

[Ollie123]

> i believe what you are referring to is clinical neuropsychology, which is a branch of clinical psychology.

Ah, good, progress. Yes, thats what I mean. Cognitive neuroscience applied to... Well... Diagnosing pathology? Treating pathology? Um...

If it is an established field (that you can train in and that there are jobs in) then how would the patient contact be different from neurology???

The guy who taught psychometrics at my undergrad institution worked part time in the head trauma unit up at the hospital. I never got the opportunity to ask him what he did up there (e.g., diagnostics / rehab / bit of both) before he left.

Thanks.

Yeah, you're almost definitely referring to neuropsychology. It is a very well established field...more so than many branches of psychology. There is definitely some overlap with neurology, though I'll let those more in the know outline the specific ways it is different.

I wouldn't call it applied cognitive neuroscience though. There's overlap for sure, but it still seems hugely misleading to me - there's a lot of cognitive neuroscience that neuropsychologists don't really have any involvement with, and vice versa. Its like calling someone in child clinical an applied developmental psychologist. There's elements of truth to it, but the reality is far more complicated than that.

 

[toby jones]

> remember last month when you challenged my advice on clinical neuropsychology?

Can you give me a link? Thanks.

 

[toby jones]

So... Clinical Neuropsychology. I'm guessing that some are researchers and others are practitioners (working in an applied context). What do the practitioners do? Diagnostics or treatment or both? What relationship do they bear to neurologists if they both work in a hospital context (e.g., when would one refer on to the other). Thanks.

 

[thewesternsky]

So... Clinical Neuropsychology. I'm guessing that some are researchers and others are practitioners (working in an applied context). What do the practitioners do? Diagnostics or treatment or both? What relationship do they bear to neurologists if they both work in a hospital context (e.g., when would one refer on to the other). Thanks.

Try these links, for a start:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_neuropsychology

http://www.div40.org/

 

[PsyDr]

well toby jones,

in a thread wherein a student asked if a computer science minor would be helpful to the pursuit of neuropsychology, i gave my opinion that programming knowledge would not be needed given my experience in a neuroimaging lab.

you stated:

I'm not so sure:

http://www.mind.duke.edu/main/employment.html

A few of them mention programming as desirable. But then... Just how much programming are you looking at learning? Math is pretty useful too...

you have also given other advice in a thread wherein a student asked for advice in how to pursue a line of neuropsychological investigation in schizophrenia. you stated:

I was about to say that you could check out 'Christopher Frith' in the UK, but one of the links said that he had recently retired. He had a lab at University College London, though, so you might want to check that out. There might be other people there working on schizophrenia.

Alternatively... I really can't say enough good things about the following lab:

http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/

People there do work on cognitive neuropsychological modelling of schizophrenia, delusions of mis-identification, autism etc. Check out Max Coltheart, in particular, as their most prominant figure.

Here is a link to the 'belief formation' project:
http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/research/programme/belief.htm

They also have a couple MEG machines and one of their research aims is to use it to find out more about the cognitive neuropsychology of schizophrenia:
http://www.maccs.mq.edu.au/laboratories/meg/index.htm

Sydney is also a very civilized place to live and the lab is a centre for excellence and is very highly regarded both inside Australia and across the rest of the world. I'd seriously consider it.


Not sure what is going on at Oxford, but you might want to check them out too...

Duke seems to do neuroimaging (if you are into that in particular). San Deigo... I'm not sure beyond that...

looks like you have given advice at least two times in a field you profess not to even know what the practitioners do. strangely you have even referenced neuropsychology a few times in those quotes. so what're you basing your opinions on? google?

 

[toby jones]

> in a thread wherein a student asked if a computer science minor would be helpful to the pursuit of neuropsychology, i gave my opinion that programming knowledge would not be needed given my experience in a neuroimaging lab.

Right. I can't say anything about your experience in a neuroimaging lab.

I merely provided a link to some job vacancies where it looked like they were (in some instances) advertising for applicants to work in a neuroimaging lab. In at least some of those advertisements they seemed to think that programming knowledge was useful.

> looks like you have given advice at least two times in a field you profess not to even know what the practitioners do. strangely you have even referenced neuropsychology a few times in those quotes. so what're you basing your opinions on? google?

What I say should be taken on its merits. If it is helpful to the person then that is good if it isn't helpful to the person then that can simply disregard it. Where I got the information is irrelevant. What my qualifications are or are not is irrelevant.

My experience is with cognitive neuroscience and cognitive neuropsychology research laboratories for the most part. The researchers I have dealt with only deal with patients insofar as it is part of their experiment. They haven't had anything to do with the assessment or diagnosis or treatment of individuals suffering from cerebral trauma etc to the best of my knowledge. If I were to study with them (doing a PhD in psychology) I wouldn't come out with qualifications that would result in my assessing or diagnosing or treating patients to the best of my knowledge. I've also had experience with clinical psychology programs - that are heavily CBT oriented and focused on mental or psychiatric disorders. I remembered that there was a psychology guy in the clinical program who did psychometrics and used to work at the hospital - something to do with patients with acquired cerebral injury (as I said) and I was wondering what qualification was relevant to that and what exactly that qualification enabled you to do (compared to neurologists, for example).

Why am I feeling like I'm justifying myself to you?

Your experience is your experience. I accept and acknowledge that. Does that help?

You don't need to know the answer to my question for me to have faith that you have an understanding of the field/s.

 

[toby jones]

Thank you that was very helpful. I'm usually outside the US but that is a very useful place to start, indeed.

 

[SecretZombie]

Well, I'd be more than happy to answer the original question because I am in fact an aspiring student of clinical neuropsychology.

A clinical neuropsychologist, as has already been alluded to, is a scientist practitioner.

Within the science realm, we investigate leading questions in the field that relate to a few different clinical populations. Examples include dementia, HIV related cognitive decline, the Traumatic Brain Injured, Brain tumor survivors, folks within the autism spectrum, and the learning disabled to name a few. Essentially, we try to characterize them using our latest technology, as well as to develop competent assessment tools that map on to specific types of brain injuries/maladies.

This completements the clinical/practitioner work of the clinical neuropsychologist: our main clinical job is to ASSESS patients for cognitive problems and maladaptions using cognitive and neuropsychological assessment tools.

As part of my thesis, I recruited patients with dementia from a memory clinic at a public hospital and got a chance to speak quite a bit with the leading neurologist. Basically, neurologists diagnose and treat persons with similar diagnoses but they use slightly different tools. For example, they are interested in not only cognition, but also the physical symptomology of the nerves, head and neck that these patients deal with. They also can prescribe medications for cognitive decline.

Usually (in the case of dementia, at least) neurologists refer patients to clinical neuropsychologists so that they can perform an extensive (3+ hours) neuropsychological test battery. C.N.'s also write detailed reports about the performance of patients on these exams and make recommendations for treatment.

That's it, in a nutshell.

 

[toby jones]

Awesome! Thank you so much.

 

[PsyDr]

toby,

i am saying all this because you are clearly offering advice on a subject about which you have limited knowledge. you are then attempting to lead people away from advice from people who understand the difference between cognitive neuropsychology and clinical neuropsychology.


my opinion, is that if you do not know something you probably should not offer advice about it. especially in a forum which is largely composed of undergrads seeking advice on how the proper steps to further their career.

 

[toby jones]

Everyone has limited knowledge dude. Get over yourself. I've received very helpful advice on this thread by a poster who is *intending* on getting into the field. A more straight up and helpful answer to my question than your picking about my choice of terminology has been. Take what is helpful ignore that which isn't. Don't need the helpful police people are typically capable of assessing things for themselves. Thanks for playing (so to speak). I've received an answer to my question and so far as I'm concerned this thread is done.

 

[Neuro-Dr]

I think the description about Neuropsychology is pretty much on, just note that many do rehab work as well and many do forensic evals for injury following a CNS condition.

The neurology part is a little different. Neurologist tend to work on a more broad definition of CNS dysfunction. Neuropsychologists work on generally higher order/cortical disorders and assess memory, attention, executive functions, language, visuospatial skils, personality, etc. Neurology deals with any pathology on the CNS including neuromuscular disorders, carpal tunnel, back pain, headaches, peripheral neuropathy, etc. So, where I'm at (outpatient neurology/neuropsychology/neurosurgery practice), we tend to overlap with neurology on TBI, dementia, MS, toxic-metabolic disorders and maybe are more specialized in areas of autism, ADHD, dyslexia, etc.

Both teach, do research and practice depending on interest.