Given this increasingly acknowledged need for integration in the neurosciences, one would anticipate that neuropsychology, the long tradition of interdisciplinary, empirical studies of the relationship between the damaged brain and cognition, would have a clear contributing role in contemporary selleck screening library neurosciences. However, this field seems to have lost its former, prominent place within the modern neurosciences. Nowadays there is another, wider and prolific field studying the mind–brain interface; it is most commonly referred

to as ‘cognitive neuroscience’. A complete account of the professional and societal trends that may explain this change escapes the scope of this study. Here I will focus on epistemic issues, tracing differences in epistemology

between cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience and other related fields. I will then call for a new, dynamic neuropsychology that combines the epistemological advantages of the various fields, while avoiding some of their limitations. Finally, I will use the syndrome of anosognosia for hemiplegia as an example of how dynamic, computational and therapeutic approaches to neuropsychology can be explored. In most psychological and neuroscientific methods, researchers intervene with behaviour or brain function in a predetermined way and then measure the effects of their intervention. Temporary lesions of certain brain areas can be induced in GPCR Compound Library high throughput a controlled manner, MCE for example by using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), but in traditional human lesion studies, it is injury or disease that ‘intervenes’ with the normal function of the brain (Bechtel, 2012). This fact

limits the control the neuropsychologist has over the phenomena in question, because the ‘intervention’ on the brain itself, its effects on the mind and the relation of the two, are all unknown and demand careful characterization. Thus, traditional neuropsychological research has at least three corresponding aims: (a) to identify and measure behavioural or cognitive deficits; (b) to localize brain lesions; and (c) most importantly to infer the functional role of certain brain areas on the basis of the functional consequences of their damage. There are intrinsic limitations around these three aims. For instance, behavioural testing following brain damage is always subject to assumptions about, or at best post-hoc estimations of, an individual’s corresponding, pre-morbid abilities. Moreover, some regions of the brain are highly susceptible to damage, while others are rarely affected by injury or disease. In addition, cytoarchitectonic studies have long shown that there is gradual transition between cortical areas and their demarcation is not absolute.