ABSTRACT
A full understanding of psychopathology must include an understanding of its biological bases, both genetic and neurobiological. The overview of brain structures and means of neuronal communication provides a primer of background knowledge of the biological bases of psychopathology. At the root of many forms of psychopathology are disturbances of emotion, including defects in perception, processing, expression, and regulation of emotion, as well as defects in the related capacity of feelings. More generally and relevant to many forms of psychopathology, the right hemisphere contains structures important for emotional processing which may have evolved to provide the neural machinery that operates aspects of social cognition. Enormous strides have been made regarding the understanding of the role of genetic processes in psychopathology. Twin methodology that can quantify the magnitude of genetic influences on psychopathology-relevant dimensions in the population can then provide more precise estimates of the magnitude of genetic influence.
