The Psychology Department at Washington University, in an attempt to better reflect the work done by both students and faculty within the department, has changed its official name to the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.

Stephen Huber | Student Life

The Psychology department, housed in the Psychology building, is undergoing a name change.

The change, which was designed to better describe a department where many professors center their research around quantitative neuroscience, has also been followed by a proposal to add a second major to the department which focuses specifically on neuroscience within the field of psychology.

While the second major is still only a proposal, it further demonstrates in practice what the new name suggests: That the department has continually evolved in the past few years, its focus on neuroscience ever increasing.

Deanna Barch, department chair, considers the change in name as a necessary step towards fully communicating the true value of the department to the outside world.

“We have a large number of faculty members who do what we would characterize as cognitive or affective or social neuroscience,” Barch said.

“Everyone in the department would describe themselves as a psychologist and as someone who does psychology research, but if you look at departments across the nation, they can be very different in the kind of research that goes on,” she added. “Because we have so many faculty who focus on studying the brain, we felt that brain sciences was a better characterization.”

The growing trend towards neuroscience in the Psychological and Brain Sciences department at Washington University is also reflective of a larger trend in psychology as a whole.

“Neuroscience is a big part of the future, and I know it’s a big emphasis of the Obama administration and future research objectives in psychology,” senior Josh Rose said. “So if this is something that keeps the department here up to date with the study of psychology as a whole, I’m all for it.”

The new major, which is currently under consideration by administration, also affords students greater flexibility in pursuing their own passions.

“I’m not personally interested in neuroscience, but some of my best friends were more or less solely interested in neuroscience,” senior Annie Pudvah said. “So I definitely think there’s a demand and a market for a more specifically neuroscience major.”

As well as giving heightened attention to the neurological work done within the department, the shift also focuses on the numbers-based nature of the department’s efforts.

“One distinction that this makes is a kind of qualitative versus a quantitative distinction,” Barch said. “Our department has really focused more on quantitative approaches which we think align quite clearly with a more science-based approach.”

By making these essential facts about the department explicit in its very name, Barch hopes to make obvious to outsiders the department’s goals.

“We think it’s more informative to prospective students, both undergraduate and graduate, as well as others outside the department,” she said. “We really think that it gives them a better idea of the kind of work that’s going on in our department.”