Integrating Social Neuroscience and Social Work: Innovations for Advancing Practice-Based Research (Report)

Social neuroscience, an interdisciplinary field of study examining the relations between biological systems and social processes, has moved forward in exciting new and integrative ways, resulting, in part, from the accelerated pace of brain imaging technological developments and the subsequent proliferation of scientific studies. In recent years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have spearheaded initiatives to investigate larger social processes and their impact on lifelong biological and neurological functioning, and they continue to actively promote the integration of sociobehavioral and biomedical research. Social neuroscience, as a field of scientific study, developed in response to the traditional genetic determinism of early biologists and the lack of neural substrate understanding of social scientists, seeking to move understanding of human behavior and development to a multilevel integrative approach that examines complex questions of gene--environment interactions (see, for example, Cacioppo, Berntson, Sheridan, & McClintock, 2002). For example, recent research shows that gene variants influence neurotransmitter effects on the central nervous system and, in interaction with specific environmental influences, increase the risk of development of substance use and mental health disorders (Enoch, 2006). Indeed, research agendas that examine biology, behavior, and environmental transactions have garnered much attention from the scientific community in the past decade--attention that will likely continue for decades to come. The integration of social neuroscience research into social work's explanatory and clinical change research methods, and the concomitant interdisciplinary partnerships forged as a result, is one area where a blended research trajectory (explanatory and clinical change-intervention models) has been operationalized. The purpose of this article is to describe a blended research trajectory, review the neuroscience literature as related to psychosocial interventions, and provide a specific example of how a blended methodological approach was used to develop a psychosocial intervention for social work practice.