Understanding behavior comes from many avenues, but none of these can be explored until the most fundamental aspects of the human nervous system are studied. It has been established that the nervous system is essentially a bunch of boxes within each other. The notion of autonomy has also been laid out on the table. To take it a step further, the smallest of the boxes, the neuron, is composed of many differnt types of batteries, dependent on membrane concentrations. The different membrane concentrations causes an electric field. These are key ideas that are important to understanding behavior. This is because ultimately these processes are the foundations to the bigger picture. Potentials govern the way sensory, motor, and interneurons operate. They are the reasons inputs and outputs occur leading to the involvement of the neurons. Everything in the nervous system can be described by ion potentials and concentration gradients. Is it then safe to assume that behavior is the result of a bunch of ions passing through membranes at a selected time? I think this idea might be uncomfortable to many people, but they way this information is leading, one can't help but see behavior as basically a chemical process.
Or at least a physico-chemical process. Or, more accurately, an enormously large and complexly interacting set of physico-chemical processes. Maybe less uncomfortable that way? PG