Evobiopsychosocial medicine

Abstract

The biopsychosocial model remains the de facto framework of current healthcare, but lacks causational depth, scientific rigour, or any recognition of the importance of evolutionary theory for understanding health and disease. In this article it is updated to integrate Tinbergen’s four questions with the three biopsychosocial levels. This ‘evobiopsychosocial’ schema provides a more complete framework for understanding causation of medical conditions. Its application is exemplified by tabulating depression, rheumatoid arthritis and COVID-19 within its format, which highlights the direct research and practical applications uniquely offered by evolutionary medicine. An evobiopsychosocial framework can serve as a useful tool to introduce evolutionary concepts into mainstream medicine by highlighting the broad and specific contributions of evolutionary analysis to researching, treating and preventing health conditions, providing a suitable next step for the mainstream model of medicine.

Levels of analysis and explanatory progress in psychology: Integrating frameworks from biology and cognitive science for a more comprehensive science of the mind.

“…Mothers use these specific cues to know how much food the offspring need. Brood parasites have evolved to "break the code" by mimicking these exact cues, producing even louder sounds than the host's offspring and displaying similarly colored conspicuous gapes (Davies et al, 1998;Hunt et al, 2023;Payne, 2005). In the case of hosts that have evolved sophisticated discriminatory abilities, such as the superb fairy wren, the brood parasite has coevolved a vocal signature that mimics the chicks of the host species (Langmore & Kilner, 2007;Langmore et al, 2003).…”

“…A key piece of this revolution in the social and cognitive sciences-one that remains underappreciated-is that we need to pay much more attention to levels of analysis (see also Hofstadter, 1979;Hunt et al, 2023;D. C. Marr, 1982;Pietraszewski & Wertz, 2022).…”

Changing perspectives on autism: Overlapping contributions of evolutionary psychiatry and the neurodiversity movement

“…Such causes may be biological (e.g., genetic mutations, alterations in brain structure or function, variation in neurochemistry) or environmental (e.g., stress). In contrast, EP emphasizes explanation at the “ultimate” level (Mayr, 1961), asking why the process of evolution by natural selection has resulted in these “proximate” causal mechanisms and their particular effects (Hunt et al, 2023; Nesse, 2023). Why do brains, genes, and stress predispose us to psychiatric conditions?…”

Evolutionary psychiatry: foundations, progress and challenges

“…The other was recognition that a full explanation for a trait requires an evolutionary explanation of its origins and functions as well as a proximate explanation of its mechanisms. E. Mayr advocated for this distinction effectively 165‐167 , but it became more useful as a part of Tinbergen's four questions 25,168‐172 : What is the mechanism? How does it develop?…”