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Address questions of how the human brain and nervous system produce our range of behaviors—sensation, emotions, sleep and dreams, reproductive behavior, language and memory—as you explore brain-behavior relationships with an emphasis on clinical examples. Clinical examples include depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, sleep disorders, aggression, post-traumatic stress disorder, visual agnosia, dyslexia and amnesias. You’ll begin with studying the basic structure and function of the nervous system, then move to explore the organic bases of behavior.
Course Outline
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Course Objectives
- Address questions of how the human brain and nervous system produce our range of behaviors
- Describe the basic anatomy of the brain and central nervous system
- Explain biological mechanisms in sensation, emotions, sleep and dreams, reproductive behavior, memory and higher cognition
- Present current theories on the biological bases of depression, schizophrenia, eating disorders, sleep disorders, visual agnosias, anxiety disorder, amnesias and Alzheimer’s disease
What You Learn
- What biological psychology is and the history of the mind-body problem
- The impact of genetics and the environment on behavior
- Cells of the nervous system and anatomy of the neuron
- The nerve impulse and electric potentials within a neuron
- The synapse and how neurons communicate
- Neurotransmitters and the chemical message
- Drugs and addiction
- Neuroanatomy and the nervous system
- Neuroanatomy and the cerebral cortex
- Research methods
- Brain development: from neurons to the cortex Brain plasticity after damage, stroke Visual coding
- Early visual processing and primary visual cortex
- High-level visual processing and visual agnosia
- Movement control and brain mechanisms
- Movement disorders
- Wakefulness and sleep
- Brain mechanisms underlying biological rhythms
- Sleep: stages, brain mechanisms, disorders and possible functions
- Internal regulation and hunger
- Hunger and eating disorders
- Reproductive behaviors: sex and hormones
- Variations in sexual behavior
- Emotion: arousal, functions and brain areas
- Attack and avoid behaviors
- Anxiety disorders
- Stress
- The HPA axis
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Learning and memory: taxonomy, brain mechanisms, amnesias and dementias
- Cellular mechanisms
- Mood disorders
- Schizophrenia
How You Learn
- Chapter exams
- Article discussions
- Online resources
- Neuroanatomy lab
- Proctored final exam