Course Overview

•Syllabus• Schedule of Topics

• Topic Pages – Reading Assignments

– Discussion Questions

– Additional Sources

•Exams – 4 @ 100 points each

•Quizzes - Frequent @10 points

•Research Paper @ 100 points

Say Kids

What Time Is It

Biological Psychology by Breedlove & Watson

Table of Contents

1. Biological Psychology: Scope and Outlook

2. Functional Neuroanatomy: The Nervous System and Behavior

3. Neurophysiology: The Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals

4. The Chemical Bases of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology

5. Hormones and the Brain

6. Evolution of Brain and Behavior

7. Life-Span Development of the Brain and Behavior

8. General Principles of Sensory Processing, Touch, and Pain

9. Hearing, Vestibular Perception, Taste, and Smell

10. Vision: From Eye to Brain

11. Motor Control and Plasticity

12. Sex: Evolutionary, Hormonal, and Neural Bases

13. Homeostasis: Active Regulation of Internal States

14. Biological Rhythms, Sleep, and Dreaming

15. Emotions, Aggression, and Stress

16. Psychopathology: Biological Basis of Behavioral Disorders

17. Learning and Memory

18. Attention and Higher Cognition

19. Language and Hemispheric Asymmetry

Myths about the brain

• Common aspect of popular culture– “People ordinarily use only 10% of their

brain”

• Lucy TRAILER 1 (2014)• 7 Myths About The Brain You Thought

Were True

What is Biological Psychology?

The branch of psychology that is concerned with the biological bases of psychological processes.

Biological psychology refers to the study of how physical conditions of the human body affect an individual's subjective experience.

Biological psychology is the field that relates behavior to bodily processes, especially the workings of the brain.

Figure 1.2 What’s in a Name?

Sociology

Social Psychology

SocialCognitiveNeuroscience

Figure 1.1 Your Brain by the Numbers

Three Main Approaches to Studying the Neuroscience of Behavior

Somatic intervention—alteration of a structure or function to see how behavior is altered

An independent variable is the factor that is being manipulated.

A dependent variable is what is measured in response to changes in the independent variable.

Three Main Approaches to Studying the Neuroscience of Behavior

Behavioral intervention—intervention in a behavior to see how structure or function is altered

Behavior is then the independent variable and body changes are dependent variables.

Three Main Approaches to Studying the Neuroscience of Behavior

Correlation measures how much a body measure varies with a behavioral measure—but correlation does not imply causation.

Biological psychology considers all three of these approaches.

Three Main Approaches to Studying the Neuroscience of Behavior

What is Biological Psychology?Biological Psychology tries to explain behaviour in terms of:

PHYSIOLOGY: How does a particular behaviour relate to functioning of the brain and other organs? What are the cellular, chemical and hormonal influences on behaviour?

DEVELOPMENT: How does a particular behaviour develop, i.e. by what combination of the influence of genes and the environment?

EVOLUTION: How does a behaviour relate to the evolutionary history of the species?

FUNCTION: Why has a particular behaviour evolved? What genetic/survival advantage might a particular behaviour give to an individual or a species?

These types of explanations were originally put forward by Tinbergen in 1951 and are sometimes referred to as Tinbergen's 4 'whys‘. Tinbergen N: The Study of Instinct. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1951.

Randolph M. Nesse, Tinbergen's Four Questions Organized, http://nesse.us, 2000.

For additional coverage see:

Basic Theory of Human Sciences PowerPoint by Gerhard Medicus

Mapping Transdisciplinarity in Human Sciences by Gerhard Medicus

What is Biological Psychology?

To understand the biological basis of behavior we need to consider the following five view points.

1. Description of behavior– a. Structural Description– b. Functional Description

2. Evolution of behavior

3. Development of behavior

4. Mechanisms of behavior

5. Applications of biopsychology to behavior

Table 1.1 Five Research Perspectives

Overview and color figures

Table 1.1 Five Research Perspectives

Reading in the Brain

How are letters on a page focused onto the retina during reading?

How does reading change the way culture is shared?

Why does part of the cortex have circuits for reading?

How does reading experience change brain circuits?

What are the circuits that that combine letters into word meaning?

What are the best methods for learning to read?