Prosem (Part 2) syllabus 1Biobehavioral Prosem, Part 2: Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYC 303) Fall 2011 Professor: John Green Dewey Hall 358 E-mail: [email protected] Office hours: By appointment Meeting Time & Location: Dewey Hall 100 Wednesdays (October 19 – December 7), 8:30-11:30 am Course Description Biobehavioral Prosem is designed to be an advanced survey and analysis of behavioral and biological psychology, with special emphasis on learning theory (Part 1), and the behavioral/cognitive neuroscience of learning, memory, and emotion (Part 2). Behavioral neuroscience can be defined as “the study of how neural systems work together to produce behavior” while cognitive neuroscience can be defined by substituting “cognition” for “behavior”. Some people use the term “behavioral neuroscience” to refer to the study of nervous system-behavior relations in non-human animals and “cognitive neuroscience” to refer to the study of nervous system-cognition-behavior relations in humans (and perhaps other primates). These are very loose distinctions and not universally agreed upon but you should be aware of them. Course Objectives The Psychology Department’s goals for Proseminar are to: (1) Promote understanding and knowledge related to the specific foundational area through readings, class discussion, and assignments (2) Identify principles and analytic tools that may broaden students’ understanding of issues in their own discipline (3) Improve the quality of students’ research by making them aware of relevant research and theory in areas outside their own discipline. You should leave this part of Biobehavioral Prosem with a basic understanding of research in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. By the end of this portion of Prosem, everyone should have some working knowledge of some of the approaches and questions in behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. While it’s impossible to give you a full overview in only half a semester, you should get enough of an overview to support further exploration of these topics in our Biobehavioral seminars. It is also hoped that the topics we discuss will give you “food for thought” for how biobehavioral-related approaches might contribute to your own area(s) of research interest.Prosem (Part 2) syllabus 2Course Requirements Thought papers. At the end of 4 of our meetings, I will pass out one or more thought questions, due for the next meeting. These are designed to get you thinking about the readings for the week they are due. Your grade on these Thought papers will be based on the detail of your responses to the questions posed and your ability to integrate/synthesize material from our readings and/or your own research area. Please write at least one single-spaced page (1” margins, 11 pt Arial font) on that week’s thought question(s), drawing on the week’s readings as much as possible. Each of the 4 Thought papers will count as 10% of your grade. Class participation. While I will be lecturing more than in a “traditional” seminar, we will still have a lot of time for discussion in four of our class meetings: Translational Research & Animal Models, Pavlovian Motor Learning, Fear & Anxiety, and Medial Temporal Lobes & Memory. Your participation in the discussion at each of these meetings will be worth one-fourth of your class participation score, or 5% of your overall grade. Participation can include any or all of the following: asking or answering questions about the readings, discussing your responses to the Thought Question(s) for the week, or commenting on the ongoing discussion. Final paper. A half-page paragraph outlining your topic is due by our Nov 9 class meeting. This will not be graded but I will read these and provide you feedback prior to Thanksgiving break. The final paper is due at our final meeting (Dec 7). The theme of this final paper is integrating biobehavioral approaches with your own research interests. Biobehavioral approaches will most likely be at the subject level (e.g., non-human animals; neurological patients) or technique level (e.g., biological assays, including functional neuroimaging, psychophysiological techniques such as EEG or ECG, protein assays, etc.) but creativity is encouraged. Furthermore, a biobehavioral approach might be including behavior in your approach if you already work at the cellular/molecular level. You will also need to include justification for why a particular biobehavioral approach is included; try to integrate the approach so that it doesn’t feel “tacked on”. The final paper should be at least 5 full pages long (1” margins, 11 pt Arial font; 1.5 spacing) and should include at least 5 references. The final paper is worth 40% of your grade. Grading 4 Thought question responses (10% each) – 40% Class participation in 4 designated meetings (5% each) – 20% 5-page final paper – 40% Course Outline NOTE: the articles should be read in the order specified for the optimal learning experience!Prosem (Part 2) syllabus 3 Readings and lecture slides will be available on the Blackboard course site. Week 1 – Introduction (Oct 19) Go over syllabus and discuss goals and requirements of this portion of the course. Week 2 – NIH Grant Writing; Some Basic Neuroscience (Oct 26) Lecture on writing a National Institutes of Health grant, with an emphasis on the predoctoral (F31) NRSA. Lecture on some basic neuroscience principles, with an emphasis on neuroanatomy and behavioral/cognitive neuroscience techniques Please read to prepare: Breedlove, S. M., Watson, N. V., & Rosenzweig, M. R. (2010). Biological Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral, Cognitive, and Clinical Neuroscience. (Chapters 1 & 2) Week 3 –Translational Research and Animal Models (Nov 2) Woolf (2008). The meaning of translational research and why it matters. Journal of the American Medical Association, 299, 211-213. Insel (2006). Translational research in the decade of discovery. Hormones and Behavior, 50, 504-505. Yehuda, R., & LeDoux, J. E. (2007). Response variation following trauma: A translational neuroscience approach to understanding PTSD. Neuron, 56, 19-32. Sagvolden, T., Russell, V. A., Aase, H., Johansen, E. B., & Farshbaf, M. (2005). Rodent models of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Biological Psychiatry, 57, 1239-1247. Week 4 – A Neural Circuit Analysis of