Behavioral & Cognitive Neuroscience

Contemporary Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience is a discipline at the crossroads of neurobiology, neuroscience, neuropsychology and experimental psychology. Its major achievements come from neurophysiological animal studies, case studies following experimental or naturally occurring brain injuries, and neuroimaging research involving humans.

The lectures will cover a wide range of topics, and relevant research papers on biopsychological and neuroscientific approaches to issues/subjects specified in the syllabus below.

SYLLABUS:

Week 1: Introduction to contemporary Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience

Week 2: Research methods in biopsychology, neurobiology, behavioral and cognitive neuroscience

Week 3: Functional neuroimaging in humans

Week 4: Sensorimotor processing and/or learning and memory

Week 5: Lateralization of basic behavioural and cognitive functions

Week 6: Hormones and sex

Week 7: Hunger, eating and related health issues

Week 8: Sleep, dreaming, and circadian rhythms

Week 9: Emotions, stress, and related health issues

Week 10: Drugs, addiction, and reward circuits in the brain

Week 11: Biopsychology of psychiatric disorders (I)

Week 12: Biopsychology of psychiatric disorders (II)

Week 13: Brain damage and models of diseases

Week 14: Genes and diseases of the nervous system

Week 15: Neuroplasticity

The recommended textbook:

(1) Kandel, E.R., Schwartz, J.H., Jessell, T.M., Siegelbaum, S.A., Hudspeth, A.J., (2013). Principles of Neural Science, Fifth Edition. McGraw-Hill Companies, USA. (Only selected and most relevant chapters/sections from this textbook will be reffered to or discussed.)

(2) Pinel, J.P.J. (2010). Biopsychology (8th edition or later). Pearson Education, Limited. (This is a primary background for all discussed topics.)

Supplemental references (This is just a list of recent papers, reviews, or chapters which are related to the topics covered during the lectures. References to classic papers or critical reviews will be available from course instructor.)

(1) Anafi, R.C., Kayser, M.S., Raizen, D.M., 2019. Exploring phylogeny to find the function of sleep. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 20, 109-116.

(2) Anderlini, D., Wallis, G., Marinovic, W., 2019. Language as a Predictor of Motor Recovery: The Case for a More Global Approach to Stroke Rehabilitation. Neurorehabil Neural Repair, 1545968319829454.

(3) Berenbaum, S.A., Beltz, A.M., 2016. How Early Hormones Shape Gender Development. Curr Opin Behav Sci 7, 53-60.

(4) Boly, M., Gosseries, O., Massimini, M., Rosanova, M., 2016. Functional Neuroimaging Techniques. In: Laureys, S., Gosseries, O., Tononi, G. (Eds.), The Neurology of Consciousness (Second Edition). Academic Press.

(5) Cabrera, F.F., Gamarra, E.R., Garcia, T.E., Littlejohn, A.D., Chinga, P.A., Pinentel-Morillo, L.D., Tirado, J.R., Chung, D.Y., Pande, L.J., McCall, K.L., Nichols, S.D., Piper, B.J., 2019. Opioid distribution trends (2006-2017) in the US Territories. PeerJ 7, e6272.

(6) Cheignon, C., Tomas, M., Bonnefont-Rousselot, D., Faller, P., Hureau, C., Collin, F., 2018. Oxidative stress and the amyloid beta peptide in Alzheimer's disease. Redox Biology 14, 450-464.

(7) Corballis, M., 2017. The Evolution of Lateralized Brain Circuits. Frontiers in Psychology 8:1021.

(8) Dauvilliers, Y., Schenck, C.H., Postuma, R.B., Iranzo, A., Luppi, P.H., Plazzi, G., Montplaisir, J., Boeve, B., 2018. REM sleep behaviour disorder. Nat Rev Dis Primers 4, 19.

(9) Endendijk, J.J., Beltz, A.M., McHale, S.M., Bryk, K., Berenbaum, S.A., 2016. Linking Prenatal Androgens to Gender-Related Attitudes, Identity, and Activities: Evidence From Girls With Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. Arch Sex Behav 45, 1807-1815.

(10) Filmer, H.L., Dux, P.E., Mattingley, J.B., 2014. Applications of transcranial direct current stimulation for understanding brain function. Trends in Neurosciences 37, 742-753.

(11) Gahagan, S., 2012. Development of eating behavior: biology and context. J Dev Behav Pediatr 33, 261-271.

(12) Gurtubay-Antolin, A., Leon-Cabrera, P., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., 2018. Neural evidence of hierarchical cognitive control during haptic processing: An fMRI study. eNeuro 5.

(13) Huang, R.S., Chen, C.F., Sereno, M.I., 2017. Mapping the complex topological organization of the human parietal face area. Neuroimage 163, 459-470.

(14) Petrides, K.V., Mikolajczak, M., Mavroveli, S., Sanchez-Ruiz, M.J., Furnham, A., Perez-Gonzalez, J.C., 2016. Developments in Trait Emotional Intelligence Research. Emotion Review 8, 335-341.

(15) Siegel, E.H., Sands, M.K., Van den Noortgate, W., Condon, P., Chang, Y.L., Dy, J., Quigley, K.S., Barrett, L.F., 2018. Emotion Fingerprints or Emotion Populations? A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Autonomic Features of Emotion Categories. Psychological Bulletin 144, 343-393.

(16) Speth, J., Speth, C., 2016. Motor imagery in REM sleep is increased by transcranial direct current stimulation of the left motor cortex (C3). Neuropsychologia 86, 57-65.

(17) Weinstein, A., Lejoyeux, M., 2015. New developments on the

neurobiological and pharmaco-genetic mechanisms underlying internet and videogame addiction. Am J Addict 24, 117-125.

(18) Zhang, H.Y., Wang, Z.G., Lu, X.H., Kong, X.X., Wu, F.Z., Lin, L., Tan, X., Ye, L.B., Xiao, J., 2015. Endoplasmic reticulum stress: relevance and therapeutics in central nervous system diseases. Mol Neurobiol 51, 1343-1352.

Upon the completion of the lecture series, students should know the basic and advanced concepts, major models and approaches to studying the neural bases of behaviour and cognition.

The final exam will cover the material from the studied chapters/papers, and the related slides.

The BCN exam consists of only one part, involving answers to 60 multiple-choice questions.

Example questions are given below:

(1) "Emergent stage 1" is one of the phases of _________ as measured by _________. Emergent stage 1 differs from the initial stage 1 by the presence of _________, and _________.

A) drug-withdrawal effect … EOG … rapid heart beats (RHB) … no muscle convulsions

B) sleep cycle … EEG … rapid eye movements (REMs) … loss of core muscle tone

C) sleep cycle … EMG … saccadic eye movements (SEMs) … loss of core muscle tone

D) drug-withdrawal effect … EOG … cardiopulmonary arrest (CPA) … no muscle tone

E) none of the above

(2) Drug tolerance is any attenuation of a drug's effect resulting from prior exposure to the drug. There are at least two different types of tolerance effects: _________ tolerance that results from a decrease in the amount of the drug reaching the target cells, and _________ tolerance that results from a decrease in the ability of the drug to influence the target cells. Notably, tolerance to most psychoactive drugs is primarily _________.

A) functional … metabolic … metabolic

B) functional … metabolic … functional

C) metabolic … functional … metabolic

D) metabolic … functional … functional

(3) The _________ theory of schizophrenia explains the symptoms such as hallucinations by postulating an access of certain kind of neurotransmitter in the limbic system. Antipsychotic properties of most drugs capitalize on the fact that they are _________ receptors’ antagonists. Indeed, in the classic paper by Seeman et al. (1976) the average clinical dose of each antipsychotic agent was plotted against its ability to block a particular receptor, and this activity is directly correlated with the aforementioned kind of receptor but not _________ receptors, whose functions are not well understood.

A) serotonin … S1 … S2, S3, and S4

B) dopamine … D2 … D1, D3, and D4

C) dopamine … dopaminergic … D2, D3, and D4

D) serotonin … serotonergic … S1, S3, and S4

N.A.