Academic year 2016-2017
Psychobiology
This is an
advanced course (6 credits CFU) within the degree
of
Neurobiology.
Lectures begin on Ocrober4, 2016
1. Brain-mind
relationships. Evolution of the nervous system. The exploration of
the brain. 2. Biological bases of mental activity. Neuronal circuits
and mechanisms of information processing. Biological diversity: the
relationship between genetics and behavior. Environmental factors and
neural structural and functional changes. 3. Phylogeny and ontogeny
of the nervous system: cerebrum, diencephalon, midbrain, spinal cord.
Special reference to spinal reflexes, species-specific behaviors,
imprinting, memory and learning. 4. Spinal cord: macroscopic anatomy,
ascending and descending pathways, anterior, spinal reflexes. -Motor
control system: cortical and cerebellar motor functions, pyramidal
and extrapyramidal system. -Cerebral cortex: functional anatomy of
the cerebral cortex, hemispheric asymmetries, motor, sensory and
associative cortices -The thalamus , the limbic system: Anatomy and
functions. 5. Development of the nervous system and behavior:. The
origins of plasticity. Visual cortex and plasticity. Experience and
nerve connections. Plasticity in children and adults. The limits of
plasticity. Memory as a form of neural plasticity. Aging and the
nervous system.
Textbook: Watson N.V. & S. M.
Breedlove, Il cervello e la mente. Le basi biologiche del
comportamento. Zanichelli, Bologna, 2014. or: Mark R.
Rosenzweig, S. Marc Breedlove, and Neil V. Watson: Biological
Psychology: An Introduction to Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience,
4th edition (or similar)
Online support: students
will find copy of the slides shown during the course at this
link
mail: oliverio at oliverio dot eu