Reflecting on Brain, Behavior, and Human Well-Being

I have really enjoyed our discussions this past semester. We were able to cover a wide variety of topics that have always interested me but were only briefly touched upon in other courses I have taken, so it was nice to be able to expand on my thoughts about these topics and to hear other perspectives.

The thing that I find the most interesting when looking back on the past semester is how interrelated all of the discussion topics were. Issues of mental function versus dysfunction, morality, animal consciousness, and pain all wound up influencing one another, and it was difficult for us to have one discussion without invoking comments from another. I think this highlights the fact that when we are looking at a given issue in neuroscience, there are many factors that need to be taken into consideration. First, one must think about both physiological and experiential aspects of a given phenomena. Then, one must take into consideration how a person is influenced socially and culturally. It seem that all of these perspectives must be combined in order to study any aspect of brain functioning.

There is also the issue of how research on the brain is conducted. This past semester, I thought more about the moral implications of various research methods than I probably ever have before. Since I will be starting a Neuroscience PhD program this summer, I am glad that I've had the opportunity to consider these issues from a slight distance. I think in this field we become very focused and detail oriented, and it becomes easier to simply follow protocols when conducting research without thinking about what went into setting it up. I think it is important to question standard research practices, especially when they involve animals and humans, as research on the brain inevitably does, in order to evaluate the moral issues involved. Further, it is important to work through how these "morals" were decided on in the first place, and how standards of morality may differ between research scientists and the general population. All of these are crucial things to think about for anyone interested in dedicating their life to research, and I am really glad I had the opportunity to think these things through for myself.

Coming into this seminar, I was expecting some kind of huge lit review where we discussed current trends in scientific neurology research, and I didn't think there was any possible way that we would be able to have interesting discussions with such a large group of people. As the semester went on, I was so amazed and excited to participate in some extremely interesting and thought provoking discussions about such a wide range of subjects that I might not have originally thought were a part of "neural and behavioral sciences."

I feel like I was most taken by the concept of individuality and diversity. I think that every discussion we had benefitted by the inclusion of the idea that we are all unique and that we cannot fully understand the experiences of other people. We talked about such large topics as love, morality, and conciousness, where we inevitably came to the conclusion that we cannot come to a conclusion, because these experiences are so subjective and personal. Even in our discussions about pain and psychotherapy/psychopharmacology, we kept coming back to the concept of individual difference and the difficulty of many types of "typical" biomedicine to grapple with these issues in a productive way. I think that this seminar experience will do a great job for our class of future doctors and researchers to try in small ways to change these viewpoints that everyone is the same and the same treatment or educational setting is appropriate for everyone.

I was also so struck during the semester about how so many of us focused on popular media articles, from newspapers instead of scientific journals. It really gave me a sense of how widespread NBS topics are and that it is not only the scientific community that is focusing on these ideas, but rather our society as a whole.

Thank you to everyone for such a great discussion this semester and best of luck on your theses!

I've also really enjoyed being able to get a much broader sense of the field of neuroscience this semester.  With our small departments in the Bi-Co, there's not a huge diversity in research topics, and it's been enlightening to get a better idea of what's going on out in the larger world of academia.  It's been particularly interesting to look at topics I might have previously thought of as "fluffy" (e.g. love, education, morality) from a scientific perspective.  On some level, I've always known that any behavior must have some sort of neural basis, but it's not often that you think about how your brain affects your romantic relationships, at least beyond the hormonal level.

I thought many of the discussions in this seminar were really eye opening for me, especially with respect to the ways that we classify people both in a psychological sense, and in the social realm.  I think my favorite part about this seminar was the fac that it really made me question the way that I personally, as well as the way that psychologists and doctors on the whole diagnose and classify people with diseases.  Having learned about the medicalization of psychology and the "evils" of the diagnostic criteria of the DSM, I thought I had developed a pretty open mind about mental "disorders".  However, from our first discussion of broken brains, I found that there was really a lot mroe that I was not considering when thinking about people who deviate from what is termed the "norm".  I think especially poignant for me was realizing in that discussion that the way that we treat people with autism today is really quite similar to the way that women and homosexuals have been treated throughout history, and that it is conceivable that in another century, autistics will be regarded by psychologists as simply a set of humans who have differing (not deficient) cognitive abilities which serve them well in many circumstances.  This discussion was really what prompted me to pursue a topic in sex and gender studies for our presentation. 

On a more general level, I feel like my previous notions of the dichotomous nature of most things have really been challanged in this course.  Although it is sometimes frustrating for me to not be able to seperate characteristics into distinct categories, I think in the end I am the better for realizing that almost every variable can be thought of as a continuum.  The more I think about and research terms and variables in psychology, the more I realize that nothing can truly be defined and likewise nothing can be categorized.  For me this really calls into question the validity of most if not all studies in psychology and biology, but although like I said this frustration sometimes gets the better of me, I think it is important to attend to and think about these overarching problems to more fully understand the implications and limitations of our research.  Thanks for the really great presentations and discussion guys!

     Coming into this course I didn't know what to expect.  I suppose i figured it would simply be an overview of what we had already learned or a review of interesting literature in a journal club format.  What I found was much different and in a way more helpful and enlightening than what I had expected.  Maybe it was due to the members of the class or the professors or a combination of the two but I found as we had discussions in class that we were having serious and legitimate conversation and debate about topics I didn't really think there was too much to debate about.  Albeit sometimes I and I'm sure others in the class, were stuck in our ways and didn't have too much tolerance for these new sides of discussions, to me it was interesting to see that in fact there was another side and that what I accept as accepted science is not always as accepted as I think (or alternatively it is sometime too accepted).

         I also really liked how the class was oriented around topics that we chose and thus were of interest to us.  Because we were able to choose our own topics unrestricted I think that the presentations were much more interesting.  It was also nice to have everyone with a background in the material so that we didn't have to spend time every class hashing over mechanisms and concepts we already understood.  The discussion format is also nice and something we don't always get to do in sciences with the exception of surrounding a particular article.  It was interesting to look at neurology and behavior from so many sides and from people who were clearly passionate about the subjects. 

       I don't think there was a single topic that I found most interesting during this class.  The things I feel I will take from this class are more about discussion and the truth, or lack thereof, behind science.  It seems that we can challenge almost every scientific "assertion" and after this class I hope that I will do this more throughout my education.  I also think that as was mentioned by others this class has also allowed me to think about the value of personal anecdotes and observations outside of scientific experimentation in creating hypothesis and scientific "truths".  I think that there is a fine line as to how and when these are appropriate, however I think I have been convinced that there may be some place for them.  Though I'm not sure that we can draw conclusions from them I think this class had made me realize that they are the starting point of most research and the basis for what we know as scientific assertion.

I, again, feel that my experience in this seminar was an interesting contrast to my other science classes. I will admit that at times I was frustrated with the lack of primary scientific literature brought up in our discussions (those of us who posted primary lit/studies seemed to often end up talking about the more controversial topics presented by short personal-interest pieces), but I do feel that the discussions that we did have were valuable. Many were much more philosophical than I had expected-- there really is no one answer or way to approach this material and I found it incredibly interesting how many different ways we each found to get at the key themes, such as neural diversity, throughout the semester. I also felt like these boards were an interesting avenue to continue class discussion; often times in other classes I've found that time to reflect on what was talked about allows for much more critical study, so I think this is great medium to do just that.

in terms of the things that I have found most interesting, I really think through each of the topics there were a few main themes. first, the idea of everything being defined on a spectrum was fascinating for me. I do, as many people have mentioned above, tend to think of things as right and wrong and black and white. Its hard to think about some of the things I deal with during my senior thesis research in this way-- if my experiment doesn't work, I don't immediately think about all the other things it could be telling me. However, i really SHOULD think abotu all those things, because that is what science is all about... a lot of times we talked about there being a lack of definition (love, consciousness) and I think this is also applicable on a wider range of topics. what is more interesting is the question: do we really need a definition? often, im not sure we do need a concrete definition to study something-- isn't the studying it itself helping to define it? and dont our definitions change as we learn more and more about something? the other thing that i think its very important to remember is that we need to define things on a spectrum (as i mentioned above). AND, perhaps even more importantly still, we need to carefully consider the viewing and presenting audience. we cannot get outside our own personal human experience, so is there really some objective truth that exists outside of it? can we ever really attain such a thing? we have priviledged science in this way-- we feel that because science provides hard reproducible data it must be our way to discover such objective truth. this seems somewhat a fallacy in itself, because even our science is shaped by our own experience. therefore, i think one of the main things to keep in mind from this class is to consider the diversity with which we view the world-- and not to place our own interpretation of it on others and assume that their experience is similar (or judge it as better or worse) than our own.

i do want to thank everyone for such an interesting semester; the topics everyone chose were quite interesting and highly varied so it was great to have such a broad range of things to talk about. also, the discussions were insightful and definitely forced me to think about things in ways that I probably wouldn't have. I liked all the personal opinion and anecdote that were present throughout the discussion, it really brought the material onto a more personal level. so thanks to everyone!

Coming to Haverford, I knew I wanted to be a psych major, but I also knew that neuroscience was incredibly interesting to me. I decided almost right away that the NBS concentration would be the perfect balance for me to educate myself both in what I love and what fascinates me (even though it proved to be very challenging). Taking this seminar, I was able to research, learn and discuss things that have always been of interest to me but were never really covered in any class in depth. We would always mention love, pain, psychotherapy, and psychosomatics, but never in such a way that stretches the brain to its full capacity the way this seminar has. Personally, I have been wanting to learn more about phantom limbs since I came here, but it was never in any curriculum. Hopefully in my presentation, my intrigue in this topic came across..the way that the brain and the body co-adapt to various situations is really amazing to me. And the idea of tricking the brain into thinking it's body is "whole" using mirrors really shakes the foundations of neuroscience and biological psych.

I found our discussion on diversity and productivity to be particularly interesting; the paradox that a more diverse setting will allow for the most productivity only on the condition that all parties get along (which is clearly not often the case) was a good starting point for the class. It showed that ideal situations are just not easily obtained because as humans, we are socially behaviorally complex; our behaviors clash with our brains appetite for efficiency and productivity.

Another interesting topic that I felt connection brain and behavior very well was the CBT discussion. Although there is a certain level of commitment and acceptance of the patient (which can have direct effects on CBT outcomes as well), the power of behavior (whether genuine or forced) on the brain is undeniable. It's also interesting to see the differences between patients who believe in the therapy and those that don't, because it seems that the power of positive thinking is greatly at play here.

Thanks for an interesting seminar everyone!

             I echo the sentiment that this course has been valuable, engaging, and broadening.  I also think it’s important to note that this senior seminar has been fundamentally different than any other science course I’ve taken in ways that are very important to me as a student.  First of all, it’s great to know that “hard science” can certainly be taught in a discussion-based seminar classroom.  This classroom structure certainly emphasizes different aspects of education. all in ways that I think are challenging, scientific, and valuable.  To be fair, I did not take away from this class the ability to regurgitate data, and if a standard test were administered to measure how much detailed information I remembered from any one presentation, I would certainly fail.  However, I value the things I did take away from this class much more than those things, included among them are

• a sense of what we do know about given topics
•  a sense of what we totally do not know
•  the creative capacity to informally design experiments to find out more about things we don’t know
•  a better understanding of the limitations of scientific objectivity
• an appreciation of how intertwined (inseparable?) culture (sociology, anthropology, philosophy) is scientific endeavors. 

In retrospect, this class confronted and challenged what’s typically thought of as “a good/appropriate/standard science classroom” and demonstrated that it can be equally valuable, that equally good understandings, that equally good questions can be produced in a different format.  I think that’s a really great thing.  This overarching appreciation certainly has been the most important take home message for me, though I found all of the presentations to be intriguing, fun to discuss, and thought provoking.  I’m interested in working in a field that relies heavily on education, and so I appreciate the ways that I found this classroom to critique science. 

         On another note, it’s been great to take this course while concurrently taking my first philosophy course, especially since it’s one that attacks the field of science.  I’ve found that in broadening my course selection, I’ve become able to see science as a field with its own problems, with its own agenda, with its own limitations.  I see science now as something to be treated skeptically, not as an all-encompassing universalistic field.  This line of thinking was certainly to be found in many of our discussions, those on disability, diversity, romance, morality, gender differences, and consciousness among them to name a few.

         Thank you, everyone, for an enjoyable semester!

I have really enjoyed our NBS seminar and the breadth of topics covered. In this course I have broadened my understanding of biological topics by viewing them through a more social and cultural aspect. I think that the field of neuroscience has many complex issues that have not been fully explored, and this course has started to explore these issues through excellent conversation and leading questions.

I was really impressed with the openness of conversation in the course and I think that everyone brought up important issues. The course has stressed the importance of critically analyzing the sciences to develop a deeper understanding of the field. Although I have greatly enjoyed all the topics covered in the course, I think the conversations about consciousness have really tested my understanding of how we interact within the world. I really enjoyed the “gorilla in the background” study and think that it is interesting how everyone can be at a different level of consciousness or be conscious about different environmental cues.

I also really enjoyed our discussions about gender and I think that allot of science is driven by gender stereotypes and neglects the inherent variability between the human populace in terms of gender associations. I think that allot of conclusions made about gender are pushed to extremes within the gender spectrum. This class has really taught me to be more skeptical of scientific results and question the evidence.

I think that our discussions about disabilities have also brought me to think about how society molds our understanding and definitions of disabilities. I think that our society searches to find people that are different from what is considered to be “normal” or not the majority and attempts to label them as “different” or “disabled”. I think that “disabled” does not make these individuals any less capable than the majority.

The course has not only introduced many interesting topics, in the field of neuroscience, but also has engaged the class to come to new and novel conclusions. The course has introduced me to a new way of thinking about science and question the facts.

I really enjoyed our discussions this semester in the NBS seminar.  They broadened my view of the Neural and Behavioral Sciences field.  I came into this seminar with a much narrower view of what the NBS field encompassed, and I am leaving this seminar with a much broader view of the NBS field.

I imagined that our discussions would focus on the brain and neurons every week with every topic because we were in an NBS seminar.  So, I was really surprised by the breadth and the depth of the topics we covered in our NBS seminar. I was specifically surprised with topics such as education and the brain, diversity and productivity, love, illicit drugs, social cognition and morality- really enjoyed discussing these topics in our NBS class and gaining some NBS insight into each of them.  I realized that the umbrella of topics covered in the NBS field is quite large.  Even my own topic choice I was surprised by: The Science of Love- although I was a bit nervous at first about choosing this topic for our NBS seminar and worried how relevant it would be, I feel that in the end, our topic was extremely relevant to NBS and raised interesting and controversial questions that relate to NBS.  

And then, even the topics I was less surprised to encounter like consciousness, psychosomatics, pain, gender differences, psychotherapy, and animal models- still ended up surprising me in our discussions.  The discussions were not as I expected- they were not straightforward and not as clear cut as I had imagined.  

This seminar has demonstrated to me the power and importance of interdisciplinary study.  Bringing diverse minds together allows for deep, creative insights to be made.  NBS as a concentration in the bi-co is interdisciplinary in nature bringing together departments of psychology, biology, cognitive science, and computer science together.  I value the NBS concentration and I grateful to have had the opportunity to experience such interdisciplinary classes, discussions, work, and thinking.   

In an academic discipline I naively assumed to be completely cut and dry, quantitative, this course has opened my eyes even more to the way science works. Part of the reason I was drawn into science is because so much of it is quantitative – we measure things, and from those things we can draw conclusions about the way things work. At the same time, biology, neurobiology even more so, has this other indefinable facet that seems to mean something different to all of us.

Our continuing discussion on animal models was an important one for me as a scientist, and it’s now something I think about each time I go into lab. I find myself struggling to really make sense of this (evolutionary) animal hierarchy we perpetuate. I believe that research that will ultimately benefit us as humans is worth it, but I’m having a hard time untangling that from what may just feel morally okay because it’s what I grew up with. In the same vein, I think this feeling has also come up in many discussions – like Elliot mentioned with psychotropic drugs. How much of my initial disagreement with drugs as therapeutics comes from the culture I was raised in? And how much of my change of mind comes from a “backlash” of that upbringing? Again, in a broader sense, why do I have these specific moral beliefs in the first place and what to extent (and how) can they change with age, culture, experience?

Maybe the thing I’m leaving this seminar with is the knowledge that these questions may never be completely answered – at least not for each of us. The beauty of biology, I think, is the fact that such concrete (in my mind) facts about how we work will never tell the whole story. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t pursue this knowledge, and it sure won’t stop me from doing so, but I think there’s an inevitable wall we’re going to hit. If we could really use molecular biology to explain consciousness and morality and the power of the brain, I think it would speak to the simplicity of our species. Our intricacies outnumber our abilities as an organism to explain them – and I think that’s pretty cool.