Neurobiology and Behavior, Spring, 2009

 Hi I'm Sophie Balis-Harris and I am a sophomore Political Science major at Bryn Mawr. I don't really know exactly how much experience with related fields I can bring to this class, but I am excited about the material. I suppose that in Political Science we learn a lot about what motivates groups of people to act in certain ways, which relates to this course. 

1.  I was recently reading an article in the NY times that discussed how without the use of calendars or natural indicators of time our "internal clock" is very skewed, and how the brain can skew time based on emotions- meaningful or painful experiences can often seem more recent than they actually are simply because they are important parts of our recent memory. I thought the article was an interesting addition to our class discussion of how time is a social construction, and it made me wonder exactly how much of the world around us is a construction of the brain?

2. One of my concentrations within poli sci is peace and conflict studies, and we often discuss the ways that average people can be driven to commit horrific acts of violence in times of conflict. I often wonder if this capacity for violence is hidden within us all, and simply switched on during conditions of extreme duress or if there is something more to it. In short, I suppose I would like to learn a little bit more about the role of the brain in violent behavior. 

3. I also find pyschosomatic illnesses very interesting- how is it that our emotions can dictate our physical well being, and why is our mental health linked so heavily to our physical health? 

Hi everyone, my name is Vivian Cruz Pena and I am a junior at Bryn Mawr with a Political Science major. I was born and raised in El Salvador and moved to MA when I was 13. I still miss the tropical weather of my country very much, but also love all the different weather seasons that I now experience here. Science has never been my strength, so I really love the "loopy" kind of science that we'll be learning this semester, I love the idea of having no definite answers or outcomes because that way we feel more free to dig deeper in our analyasis and discussions. One of the places that I love the most is the beach and I wonder how is the combination of that tranquility, beautiful sight, and soothing sounds work in our brain to cause a sense of peace and relaxation? I also would like to know what are the chemical reactions that are released (or not?) when we laugh that cause us to feel better and changes our mood? Like others, I also wonder how the dreams work in our mind? I dream a lot, especially when I'm worried or too anxious about something, so I'm intrigued about how the brain processes my thoughts and makes them (or combines them, or something like that?) into a dream??

My name is Kira Dillard.  I am a junior Anthropology major from Scottsdale, Arizona.  I am an only child although I had many, many pets growing up.  I am very interested in the overlap between Anthropology and Biology, specifically the evolution of the brain and behavior and the role their development played in the course of human evolution. 

Questions:

-What is conscience/morality?  Is it innate?  Is it taught? Can a person exist without it?

 -If behavior is not simply the result of chemical reactions, what other options are there that can explain behavior and the mind?

-  How can the ego be explained scientifically?  Evolutionarily, what is the significance/purpose of the ego?  What part does it play in the survival and success of homo sapiens ?

Hello my name is Anna Dela Cruz, but please call me DC. I am a junior biology major with an insatiable fascination with art and fashion. Just recently, I serendipitiously encountered an emerging field in science that aims to understand beauty from a biological standpoint-- bioaesthetics. Finally, a subject that combines both of my loves! The field of aesthetics is more closely associated with philosophy than with biology. Descartes believed beauty lies in symmetry. But what drove him to such conclusion? So question 1: What is the physiological basis for determining if something we see is beautiful? 

To me, art is very much driven by emotion--to harness that intense feeling and pictorially, and consciously recreate it, even using symbols/objects to represent intangible subjects. Which leads me to question 2: What allows the human brain to form associations between emotion and objects to therefore utilize such objects to represent the emotion? 

Of all the artistic movements, Surrealism is what intrigues me the most. It was a very multifaceted movement driven by intense emotions such as paranoia as well as dreams. So question 3: What are the biological mechanisms that allow humans to dream? Do dreams mean anything? Are there universal symbols in our dreams or are the symbols in our dreams purely personal and it is solely up to the individual to infer the meaning behind them? 

Max Scherrer here. I am a single child from an upper middle class family in severe debt. Neither of my parents have college degrees and I will be one of the few in my entire extended family to receive one. I was born and raised in Los Angeles (Hollywood) California and have been accordingly influenced by the attendent culture (s), elitism(s), and can certainly imagine that it has affected my behavior.

Questions: 

1. Acquisitiveness - When is an extreme cocern for accumulating more money an indicator of fitness, or respectively, a detrimental pathology?

2. Altruism/Selflessness - To what extent can "selflessness" be explained or reconciled with the standard biological imperatives recognized. Is there such a thing as pure altruism, seperate or extricable from darwinian advantage/incentive? if so what are the implications?

3.   Sociability - How would one discuss the distinction between intro- and extroverts from a neurobiological standpoint? What can one say about the development, psyche, or general nature of one or the other? Are there significant socio-biological implications for one type over the other or is such a distinction fundamentally unscientific? Is one capable of a more fundamental egotism? 

4. What does neurobiology have to say about Solipsism?

My name is Hanna Lee. I love almost all tropical fruits, and I think my love for them comes from eating a lot of tropical fruits as a toddler in the Solomon Islands. I’ve lived most of my life in the suburbs of New Jersey. I grew up going to church with my parents every Sunday. While I am a Christian with some conservative views, I am politically liberal.  Like a couple of people in the class, I have multiple identities that wrestle with one another; and, therefore my values and views are constantly shifting. I find parts of me in the Korean culture, American culture, Christian community, and Bryn Mawr communtiy.

Questions:

1. Do soul mates exist? I learned in my intro Bio class that pheromones control/work with attraction, and birth control pills and perfumes can mask peoples’ pheromones and thus alter people’s attraction to one another. The brain controls our bodily functions including pheromone production, so how does the brain work to find one’s soul mate? Also, can the brain find one’s soul mate despite the use of birth control pills and perfumes? If pheromones mainly work in finding one’s counterpart, then can we make drugs to make people fall in love?
2. In North Korea, the government advocates early education in worshipping their dictator so that there are less revolts/oppositions. This sort of brainwashing is a core part of the North Korean government. How does brainwashing work and can drugs be developed to model it?
3. Some people are steadfast in their beliefs and some are not. Is there a neurological difference that causes this difference in people?
4. There is a period when people can learn language, however when that period has passed, people cannot learn any language at all. Why is this when they have all the brain capacity to do so?
5. Supposedly, most people use 10% of their brains. What does the other 90% do?

Hello all,

My name is Nafisa. Like many others in the class, I grew up with two cultures. My parents are from Nigeria, and I was born in the U.S. Because of this I have always been concerned with how I "behave" within each setting, and have been conscious of following the "rules" of each culture. I tend to look at issues pertaining to behavior from a rigid scientific standpoint, as this usually helps me to unify ideas and make sense of things in a comprehensive manner.

Some questions I have:

1. What types of biases occur when determining "good" or "bad" behavior?

2. How have innate urges evolved over time?

3. What chemical changes occur in the brain after trauma, and what determines if these changes occur for a long or short period of time?

My name is Sarah Tabi, and I am a senior premed Chemistry major at Bryn Mawr.  My family is from Ghana, but many of my family members live in London.  Sadly, I do not speak the language.  I am also the President of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship.  As a devout Christian and a Chemistry major, I am able to strengthen and balance my faith through science.  I am interested in the areas of the human mind that science has not completely been able to satisfactorily explain.

Some questions I have is:

• What is the evolutionary significance of human the ability to dream? 
• What is the chemical difference between physical and emotional pain?
• What is it that fosters the human need for long-term companionship?

Hi everyone,

I'm a little late posting an introduction.  I'm a senior Biology major (BMC) and Geology minor.  I pursued molecular biology and geology originally in college because I liked how both revealed stories of the natural world.  I went to the MBL at Woods Hole last fall to study environmental science for a semester, at which point I decided I was more interested in the things that lived in an environment, why they lived where they did, and how they managed to survive, physiologically and behaviorally.  So, I was fortunate to study microbial ecology on the West Coast this summer and took Greg Davis' great course in Developmental Biology last semester.  Some of the most perplexing issues in development emerge from studying how the brain and nervous system develops and its plasticity to a changing environment.  As a result, I think neurobiology and behavior are interesting because of the many 'black boxes' in our current understanding of the processes and am excited to explore issues in the discipline this semester.

Some specific questions I want to explore:

1. Are their universal characteristics of language in all life?  What form does this language take (e.g. sound waves, cell signals, action potentials)?  How has this language changed (or not changed) over natural history and evolution?  How do we think it will change in the future?

2.  At what point should we (or do we) draw the line on sentient and/or cognitive life?  Why?  I think this issue has a lot to do with what we 'define' as alive or not?  For instance, do viruses think?  Why or why not?

That's all in my cranium at the moment.  I'd be interested to hear what others think about this.

I'm Shikha, a senior Biology and Computer Science double major at Bryn Mawr. Due to my computer science background, I often think of the brain as a type of computer.

I was born in India, but I have grown up in 6 countries. As I learned how to adapt to and respect different cultures and societies, my mind became more receptive to various ways of thinking and learning. My experiences in different countries have added a rich cultural diversity to my life, which I hope to bring to our discussions. I have spent most of my life in Europe and have constantly struggled to balance the Western values I learned at school and saw outside my home in general, and the Indian values I was taught and expected to follow by my parents.

My eldest brother is mentally handicapped and despite being 9 years older, he has almost always been mentally younger than me. I'm sure my interest in the brain stems from trying to understand his condition as well as wanting to explore ways to help him. I hope to get a Phd in Neuroscience and spend most of my life studying and researching some aspect of the brain.

In the past two summers, I have worked in two computational neuroscience labs. In one I studied cognitive-motor behavior in Parkinson’s disease patients to develop rehabilitative strategies for patients in early stages of Parkinson's disease. In the other one I worked on a neuroeconomics study which uses functional MRI of subjects engaged in economic behavioral tasks. I also currently work in Dr. Greif's lab in which we are studying the expression of synaptotagmin, a transport protein, during early neurite development in vitro using rat sympathetic neurons. All this research is extremely interesting and I can bring my experiences from working in these labs and doing empirical research to the discussion.

I have been thinking about a lot of brian-related questions simply because I have been reading a lot about the research going on at graduates schools I have applied to.

Questions:

1. What are the neural correlates of consciousness?

2. Why do some people experience phantom limbs?

3. How do social factors affect the decisions (especially economic decisions) people make?

My name is Leah and I am a sophomore biology major. For almost all of my life I've lived in suburban Boston with my younger brother, twin sister, and parents. Some random facts about me that have shaped who I am: My mother is a Korean immigrant and my father is Caucasian, so I can easily relate to the dual identity Dr. Grobstein mentioned in class. I was not raised with a religious background and consider myself an outsider to religion in general. I have an extremely close relationship with my twin sister. 

Questions:

1.) Is it society or brain chemistry that causes teens, particularly troubled teens to act out/ struggle? If both are factors then how does one untangle outside influences from more inner influences?

2.)  I'm interested in phantom limbs and what ramifications they have in our understanding of the brain. If we are able to perceive limbs that don't exist, then how much of what we perceive is made up by the brain?

3.)  Scientists are currently looking for the "gay" gene. On a moral level, is this something scientists should be looking for?

The first 6 years of my life, I grew up in Bangladesh, which can be considered the complete opposite of the US. My family tries to follow the traditional bengali culture's ways, but I kind of try to mix them both. As such, I can add a cultural perspective to this course. Also, I am a pre-med student, and I have very personal experience with diabetes, heart problems, and mental disorders, such as depression. As such, I can also add a medical and psychoanalytic POV to the course. I am coming into this course thinking mainly about the mental/psychological components of neurobiology, and thus, I am constantly thinking about treatments that do not necessarily include drugs.

3 question:

What chemical pathways and processes are influenced by pet therapy?

Why is there a great human obsession for control?

What are emotions?

My name is Kerlyne and I am a Sophmore at Bryn Mawr. I grew up in the great city of BOSTON, MA where I attended  Boston Latin School which sought to "ground me in a contemporary classical education in preparation for successful college study, responsible and engaged citizenship, and a rewarding life." They definitely wouldn't go for the "loopy science" way of life. This may have been a major reason for my choice of a Liberal Arts education!

Currently  I am Pre-Health and deciding whether to go with a major of Anthropology or Biology. This summer I interned at Blue Cross Blue Shield in their Behavioral Health department and was lucky enough to create a complete database of resources for their new Outcomes project which sought to seek out and accurately treat potential high risk cases before they could be hospitalized. They did this by using survey scores and graphing patterns generated by a computer. This was really interesting and of course designed to save the insurance company money. At times it felt like Big Brother. This is what led to my interest in continuing my exploration of the mind.

Questions/Issues of interest:

1.  Does music/media really have an affect on the mind?

2. What is the conscience and how does it work?

3. The concept of "brain dead"

Borin Kim, and I am a junior pyschology major/NBS concentrator at Haverford College. I was born in Korea and moved to the States when I was six months old. I lived in and around the Washington DC area until fifth grade when my family moved back to Korea. Having spent ten years in America where I was labled as a "Korean" and ten years in Korea where I was labeled as an "American", I have always been part of the minority and am therefore used to seeing things from a different, uncommon perspective. Frequently going between the two cultures has also made me flexible in my thinking and open to new ideas. My Christian faith also greatly influences how I see and understand things. I think humans are the most fascinating subject of study--especially in terms of how their physical brains give rise to conscious thought and emotions. I am especially intrigued by the differences in thought that exist in different communities (cultural, religious, etc.) and whether these differences can also be linked to biological/physical differences in brain structure. While the questions in the area of neurobiology and behavior are endless...here are a few that come to mind:

1. What are dreams? How are they linked to our consciousness?

2. Does stress cause headaches? If so, how does a mental state like stress, manifest in a physical condition?

3. How does consciousness arise from physical matter (the brain)? I know this is like one of those big questions the course will explore...but it just really fascinates me. If our thoughts and temperaments differ, does that also mean that our brain structures/chemistry also differ? 

I have discovered that I have a cross-disciplinary mind and enjoy thinking about things from various perspectives, simultaneously incorporating scientific, literary, psychological, economic, and medical lenses, among others. My training as an English major and premed student has cultivated this inter-disciplinary approach, discouraging me for settling for a single theory, rule, or formulation.

 Questions

1. To what degree are interpersonal relationships grounded in biology? Are humans hardwired to be dependent upon each other?

2. Why does a single individual use different methods of decision making for different decisions? Why do different individuals make decisions differently?

3. Are humans rational, and is there such a thing as rationality? 

I am one of four children with an older sister and a younger sister plus a younger brother. Neither of my parents graduated from college and I am the first in our family to consider going to graduate school. I grew up in Fairfax, Virginia a wealthy, predominately white subarb that would rather consider itself to be a part of DC than Virginia. My parents are divorced but out of economic necessity they still live in the same house. Over the course of my life, I have had a managerie of pets including dogs, cats, parrots, fish, hamsters, guinea pigs and a handful of tomagotchi's. Although I have lived in the same room of the same house all my life, I have traveled to Northern Ireland and The Philippines to stay with friends in both countries. I love watching horror movies in order to make fun of them. I am a devout protestant who wants to major in anthropology.

My questions for this class are:

How is  behavior reflected on anatomy and vice versus?

Why do we feel compelled to believe in the imporbable even when there is little to no empirical evidence backing it up?

Do advances in technology and science improve the human condition? 

My name is Crystal Leonard and I'm a sophmore at Bryn Mawr. Several people in my immediate and extended family have various neurological disorders. As a result, I am aware of how the brain can cause unusual and/or disruptive behaviors in an individual, despite their consious desire to act "normally". I'm also knowledgeable of the current ways in which doctors use chemistry to attempt to alter the brains, and thus the behaviors, of these individuals.

3 questions that I would like to see explored this semester are:

1. What is the internal voice and how is it formed?

2. How do the chemical interactions in the brain lead to a person's "inner being/soul,etc"?

3. How does positive touching affect a person's brain chemistry/behavior?

My name is Brielle.  My parents were driving about in New Jersey while my mother was seven months pregnant and passed a billboard to the beach city of Brielle, NJ -- and it stuck. 

I grew up in New Jersey but for the past 8 years I've lived in rural Ohio on a small horse farm.  I have experienced both the culturally diverse east and attended high school in an area where two people of color were all that showed diversity in the entire school. 

I work at Recreation Unlimited, an adventure camp in rural Ohio for people with disabilities.  My passions are developmental disorders, seizures, and traumatic brain injury.  I have worked with people, mostly children, with disabilities for seven years.  I like to think I have a unique outlook concerning the way people with disabilities perceive the world and how they feel that they are perceived because of the close interactions that I have had, including personal care, overcoming recreational challenges and growing socially.  I am always looking for opinions from other people to help increase my knowledge of this subject.

1. How does perception and the role of thinking warp/change after receiving significant trauma?  What physical changes in the brain cause behavior changes? 

 2. How do people labelled as mindblind, like those with autism, perceive the behaviors, emotions and ambitions of surrounding people?  Is this a behavior that can be learned over time or is there an inhibitor (like a chemical) preventing the learning? 

 3. What causes the response of choosing to isolate another person?  Is this a chemical balance that we are born with or a behavior that we have learned socially?

I am a local girl who chose to stay close to her horse(s).  We are so close that my horse and I sleep under the same roof, her in a stall with straw, me in bedroom and bed.  This setup has made it possible for me to spend a significant time observing the behavior of horses.  However, I have spent almost no time studying their brains.  Hopefully this class will add some breadth to my experience with behavior, brains, and the relationship between the two.  I have also spent some time thinking about human brain, mind, and behavior.  I took a course last semester on mental health and the brain, spent some time in therapy, experienced or forgot six concussions with post-traumatic amnesia, and observed the progression of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. 

I would like to learn more about the differences between humans and animals.  Specifically, how it relates to differences between their brains. 

The neurobiology of gender and sex interest me.  Beyond the role of hormones… I have a really great story about the behavior of two mares and some hormones gone wrong.

I am curious about the connection between behavior and the unconscious. Or perhaps our lack of conscious awareness of our behavior?  I think this plays some part in therapy.  

My name is Lisa and I am a junior biology major at Bryn Mawr. I always had a curiosity in biology, but a major in biology was not always my first choice. Because most books I read as a child had a historical theme, I dreamed of becoming a history professor. Then my opinion changed in the summer of 2003 while dissecting a shark in my neuroscience and neurology course at Yale University. At first I was disgusted at the handful of overachieving high school students tearing apart the shark’s flesh, but then my mentality suddenly changed. When they tore open the stomach to find a baby crab I became fascinated with the dissection. My summer at Yale, combined with other biology related experiences, drew me to major in biology and enroll in neurobiology and behavior at BMC.

During the course of the semester I would like to explore these three topics:

(1) What have studies shown about a possible association between artificial sweeteners and cancer?

(2) How was phrenology used to determine an individual's psychological attributes?

(3) What are some experimental intervention research methods used to understand the human brain? 

Hi. I'm Hope. I might major in biology. Here are my questions:

Why do people like scary things like roller coasters and horror movies? Do any other animals do scary things on purpose just for fun?

why do we have religion? is their a biological reason why some people believe in religion and others don't?

 why do people commit suicide?

I grew up in a household with a very liberal American parent and a very conservative Turkish parent

Until the end of 8th grade, I lived in a society that stigmatized every kind of mental problem

I grew up in Turkey, a secular Islamic nation at a time in which Islamic fundamentalism is a major global issue

-Why does embarrassment increase heart rate and make people blush?

- Why do people care and is there a physical need to care?

- Is there a single personality trait that a person must have to avoid depression completely?  

I'm a sophomore at Bryn Mawr. I plan on being a bio major with an NBS concentration. I took the Brain and Mental Health last semester, along with Experimental Psychology, so I have a brief background with the brain but would like to learn as much as possible. The brain fascinates me; I don't know if there is one thing I like best about it. Its power continually amazes me. I like learning about mental "illnesses" and trying to remove the stigma surrounding them. I have some experience with a few mental "illnesses" which left me curious about their origins and effects. Some questions....

-  can we strengthen our muscles in our sleep through lucid dreaming?

- can the brain be connected directly to the internet? (I realize that it will take a few years for this to happen, if it is possible)

- can someone become a better mind-reader simply by practicing reading body language?

I’m a twenty year old sophomore at Bryn Mawr. I’ve lived in four different states and two other countries. I have met all kinds of people and have heard their various life stories, ideas, and opinions. This is my personal proof that people are diverse. It has always fascinated me that the human race is rich in variety of thoughts, perceptions, opinions, interests, and much more, despite the fact that all of these come from an organ that pretty much looks the same in each person; that organ being the human brain. I’m interested in knowing how the brain can function in not only accomplishing its basic tasks (getting one’s hands off the lit stove) but also, how it functions to cause one person to be different from the next (nature versus nurture; how do interests develop?; how are men and women different via their brain science?).

Here are three questions that randomly popped in my head during class:

1)What is the brain’s activity during hypnosis and how does it differ from person to person?

2)How does the brain fall in love? (I personally don’t think it’s all about the heart)

3)What is the biology behind headaches?

I was born and raised in South Korea until 9th grade.

I lived with my grandparents.

I can speak Korean.

Three questions to be explored during this semester:

1.  Where does curiosity come from? 

2.  How can I improve, maximize, and use both visual attention and auditory attention?  Which one is more beneficial in life?

3.  What is the biochemical mechanism of eye?  What is the relationship of this particular organ to the brain?