Claim OwnershipHuman Behavioral Biology
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Description
This course covers how to approach complex normal and abnormal behaviors through biology; how to integrate disciplines including sociobiology, ethology, neuroscience, and endocrinology, to examine behaviors such as aggression, sexual behavior, language use, and mental illness.
25 Episodes
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13Professor Robert Sapolsky gives the final lecture in the Human Biology 160 class. He uses the lecture to wrap up any loose ends and show how the themes of the class connects without the more complex concepts that were brought up throughout the course. (June 2, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky discusses environmental factors as well as genetic characteristics that could apply to people who are affected. He describes schizophrenia as a disease of thought disorder and inappropriate emotional attributes. (May 26, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky describes the similarities and differences between different human and animal languages. He focuses on how we use language to communicate with each other, how we communicate with animals, and how animals commute with each other. (May 21, 2010)
Professor Robert Sapolsky details how a small difference at one place in nature can have a huge effect on a system as time goes on. He calls this idea fractal magnification and applies it to many different systems that exist throughout nature. (May 21, 2010)
Professor Robert Sapolsky gives what he calls "one of the most difficult lectures of the course" about chaos and reductionism. This lecture focuses on reduction science and breaking things down to their component parts. (May 19, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky completes his talk on sexual behavior in humans as well as other species, focusing on characteristics that create attractiveness. He then switches subject and talks about human aggression and how this has evolved and developed. (May 10, 2010)
Professor Robert Sapolsky completes his fourth and final part of a discussion about aggression and violence. He discusses how hormones and evolution have shaped this behavior into the way humans interact today. (May 17, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky continues his neurobiological exploration of human aggression. He discusses correlations between neurotransmitter prevalence and aggression levels, aggressive activity differences from genetic variance, societal factors and application, amplification from alcohol, and crime and punishment. (May 14, 2010)
(May 12, 2010) Robert Sapolsky continues his lectures about aggression in humans but also continues to talk about other emotions and what goes on in the brain to cause these various emotions.
(May 7, 2010) Robert Sapolsky delivers the second part of his two-part lecture on sexual behavior. He discusses how this behavior has evolved into the intricate and complex system that exists today.
Robert Sapolsky explores behavioral patterns of human reproduction. He focuses on proximal and distal motivations, orgasm and fertility facilitation, non-reproductive sex, hormonal and cerebral sexual functions, and the differences and similarities between humans and animals in various physiological realms. (May 5, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky focuses on the role of the limbic system as the emotional component of the nervous system. He explores its influence on decision making, its connection to the cortex, and the various functions of subparts within the limbic system circuitry. (April 30, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky continues the exploration of endocrinology and neurology. He looks at more complicated systems of communication within neurobiology, the limbic system's role in personality and behavior, abnormal behavior possibilities within these systems, and individual organism variation and imprinting. (April 28, 2010)
Patrick House discusses memories and how they are formed. Dana Turker then lectures about the autonomic nervous system and its functions. (April 23, 2010)
(April 26, 2010) William Peterson and Tom McFadden introduce the field of endocrinology. They explore at the contextual basis of the endocrine system, peptide vs. steroid hormones, the processes by which the brain controls hormones, and hormonal influence on the brain.
Nathan Woodling and Anthony Chung-Ming Ng give a broad overview of the field of neuroscience and how it relates to human biology. They discuss the different lobes of the brain and the cells within as well as neuropharmacology and re-uptake. (April 21, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky looks at the biology of behavior through the ethological lens: observing animals in various natural environments, in their own language. He explores behavioral variety, the importance of gene environment interactions, experimental testing of fixed action patterns, the releasing of informational stimuli, and neuroethology. (April 19, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky discusses various methods of innate recognition of relatives between animals and humans through protein signatures, olfactory cellular mechanisms, cognitive, and sensory processes. He explores the importance of relatedness in animal mating/ovulation cycles and other phenomena that show how organisms identify each other. (April 16, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky continues his series addressing the link between behavior and genetics. He covers the complex endeavor of gene isolation and variability and heritability and wrongly eliminated environmental influences in heritability tests -- finding that genes and environment are infinitely interconnected and co-dependent on each other. (April 14, 2010)
Robert Sapolsky introduces a two-part series exploring the controversial scientific practice of inferring behavior to genetics. He covers classical techniques in behavior genetics and flaws, the significance of environmental factors, non genetic inheritance of traits, and multigenerational effects and relationship to epigenetic differences. (April 12, 2010)
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Skinner was obviously a b*****d, however, negative reinforcement is not the same thing as punishment. In this context 'negative' and 'positive' refer to addition or removal of a stimulus, not any sort of value judgment. Reinforcement and punishment are talking about whether you are encouraging a desirable behavior or discouraging an undesirable behavior. This produces four categories, which are as follows. Positive reinforcement introduces a pleasant stimulus in an attempt to encourage desirable behavior. This is the classic reward. An example would be getting a bonus at work for performing especially well. Negative reinforcement is the removal of an unpleasant stimulus to encourage a behavior. We all experience this when we put our seatbelts on to get rid of that annoying dinging sound in the car. Positive punishment is the introduction of unpleasant stimulus to discourage a behavior. One of the earliest examples of this is getting your butt kicked because you pissed somebod
question: is a prenatal brain with AIS able to allow testosterone into it's neurons whereby testosterone would then be converted to estrogen and have its effect on prenatal brain development ( 1:04.00 in lecture)