Week 1: Intro. to Behavior and Neurobiology

neurobiology: a branch of the life sciences that deals with the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the nervous system.
behavior: anything that an organism does involving action and response to stimulation.
Importance: understanding how the nervous system gives rise to behavior.

Step 1: Decide what the behavior is and how we define it.
Step 2: Decide how we want to observe it or model it.
Step 3: Decide how we want to quantify it.
Step 4: Decide how to relate it to other behaviors and/or the brain.
In laboratory settings, we often design tasks to elicit certain behaviors and maximize behavioral ‘epochs’ or episodes to relate back to neural measures.

Neurobiology encompasses the entire nervous system, examinable from:
- the finest detail (molecular structure of individual proteins on cells),
- to incredibly complex (how brains in their entirety function).

Core idea: Granular behavior ↔ granular approach to neurobiology; each can inform the other.
The methods discussed are most useful for the neuroscience of behavior.

Core function: the brain and nervous system guide behavior.
The sensory systems take in information from the environment.
The motor system enacts behavioral plans.
Everything that happens in between is the workings of the mind.
Relation to psychology: Psychology is the study of the mind, and the method we use to study psychology is through behavior.

This class will cover the TIP of the iceberg of information found in the textbook, readings, and lectures.
The iceberg metaphor emphasizes that what we cover is only a small portion of what is known about neurobiology and behavior.
The course aims to introduce core concepts, not exhaustively cover all material.

Reiteration of the same idea: we’ll cover a tip of the iceberg (again) of what we know about neurobiology and behavior, acknowledging there is much more to discover.

Emphasizes that what we know is only the tip of the iceberg and there is much more to discover about the neurobiology of behavior.

The scientific method as presented in the course materials frames how we study neurobiology of behavior.
Page references show the iterative nature of theory development, observations, questions, data gathering, and hypothesis testing.

General Theories: General theories must be consistent with most or all available data and with other current theories.
Make Observations: What do I see in nature? This can come from one’s own experiences, thoughts, or reading.
Think of Interesting Questions: Why does that pattern occur?
Gather Data to Test Predictions: Relevant data can come from the literature, new observations, or formal experiments. Thorough testing requires replication to verify results.
Refine, Alter, Expand, or Reject Hypotheses.
Develop Testable Predictions: If my hypothesis is correct, then I expect a, b, c.
Formulate Hypotheses: What are the general causes of the phenomenon I am wondering about?
Note: Several slides use slightly different wording or order (OCR/transcription variations):
- Page 18–20 show variations such as: "Sterature" (likely intended "literature"), "m experiences" (likely "my experiences"), and minor wording shifts.

Page 18–20 include OCR errors that appear in transcripts: e.g., "Sterature" instead of "Literature" and "m experiences" instead of "my experiences".
These variations appear in multiple slides, reflecting imperfect transcription rather than content changes.