• What is behavior?
• What distinguishes human behavior?
• What are neurological bases?
• What other bases are there?
• How do the neurological bases of human behavior affect your life?

• Why does taking/drinking X make me feel Y?
• My grandmother has Alzheimer's disease. What's happening to her brain?
• Carrie Fisher had bipolar disorder. What's that about?
• Why is sleep so important for brain health?
• My mom says my brain isn't fully mature. Is she right?
• Is it safe for high school athletes to play football (or soccer, hockey, etc.)?

http://www.nature.com/news/human-brain-mapped-in-unprecedented-detail-1.20285

• Course overview
• Why is biology essential for the science of behavior?
• A bit about systems

• Course website:
  • http://psu-psychology.gitbub.io/psych-260-spring-2017/

• Study the figures.
• Study regularly – don't cram.
• Come to class.
• Participate!

• What is science?
• What distinguishes sciences?
• What is neuroscience?
• Why is neuroscience harder than physics?
• Why is it more fun?

• Science

• Body of facts or truths.
• Process of acquiring knowledge
• Systematic study
• Observation, experiment, description
• Strives for objectivity
• Aims at reliable, reproducible, general, systematic, universal laws

• Science is a way of thinking
• Science describes, but not well-suited to proscribing
• Science has little to say about what is good, just, right, moral, etc.
• Science rests on evidence and logic NOT on authorities
• Science respects tradition, but questions and tests it

• Science (and allied fields)
  • has led to huge advances in human health and prosperity.
  • will be essential for maintaining and extending those advances in the future

• What are the different kinds of X?
  • Form, e.g., anatomy
• How does X work?
  • Function, e.g., physiology
• Where did X come from?
  • Origins, e.g., development/evolution

• Phenomena of interest
• Methods or tools
• Levels of analysis
  • Spatial scale (nanometers to light-years)
  • Temporal scale (milliseconds to millenia)

• The study of the nervous system
  • And the behavior it makes possible
• Questions
  • What are the parts of the nervous system?
  • How do the parts work? What do they do?
  • Where did they come from?

• What are systems?

• Wikipedia on systems theory
• Wikipedia on systems thinking
• Wikipedia on cybernetics
  • Science concerned with the study of systems of any nature which are capable of receiving, storing and processing information so as to use it for control.

• Solar system
• Climate system
• Economic system
• Internet

• Components
• Interactions
• Forces/influences
• Boundaries
• Inputs/outputs/processes

• "Behave" or change state across time
• Return to starting state
• Appear to be regulated, controlled, influenced by feedback loops

• Single parts -> multiple functions
• Single functions -> multiple parts
• Change structure/function over time (learning, development)
• Biological systems not "designed" like human-engineered ones
• What information is being processed? What is being controlled?

• History of neuroscience