Humanities Homework Help

First, choose a psychological process or disorder to examine, then choose a biological line of investigation to pursue.

The psychological process might be something like aggression, sexual orientation, or attention; or it could be a disorder like Alzheimer’s disease, addiction, dyslexia or obesity.

The biological line of investigation could be hereditary (genetic) influences, drug treatments, brain localization, or cross-species comparisons. Combine one of them with the psychological process or disorder you chose.

Feel free to select something unconventional, such as memory transfer in Planaria or why so-called “brain food” or brain exercises work or won’t work. Anyone interested in how neuroscience is being “weaponized” using drugs, brain stimulation or brain training to enhance performance can find plenty of unclassified articles to use. You don’t have to avoid controversy. If sex differences in some area seem worth looking into, go ahead.

New areas of research include links between brain inflammation and mental health, predictive memory and default mode networks, epigenetic influences on behavior, highly superior autobiographical memory, and so-called smart or nootropic drugs.

Instructions

The class project for this course is a written report, that addresses the biological study of a specific behavioral or mental phenomenon (normal or pathological) covered in the readings and videos. Please select a behavioral or mental phenomenon such as language or schizophrenia and then select a biological strategy for investigating it, such as hormonal or genetic mechanisms, neurotransmitters, drug treatments, or localization of brain processes by imaging. The project will be worth a maximum of 100 points.

Written paper. As an example, the theme of your report might be imaging approaches to the study of schizophrenia. Your paper should summarize fundamental issues, questions, and controversies and provide a general overview of the topic using the biological line of investigation you chose. It should also elaborate on your understanding of the brain processes that are revealed through imaging research in schizophrenia. To accomplish this, you will have to use recent research articles (published within the last five years) to illustrate relevant points. You may use any of a number of electronic databases to find research articles that deal with your topic, including the library and the Internet. The one requirement for the research articles that you select is that two of them must have appeared in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. You may wish to consult with the library staff or your faculty member to confirm whether a particular journal is peer-reviewed.