The subject of this course is the neuroscience of reward, motivation, and addiction. The course will cover a number of topics including neural systems controlling motivation and reward-seeking, how natural reinforcers and drugs of abuse influence brain function, and the neural and behavioral plasticity underlying addiction. Course structure will consist partly of lectures and partly of student presentations and interactive discussion in a guided journal-club style format.

This course will cover experimental results, "real-world" observations, and theoretical frameworks that help us understand the error-prone nature of human memory.

Students in this course will explore psychological theory and research pertaining to gay, lesbian, and bisexual people. Topics include sexual orientation, sexual identity development, stigma management, heterosexism & homonegativity, gender roles, same-sex relationships, LGB families, LGB diversity, and LGB mental health

This course addresses how fundamental cognitive processes influence social behavior and thought. Topics include basic concepts in social cognition (automatic versus controlled processing, attention and encoding, memory), how we understand individuals and others (the self, attribution processes, heuristics, decision-making), how we make sense of society (attitudes, persuasion, stereotypes, prejudice), and how social cognition influences behavior.

This course will examine children's development and socialization in the context of families, communities, and the larger social context. An ecological perspective will be used that highlights the multiple levels of influence that shape a child's life and which recognizes the active role of the individual in shaping, as well as being shaped by, social contexts. The complex interactions among families, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, government, and historical time period will be explored as they serve to provide opportunities and risks for the developing child.

This seminar will cover current research exploring the effects of exercise and sports participation on many aspects of development. We will cover a range of topics including the benefits of free and organized play in childhood, the influences of competitive sports during adolescence and young adulthood, and the importance of continued activity during adulthood and later development. The basic and applied aspects of the research findings will be highlighted whenever possible.

The purpose of this seminar course is to understand how our brain allows learning from past experience to guide future choices and actions, which is the core of today's Neuroeconomics research topic. We will review the current literature in the cognitive neuroscience of human learning and decision making with particular focus on the basic elements influencing these behaviors such as, motivation, reward processing and error-based learning. We will further discuss how these basic elements interact with the external environment (e.g.

Students will learn about international policies surrounding human rights for people with disabilities. This course will be structured around the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Students will learn about varying definitions of disability, education, employment, healthcare and family perspectives.

This course will examine current research exploring the relationships between brain and cognitive development. Starting with the prenatal period and working up through adolescence we will discuss theories, research, and results in this rapidly expanding field of investigation. These topics will be considered in relation to both typical and atypical development.

The primary goals of this course are to provide a basic introduction to the study of sleep; to provide a basic introduction to sleep disorders including their classification, cause and treatment and; perhaps most importantly, to answer "Why do we sleep?". We will seek scientifically informed answers to questions like: Why do we dream? Do animals sleep? And, what happens when we don't get enough sleep?