This course will explore the many psychological mechanisms that play a part in close personal relationships. Using psychological research as our foundation, students will be led in discussions and about attraction, love, lust, and other topics pertinent to close relationships. Students will be asked to think deeply about the social constructs that influence human preferences, and the bio-psychosocial processes at play. The course will begin by dissecting the concepts of attraction and love.

This seminar course examines the fundamental cognitive, motivational, and affective processes that underlie parenting behavior. Primary emphasis will be placed on (i) understanding how endocrine, sensory and experiential information is integrated within the relevant neural circuitry that yields this complex behavior under healthy conditions, and (ii) how neuropsychological dysfunction, as with maternal mental disorders, leads to disturbances in parenting and in the mother-infant relationship.

Mental health counseling remains a leading treatment option for conditions such as anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Yet the neurobiological mechanisms by which counseling exerts its effects are little discussed in a neuroscientific context. In this course, we will explore how counseling can influence cognition, emotion, and behavior through changes in brain function.

This applied developmental psychology seminar will examine topics at the intersection of child development, trauma, and the justice system. Specifically, this course will discuss child maltreatment and how abuse and neglect can impact development in multiple domains. Societal and legal responses to these crimes will also be examined. Emphasis will be on theory, empirical findings, and practical applications of findings, including challenges involved in the prosecution of cases of abuse and neglect.

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

What accounts for the human capacity to perceive and reason about the world? This course will explore the origins and development of human knowledge in the individual child, in relation to two larger time scales: biological evolution and historical/cultural change. The course centers on six case studies of knowledge development.

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.

Physical movement can transform the brain. In this course, we'll explore mechanisms connecting exercise to neural processing, drawing on the latest findings from neuroscience. We'll examine how different forms of physical training leave unique signatures on brain function. Along the way, we'll assess where the science stands, identify what remains unknown, and consider how recent discoveries might promote mental health and resilience.

This seminar provides an overview of the cognitive changes that occur as a function of normal and, to a lesser extent, pathological aging. We will cover a broad variety of topics including theories of cognitive aging, brain aging, animal models of cognitive aging, hormonal influences and menopause, and interventions for successful aging.

Evaluates scientific research on human happiness. Integrates research from psychology, economics, and neuroscience in the evaluation of personal and public policy choices.