9.46  Neuroscience of Morality

BCS department colloquium: The biology of Friendship

Hi All

If you found the oxytocin week interesting, you might want to come to the BCS colloquium this Thursday at 4pm.

SPEAKER: Michael Platt
LOCATION: 46-3002 (Singleton Auditorium)

ABSTRACT: We all need friends. Deeper and more numerous friendships promote health, well-being, survival, and even financial success. By the same token, social exclusion and the loss of social partners result in feelings similar to physical pain. Impairments in the ability or motivation to connect with others profoundly impact the lives of individuals with disorders like autism and shizophrenia. Yet despite its importance, the formalized scientific study of friendship is relatively new, perhaps due to the perceived difficulty of studying social behavior in the laboratory using the techniques of modern neuroscience. In my talk, I will discuss our work aimed at defining the biological mechanisms that mediate our ability and desire to connect. We directly compare biology and behavior in humans and rhesus macaques, using a complementary suite of brain imaging, eye-tracking, single-unit recording, pharmacological, and genetic techniques, in both the laboratory and the field. Our work has identified specialized circuitry that motivates attention to others, responds to cues to their intentions, and promotes prosocial decisions. The neuromodulators oxytocin and serotonin tune the gain of these circuits to regulate social interactions. In the field, we find that variation in social behavior and cognition has fitness consequences and emerges, in part, from genes that regulate neuromodulatory function. Together, our findings suggest deep homologies in the biological origins of complex social function in human and nonhuman primates.

-- RS

Announced on 04 December 2017  9:01  p.m. by Rebecca R Saxe

Next week

Two notes for next week:

(A) I just found a paper that was published a couple of months ago and is very relevant for next week's class, so I added it to the reading list. Both the stellar site and the assignment PDF are now updated -- but letting you know in case you had already downloaded the papers. "Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence."

(B) Next Wednesday we're going to use some class time to work on essays -- again splitting into groups working with the WRAP instructors and the technical instructors and then swapping. Please bring a printed copy of your first draft and reading to class, for this.

Thanks and see you Monday!
RS

Announced on 02 November 2017  3:45  p.m. by Rebecca R Saxe

What's next?

If any of you are uncertain what you want to do next year -- e.g. as a gap year, before considering grad school, or med school, or whatever -- you might find this fellowship interesting:

https://bioethics.nih.gov/education/index.shtml.

Announced on 02 November 2017  3:32  p.m. by Rebecca R Saxe

Final Exam Info

On Wednesday Rebecca talked about what to expect in the final exam. I have summarized this below:

Rebecca’s philosophy behind having a final exam: The activity of preparing for a final exam can be an extremely effective means of integrating and reinforcing what you have learned. The exam design is meant to create conditions that encourage preparation. If you don’t prepare, it will be very difficult to get an ‘A’.

The exam will last 3 hours. During this 3-hour period you will be required to write 3 essays (a 4th essay will be required, but it can be prepared ahead of time). You will have 12 questions to choose from. As well, you will have to submit a 4th essay, but this one will be in response to a question drawn from a list of questions Rebecca will provide prior to the exam. You are encouraged to prepare essay answers ahead of time so that you can simply upload the 4th essay at the time of the exam, rather than having to write 4 essays in 3 hours (again, the spirit of this is to encourage you to prepare for the exam—this is where the learning happens!). The questions will be similar to those posed in class and in your weekly assignments. The exam will be open notes and open computer (but you will not be allowed to use the internet—this is mostly because you really won’t have time to be googling during the exam, so again: prepare!). You will be allowed to use our class google-docs, but you must respond in your own words (Don’t be a cheater!). While you prepare, we encourage you to update the google-docs (fill in gaps/make corrections) to reflect what we have learned.

As well, please remember that there are no strictly ‘right answers’ in this course. What you are being asked to do is synthesize the material to make creative (data-supported) responses in real time.

A practice exam has been posted on Stellar.

If you have any questions, please ask!

Exam date: Tuesday December 19th, 9AM-NOON.

Announced on 02 November 2017  3:16  p.m. by Rosa Lafer-Sousa

Lunch with me?

Hi everyone

As a way to get to know you, and your interests and plans, better, I'm inviting you to lunch.

Here's a doodle poll for times I'm available. If you'd like to have lunch with me, please sign up. Up to 4 per slot.

https://doodle.com/poll/mikcpxn28zidgcz5

There is no pressure to do this, and no worries if you're not available; it's just an option if you'd like it.

--RS

Announced on 11 October 2017  9:01  a.m. by Rebecca R Saxe