Office: 316 McCreary Hall (337-6180)
Lab: 309 & 310 McCreary Hall
Office Hours: 11-12 Monday, Wednesday, Friday
9-10 Tuesday, Thursday
or make an appointment or (better yet) just stop in
Class meets: Tuesday and Thursday 10:00 - 11:15
Lab meets:
Tuesday 1:10 - 4:00 (see below)
Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human
and Animal Emotions. New York: Oxford University Press.
The goal of research in behavioral neuroscience is to understand behavior in terms of the neural substrates that are responsible for the orchestration of those behaviors. It is the primary purpose of this course to give you hands-on experience in the field of behavioral neuroscience and, hopefully, provide you with some of the knowledge and empirical skills which will allow you to design and execute research in this field.
To give you some foundation on which to build, we will spend the first
several weeks of the semester looking at a particular behavior (play in
juvenile rats) and how one neural system (mesolimbic dopamine) might be
involved in that behavior. We will also take a broader look at the brain's
involvement in emotions by reading and discussing selections from Panksepp's
book on affective neuroscience. To complement what we're covering in class
and to give you some bearings on what is possible within the constraints
of our resources, we will do an initial experiment as a class which looks
at the effects of lesioning a particular brain area on play behavior in
the rat. While all this is going on, you are to also come up with a testable
hypothesis of your own, and this will serve as the basis for what you will
be doing in the laboratory for the rest of the semester.
2 Exams @ 50 points each = 100
Paper 1 (6-OHDA lesions and play) = 50
Paper 2 (preliminary experiment of your choosing) = 100
Final paper (refined experiment of your choosing) = 150
Poster & presentation = 50
Total = 450
All of the lab work for this course will involve the use of animals. In addition to obvious moral and ethical considerations, it is critical for the proper interpretation of your data that the animals with which you are working are properly cared for. A sick, hungry, thirsty or otherwise stressed animal will only provide you with questionable data. Given these concerns, I cannot stress enough the importance of properly caring for your animals. While we have a work-study student to provide general care for all of the animals in the colony, the primary responsibility for this care falls upon the principal investigator. Therefore, it is your responsibility to make sure that the rats that have been assigned to you always have adequate food and water, and are in general good health. If you suspect that any of your rats may be in ill-health, you are to notify me immediately. Your rats should also be well handled prior to beginning your experiments, so as to eliminate any undue stress associated with the experimental procedures.
Proper animal care is something which I take very seriously. While I do not foresee any problems, be forewarned that I will not look kindly on any mistreatment or neglect of animals.
Since most of your work for this course will be done in groups, mention needs to be made of my interpretation of the honor code. It is acceptable, and expected, that all of the lab projects will be worked on in groups. For example, you should discuss your results with each other, discuss what they mean and how they might be best presented. However, when it comes time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), you are on your own. In other words, the final product which you will turn in should be entirely your own creation. The exams will not be worked on in groups and will be entirely your own work. The poster, on the other hand, will be entirely a group project. Although this should be obvious to you at this point, it should also be mentioned that any ideas from other sources need to be properly referenced. Any questions about how the honor code applies to this course should be asked as soon as they arise.
Because of the subject matter and the way in which information will be presented and discussed in this course, regular attendance is essential. Therefore, chronic (i.e., more than 3) unexcused absences will result in a lowering of your overall grade.
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| 1/21 | Introduction and methods used |
| 1/26 | Some necessary basics | Panksepp (Chapters 4, 6) |
| 1/28 | More on basics | " " |
| 2/2 | Play in the rat | Panksepp (Chapter 15) |
| 2/4 | Mesolimbic dopamine and play | Pellis et al. (1993); Field & Pellis (1994); Niesink & Van Ree (1989); Siviy et al. (1996) |
| 2/9 | Mesolimbic dopamine and play (cont'd) | |
| 2/11 | Emotions and the brain | Panksepp (Chapter 3) |
| 2/16 | Discuss data from Experiment 1 and present ideas for Experiment 2 | |
| 2/18 | Emotions and the brain (cont'd) |
| 2/23 | Emotions and the brain (cont'd) | |
| 2/25 | Review for exam |
| 3/2 | EXAM 1 | |
| 3/4 | "Seeking" systems | Panksepp (Chapter 8) |
| 3/9 | "Seeking" systems (cont'd) | |
| 3/11 | "Seeking" systems (cont'd) |
| 3/16 | Spring break - no class | |
| 3/18 | Spring break - no class |
| 3/23 | Discuss data from Experiment 2 and proposals for Experiment 3 | |
| 3/25 | Rage | Panksepp (Chapter 10) |
| 3/30 | Rage (cont'd) | |
| 4/1 | Fear and anxiety | Panksepp (Chapter 11) |
| 4/6 | Fear and anxiety (cont'd) | |
| 4/8 | Love, sex and what follows | Panksepp (Chapters 12 - 14) |
| 4/13 | Love, sex and what follows (cont'd) | |
| 4/15 | Love, sex and what follows (cont'd) |
| 4/20 | EXAM 2 | |
| 4/22 | discuss results of final projects |
| 4/27 | discuss final projects | |
| 4/29 | discuss final projects |
| 5/4 | last day of class |
| Date | Activity |
| 1/26 | General orientation to the lab, handling of animals, injections, etc. |
| 2/2 | Surgery (schedule times throughout the week) |
| 2/23 | Perfusion and brain slicing |
| 2/9 | Begin collecting data for Experiment 1 |
| 2/12 | Finish collecting data for Experiment 1 and have tapes ready for scoring |
| 2/16 | Be prepared to discuss data from Experiment 1 |
| 2/19 | Rats for experiment 2 must be ordered no later than this date |
| 2/24 | Rats for experiment 2 will arrive on this date |
| 3/12 | Finish collecting data from Experiment 2 |
| 3/31 | Plan on having your rats for Experiment 3 arriving on this day |
| 4/5 | Begin collecting data for Experiment 3 no later than this date |
| 4/19 | All data from Experiment 3 should be collected by this date |
| 4/23 | Undergraduate Research Colloquium - present posters |