This course will provide an introductory overview to the field of biological psychology. Course content will begin by explaining what biological psychology is and why biology is the ultimate basis for the expression of behavior in any living organism. The course will cover the anatomy of the nervous system by exploring the structures of the brain, spine and neurons, and will introduce the basic techniques used by biopsychologists. In addition, the biological foundations of the perceptual and sensorimotor systems will be covered. The course will also cover the plasticity of the brain and how damage to the brain can influence behavior. We will cover material on the biological basis of motivation, cognition and emotion. We will study how hormones influence behavior, and we will cover the biology of sleep. Lastly, the course will introduce pharmacology, and the neurology of stress and psychological disorders.
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Year Taken: AY18/19, Sem 1
Lecturer: Ryo Kitada
Assessments: Attendance/online quiz (10%), mid-term quiz (25%), in-class essay (15%), final exam (50%)
Workload/difficulty: High/Big BrainIt’s impossible not to like Prof Ryo. He is so soft. And amicable. Unfortunately everything else in this module is hard. LOOOOL. Biopsych is the “hard science” child of the field. We love social and personality psych but those feature relatively intangible constructs. Here you learn about entities and processes that have a physical existence. The brain and its four lobes. The basal ganglia. The retina and its RODS and CONES. The mitochondrion being the POWERHOUSE OF THE CELL. (Wait – maybe not that one.) It feels more grounded as a result – though this perception in no way means that biopsych is more legitimate.
It is a comprehensive module, and there is much to internalise. His slides are pretty self-sufficient. The content spans broadly (from memory to sexual behaviour) and is yet simultaneously specific (long-term potentiation, INAH-3 somehow predicting homosexuality). The good news is what you see is what you get: there’s no need to get creative with the information given. Understanding the process and function of each bodily part – and what happens when they fail – is what matters. No projects! Just plain ol’ understanding and application questions! We love you, Prof Ryo! A cognitive neuroscientist, and a KING!
The assessments: be careful with the in-class essay. Because it is an open-ended question, you need to be comprehensive in your response or you’ll omit key points. Perhaps due to the complexity of the content, he allows a double-sided A4 cheat sheet in the final exam. And he instituted this particular rule for short answer questions: respond in no more than two sentences. Not AT ALL my cup of tea – how else would we have this post – but a commendable strategy to sift out the most lucid answers. He is superb at setting tricky questions, though he provides contextual detail to compensate for it. Like I said, focus on process and function.
I will end my fangirling with a heartwarming story. He used to use a generic red laser pointer in lectures. A student apparently informed him that the tiny dot was hard to see in the recordings. The lesson after summer break, he proudly unleashed his brand new $300 laser pointer. Imagine a dot except magnified a hundred times and it came in the shape of a hand pointing a finger. No joke. He was proud of himself. Again: a KING.
This review was reposted with the kind permission of Gwyneth. Originally published at https://gwynethtyt.com/2021/06/01/ntu-psych-mods/
June 11, 2021
