Hi everybody! Welcome to our first recorded  lecture. In this video, we'll explore the  
interdisciplinary nature of neuroscience.  According to UCLA, neuroscience is defined as the interdisciplinary study of the nervous  system with the ultimate goal of understanding brain and nervous system function and neurological  disease at many levels. Like all of psychology, we often focus on the disease part, which we  cover in detail in chapters 15 Neuropsychology and 16 Psychological Disorders. But as positive  psychology has shown us, understanding healthy functioning is important, too. What changes in cognition can we expect during healthy aging?

When does stress produce normal effects and when  should we worry about the effects of stress?
The neurosciences as a group covers a wide  range of disciplines, including psychology, biology, chemistry, physics, and medicine.

Its levels of analysis range from  the molecular to the behavioral. This is like Google Earth. We can zoom in to analyze the molecular building blocks of the brain and nervous system and  then zoom way out to watch behavior.

Running alongside each of these levels of  analysis is computational neuroscience,

or the use of computational models to understand  and predict the behavior of living systems. Not only does this type of neuroscience form the basis  of artificial intelligence and smart prosthetics, but it helps us understand how the brain  and nervous system operate. For example, AI systems and the brain both require corrections for  overfitting, or making superstitious connections between unrelated bits of data. Some people think  that the weird content of dreams can help us to 
prevent overfitting. Molecular neuroscientists  ask questions about the molecules that make up the brain and nervous system, such as RNA and  DNA and the proteins they produce. The cellular neuroscientist looks at the structure and function  of the cells that make up the brain and nervous system, such as the differences between a motor  neuron and a neuron found in the retina of the eye. The synaptic neuroscientist is interested in  the communications that take place between cells 
and might ask questions about how learning changes  those processes. The network neuroscientist is interested in patterns of activity in the  brain and nervous system. For example, we'll learn in Chapter 11 that a distinct network  participates in daydreaming and that this network shows disturbances in Alzheimer's disease and  a number of psychological disorders. Finally,  we zoom out to the level that is the focus of  this class--behavioral neuroscience. We're the

ones who have the most fun, in our opinion, as we  attempt to find correlations between observable

behaviors and the underlying activity of the brain  and nervous system. One of the key concepts in

behavioral neurosciences is its reciprocal nature.  Biology can influence behavior, but just as

importantly, behavior can influence biology. How  you think about the world, whether that glass is

half empty or full, can have profound effects on  your neurobiology. Mindset is huge. To illustrate

this reciprocal relationship between biology  and behavior, let's consider Cole et al., 2015.

These researchers found that perceived social  isolation signaled the immune system to gear up

for bacteria, while perceived social connectivity  signaled the immune system to gear up for viruses,

which as we know, love close contact. It is  ironic that the social distancing and lockdowns

we experienced in covid-19 might have resulted  in loneliness, which in turn would prevent

our immune systems from prioritizing protection  against viruses just when we needed it the most.

So as we explore behavioral neuroscience in  this course, we'll take advantage of all the

hard work done by neuroscientists in each level  of analysis. You might find a favorite among

these as we proceed. Remind yourself that we're  looking at a two-way, not a one-way street. Yes,

manipulating your biochemistry can make you  feel different, but the way you think about the

world can also affect your biochemistry. This is  powerful stuff and I hope you enjoy learning more.