Course Overview

Investigate how the human brain is sculpted by evolution, genes, experience, hormones, and other influences to produce a wide range of behaviors, led by a prominent neurobiologist, zoologist, and MacArthur “genius” grant recipient. When are we responsible for our own actions, and when are we in the grip of biological forces beyond our control? How do our brains make us the individuals that we are?

In these 24 lectures, you’ll explore how the human brain is sculpted by evolution, constrained or freed by genes, shaped by early experience, modulated by hormones, and otherwise influenced to produce a wide range of behaviors—some of them abnormal. You’ll see that little can be explained by thinking about any one of these factors alone because some combination of influences is almost always at work.

As you work through this thought-provoking and engaging material, you’ll learn much about your own behavior, not to mention that of others. You’ll discover how the brain and behavior are regulated; what genes at the molecular level have to do with brain function and how those genes have evolved; how neurobiology, neuroendocrinology, evolution, genetics, and ethology help explain an actual set of behaviors, with a particular focus on aggression; the role of the frontal cortex in decision-making, gratification postponement, and other important functions; and more. How much do these insights threaten our own sense of self and individuality? It’s a provocative question, and it’s one you’ll find some answers to in Professor Sapolsky’s masterful lectures on our neurological origins.

Course Lectures

01: Biology and Behavior-An Introduction

Professor Robert Sapolsky outlines the course, emphasizing that there is a neurobiology to who we are; it is vital that we learn about it; and it can be understood best through the interdisciplinary approach of this course.

Duration: 31 min

02: The Basic Cells of the Nervous System

You begin a trio of lectures on the neurobiology of behavior at the cellular level. An overview of how a single neuron works explores the difference between the neuron’s quiescent state, or resting potential, and its excited state, or action potential.

Duration: 29 min

03: How Two Neurons Communicate

In this lecture, you expand your study of neurons to see how two neurons communicate through the use of neurotransmitters—chemical messengers in the brain—and examine the effects of certain drugs on the brain and on the neurological origins of individuality.

Duration: 30 min

04: Learning and Synaptic Plasticity

This lecture describes how communication between neurons changes as a result of experience. The focus is on long-term potentiation (LTP) and how the process occurs in the hippocampus, with implications for learning and memory; and in the amygdala, with implications for fear and anxiety.

Duration: 31 min

05: The Dynamics of Interacting Neurons

Expanding beyond the scale of the cell, you begin a three-lecture survey of the systems level. In this lecture, you look at how neurons sharpen detection signals through inhibition and how layers of neurons that overlap and form networks affect individual memory, pain, and creativity.

Duration: 31 min

06: The Limbic System

You investigate how subregions of the brain made of millions of neurons function. The focus is on the limbic system, which is most centrally involved in emotion and in generating emotional behavior. The limbic system will be central to the rest of the course.

Duration: 31 min

07: The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)

Professor Sapolsky examines how the limbic system regulates the function of the body by way of the autonomic nervous system and its subparts: the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system.

Duration: 30 min

08: The Regulation of Hormones by the Brain

The first of two lectures on hormones and behavior examines how the limbic system regulates the body through the release of many types of hormones. You review the nature of this regulation and the basic ways hormones work.

Duration: 31 min

09: The Regulation of the Brain by Hormones

This lecture considers the converse of the brain’s regulation of hormones, namely, the hormones’ regulation of the brain. How can hormones change the function and even the very structure of the brain? A key point of this and the preceding lecture is to refute the view that hormones “cause” behaviors.

Duration: 30 min

10: The Evolution of Behavior

The first of three lectures on the evolution of the brain and behavior reviews the mechanisms of evolution and then looks at the ways species can maximize through behavioral means the number of copies of their genes passed on to the next generation.

Duration: 31 min

11: The Evolution of Behavior-Some Examples

You investigate how the evolution of behavior helps explain, and even predict, social behavior in numerous species that vary in how aggressive they are, whether they are monogamous or polygamous, and whether males participate in childcare, among other traits.

Duration: 30 min

12: Cooperation, Competition, and Neuroeconomics

You review the evolution of competition and how the brain functions under different settings of competition. The formal analysis of such behavior, called game theory, is introduced and framed in both the context of the evolution of such strategizing and the sort of brains that can accomplish it.

Duration: 31 min

13: What Do Genes Do? Microevolution of Genes

In this first of four lectures on the role of genes in sculpting behavior, you examine what a gene is and does. The main intellectual thrust of this module is to demonstrate the futility of the nature-versus-nurture debate when considering genes and the brain.

Duration: 30 min

14: What Do Genes Do? Macroevolution of Genes

Evolution can be formally defined as changes in the function and distribution of genes in populations over time. But what exactly evolves in a gene on the molecular level? This lecture reviews what mutations are on that level and how they can affect behavior.

Duration: 30 min

15: Behavior Genetics

How can you tell when a behavior has a genetic component? This lecture introduces the field of behavior genetics, which seeks to determine the extent that genes explain qualities such as intelligence, aggression, or introversion/extroversion.

Duration: 29 min

16: Behavior Genetics and Prenatal Environment

The basic premise of behavior genetics is that when research controls for environment, it can reveal the effects of genes. This lecture shows that this is virtually impossible to do because genes and environment interact constantly, particularly in the realm of behavior. The lecture also explores the results of environmental effects on fetuses.

Duration: 31 min

17: An Introduction to Ethology

This is the first of two lectures on ethology, the study of animals in their natural habitat, and insights about the human brain and behavior that can be gleaned from it. Here, Professor Sapolsky gives an overview of ethology, a discipline that developed to counter behaviorist psychology.

Duration: 30 min

18: Neuroethology

This lecture explores neuroethology, the study of the neural mechanisms mediating the naturalistic behavior of animals. In particular, you look at how the functioning of the limbic system varies among species and how the human limbic system can be understood in that context.

Duration: 30 min

19: The Neurobiology of Aggression I

The final module of the course applies the previous lessons to the study of aggression. In this lecture, you explore the neural bases of aggression—first the neurochemistry of aggressive behavior, then its neuroanatomy, emphasizing the limbic system and the frontal cortex.

Duration: 31 min

20: The Neurobiology of Aggression II

This lecture poses two questions: What environmental events can trigger the limbic system to exert aggressive behavior seconds to minutes later? And how do hormones modulate the sensitivity of the brain to those environmental triggers? You focus on the hormone testosterone.

Duration: 31 min

21: Hormones and Aggression

The first part of this lecture explores how patterns of hormone exposure around the time of birth can influence adult patterns of aggression. The second part examines how genes may influence the neurobiology of aggression but never outside the context of strong environmental interactions.

Duration: 31 min

22: Early Experience and Aggression

You look at the role of environmental factors in aggression occurring days to decades later. In particular, you examine the effect of reward and punishment, early experience and social learning, and the ways those experiences can shape the development of relevant parts of the brain.

Duration: 30 min

23: Evolution, Aggression, and Cooperation

The final lecture in this module looks at the evolution of aggression, examining which evolutionary factors promote aggressive behavior and how evolutionary biology gives scientists insights into ways that aggression might be contained.

Duration: 30 min

24: A Summary

How much do insights into the neurobiology of human behaviors threaten a person’s sense of self and individuality? Professor Sapolsky summarizes what science has learned about the neurobiology of individual differences, stressing the profound implications of this knowledge.

Duration: 32 min