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This course teaches how the brain and its physiology changes when individuals are challenged by environmental adversity. It covers neural mechanisms of adaptive and maladaptive plasticity; the latter one being critical for the pathophysiology of numerous psychiatric disorders.This course teaches how the brain and its physiology changes when individuals are challenged by environmental adversity. It covers neural mechanisms of adaptive and maladaptive plasticity; the latter one being critical for the pathophysiology of numerous psychiatric disorders.
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This course integrates animal models and human data disclosing adaptive and maladaptive responses to stressful events. Our course has five sections ranging from an introduction into (i) the molecular and anatomical pathways underlying the stress response, (ii) the basic behavioural response repertoire like fear conditioning, freezing, and fight/flight, over (iii) gene and gene-by-environment interactions relevant for (interindividual differences) of the stress response to human data into (iv) fundamentally adaptive responses to threat and (v) maladaptive consequences of stress leading to the most important psychiatric disorders like major depression and anxiety disorders.
This course has a total of 12 lectures, 90-minutes, a well prepared seminar and three reading assignments.
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For the final exam, students are supposed to answer questions by short written essays.
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