Biobehavioral Systems in Health and Development: Processes and Integration

Catalog description

Examination and integration of basic processes for understanding individuals as dynamic biobehavioral complex systems functioning through continual interactions. BB H 503BB H 503 Biobehavioral Systems in Health and Development: Processes and Integration (3)Understanding the etiology of illness and the design of intervention strategies for promoting healthy development, preventing illness, and accomplishing remediation and rehabilitation require a multidisciplinary understanding of the theoretical basis of normal healthy human development and the complex biological processes that form the basis of health and development. This course is the second course in a two-course sequence (BB H 501 and BB H 503) that is designed to provide first-year graduate students with a multidisciplinary understanding of the biobehavioral health perspective. This views humans as complex dynamic systems of integrated component processes that interact with the environment to influence development and health. The first course (BB H 501) presents the theoretical framework of humans as complex dynamic systems, followed by modules on processes of cell biology and genetics as complex systems. This course (BB H 503) continues with modules of the processes of neurobiology, endocrinology, immunology, and pharmacology followed by a section on integrative biology and health. The modules of biological processes are developed from the perspective of how the physiological aspects of the area of biology are relevant to behavioral development and what aspect of this area of biology is linked to behavior. Similar integration with a primary emphasis on behavioral processes is offered in other courses that form the core graduate curriculum. These processes are considered in the context of their role in the comprehensive theoretical models developed in the first section of the two-course sequence. Evaluation of each of the five modules will be by written exam. This required course in the biobehavioral health sequence is designed to provide a multidisciplinary framework of theory and knowledge of biobehavioral processes and their implications for health and illness on which other biobehavioral health courses can build. It is the second of a two-course sequence (BB H 501 and BB H 503). This course will be required by all graduate majors in Biobehavioral Health. It will be available to students in other doctoral programs. It could be a part of a Biobehavioral Health minor for other students. This course will be offered every spring semester beginning with the first spring semester after approval and will enroll a maximum of twenty students.Faculty: George Vogler and Byron Jones