The goal of this course is to engage in an in-depth study of sleep and circadian rhythms from the context of Behavioral Health. For this class, we define behavioral health as mental health, cognitive health, emotional health, social health, healthy responses to stress, trauma, risk, and addiction. An upper-level seminar, the course is strengthened by discussion and student-led exploration of the topic. Because of the extensive core knowledge base required to begin exploring sleep and circadian rhythms in depth, the class starts with lectures and readings to provide an overview of background material, including definitions/vocabulary, measurement, neural systems, regulatory processes, and typical experimental paradigms and measures. As the semester progresses, each student will pick a specific Behavioral Health topic for leading a seminar session/discussion and for a final paper.



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