Biopsychology, also known as biological psychology, behavioral neuroscience, or psychobiology, is a scientific discipline which applies the principles of biology to the understanding of psychology and behaviors. Biopsychologists are interested in both normal and abnormal functions in humans and non-human animals. Taking advantage of mutant mice, hamsters, and schizophrenic patients as our models, we would like to tackle the problem of biopsychology of the mind in our laboratory, Laboratory of Integrated Neuroscience and Ethology (LINE), from multidisciplinary approach. For the first part of my talk, I will concentrate on the abnormal functions, especially in schizophrenia, As pointed out by Nobel Laureate Dr. Eric Kandel in 2009, “Understanding the biology of mental illness would be a paradigm shift in our thinking about mind…..…. it would also tell us more about who we are and how we function”. The biology of the mind will be one of the most fascinating and challenging topics for the 21st century. Schizophrenia is a severe mental illness with a strong genetic predisposition and abnormalities in the dopamine system (or dopamine hypothesis of psychosis) have long been implicated in the explanatory context of schizophrenia. Here, a series of studies from my lab circling around AKT1 (i.e., a candidate gene for schizophrenia) was highlighted and used to provide a potential link from genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia to biological abnormalities to the clinical phenomena (psychosis). I will also walk you through some of our recent findings in reward-based decision making, preclinical drug testing, and up-to-date new techniques (e.g., optogenetics) in my lab. For the 2nd part of my talk, I would like to shift gears to normal functions and focus on social learning and memory. As addressed by Theodosius Dobzhansky in 1973, “Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution". We would like to take an evolutionary approach to study social learning and memory using golden hamsters as a model. Taking advantage of agonistic behaviors in male golden hamsters, we developed a laboratory method to study social learning and social eavesdropping. We also applied c-Fos immunohistochemistry to map neuronal activities in the brain and recorded electrophysiological signals in behaving hamsters. Collectively, there are tons of exciting experiments going on in this field. We hope findings from the LINE can provide inspiration and an avenue to investigate biopsychology of the mind from integrative and multidisciplinary approaches. Future studies are warranted to further unlock the mystery of the three pounds of matter between our ears using biopsychological approach.
Keywords: biopsychology, mind, Akt1, schizophrenia, mice, hamsters, social learning and memory, decision making