PSYC414

Prerequisite: PSYC301, PSYC202, or NEUR200; or permission of instructor. Restriction: Must be in a major within the BSOS-Psychology department; and restricted to psychology majors during the registration period. Sleep is a powerful, inescapable, misunderstood, and mysterious presence in our lives. The course will begin with a review of the basics of sleep and biological rhythms with a focus on the underlying neurobiology. The bulk of the semester will be in-depth discussions of topics in sleep and circadian rhythms primarily chosen by the students. A few examples: narcolepsy, sleep in primitive cultures, lucid dreaming, racial and cultural differences in sleep and sleep disorders, the biology of sleep and circadian rhythms during adolescence, CNS control of dreaming, sleep and states of consciousness, sleeping to remember vs. sleeping to forget, legal ramifications of parasomnias, e.g. sleepwalking, and the relationships between sleep deprivation and obesity. Restricted to PSYC and NEUR majors only.