Scienze Naturali, Scienze dei Sistemi Naturali,
Evoluzione del comportamento animale e dell’uomo

The teaching aims to provide the basic knowledge for the study of animal and human behavior with special reference to morphological and neuroendocrine aspects.

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING ABILITY
At the end of the course students must demonstrate that have acquired the knowledge of the correct scientific terminology in the anatomical and endocrine field and the ability to understand the topics in specialized scientific articles.

ABILITY TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING

Students must have acquired: the ability to carry out a critical examination of the treated neuroendocrine and behavioral processes; knowledge of the most used experimental models in the study of behavioral neuroendocrinology, with in-depth analysis on the circuits that underlie behavior.

JUDGMENT AUTONOMY
Students must be able to comment and discuss in a critical and autonomous way the teaching issues dealt with in the scientific literature and demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the role of hormones on the modulation of nerve circuits and in the modulation of complex behaviors such as reproductive behavior or social behavior.

COMMUNICATION SKILLS
Students must demonstrate that have acquired the ability to expose the acquired concepts in an appropriate manner and must also be able to clearly present the data shown in scientific articles related to the topics of the course.

LEARNING ABILITY
Students must be able to understand and process the concepts and data present in scientific articles related to the issues presented in the teaching.

At the end of the course, students should be able to demonstrate its ability to critically discuss experimental results in the field of behavioral neuroendocrinology and the ability to choose the most appropriate experimental model for the study of a certain behavior.

• Neurohistology,
• Development of the brain,
• Spinal cord,
• Brainstem, C
• erebellum and Diencephalon,
• Telencephalon.
• Sensory and motor pathways,
• Autonomic Nervous System,
• Lemniscus visceralis.
• The hypothalamo-neurohypophyseal system.
• The limbic system and the reward circuit.
• Control of nervous circuits:neurotransmitters,neuropeptides, hormones.

General outlines of neuroendocrinology.

• Membrane and nuclear receptors.
• Gonadal steroids' action: development,differentiation, dimorphism.
• Neurosteroids.
• Endocrine disruptors.
• Thyroid hormones and nervous system: development, differentiation, and photoperiodism.
• The olfactory Pheromones and neuroendocrine mechanisms.
• The GnRH system and the control of puberty.
• Steroid hormones, neuropeptides and stress.
• Behavior and Epigenetics.
• Aggressive behaviour.
• Feeding behaviour

The teaching topics are developed during the 48 hours of lectures (6 CFU) using powepoint presentations and occasionally movies, with direct references to the experiments conducted.

The examination is organized as follows:

- a written test on Moodle platform (45 minutes) with 14 questions, 10 multiple choice (4 possibilities true / false 0.5 points each correct answer), 4 questions with illustrations or graphics to be answered by describing the relative experiment (evaluation from 0 to 2 points). The maximum score that can be awarded for the written test is 28. The written test is conducted in presence only.

- Next, those who received at least 18 in the written test, will have to discuss critically an experimental scientific article. The presentation of the article will be followed by a follow-up question pertaining to the syllabus and thus the topic covered in the article. This part of verification is indispensable for passing the exam, and is worth a maximum of 5 points. In case the committees finds the presentation and/or the answer to the question insufficient, the final grade will not be awarded. In such a case, the student may reappear at the next exam to discuss only the presentation. The article presentation will be given on a day following the written examination and in presence.

Choice of the article: the experimental scientific article (not a review), can be chosen from those proposed by the lecturer (collected in the folder LAVORI DA COMMENTARE for the exam: here there are several subfolders related to the different topics; in these subfolders are the pdf files of the experimental works; once the article to be commented on is chosen, one MUST open the file SCELTA LAVORI (name of the subfolder) which will present a menu where the works still available are listed, click on the name of the corresponding file. At this point the other options will disappear and the chosen work will no longer be visible to other students). The scientific article should be proposed by the student as long as it falls within the discipline (in this case send the pdf to the teacher and wait for approval of the article in question).

The student should prepare on the chosen article a short presentation (no more than 10 minutes) making especially note of the critical issues of the experiment, data and/or interpretation given by the authors. The presentation (in powerpoint or pdf format), must mandatorily include the reference to the chosen article in the first slide (screenshot of the front page or alternatively title, authors and year of the article), and should be sent to Marilena Marraudino (marilena.marraudino@unito.it) by the exam registration deadline. Instructions for using the platform are available and accessible on the Unito website.