1C: What is Behavioral Genetics?

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Introduction to Human Behavioral Genetics

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University of Minnesota

Introduction to Human Behavioral Genetics

162 ratings

Behavioral genetic methodologies from twin and adoption studies through DNA analysis will be described and applied to address longstanding questions about the origins of individual differences in behavioral traits.

From the lesson

1

Unit # 1: Course Introduction and OverviewOverview: Unit # 1 provides an overview to the field of human behavioral genetics and to this course. We will begin by discussing the early history of the field and how behavioral genetic research influenced and was influenced by the eugenics movement. Once this historical context has been established, we will define the field of behavioral genetics and use this definition to provide an overview of the course. This week’s lectures will end with two case studies that illustrate the importance of behavioral genetic approaches. The first is the famous John/Joan case, where one member of a monozygotic twin pair was raised as a boy and the other as a girl. The second is the human genetic disorder Phenylketonuria (PKU), which has been recognized as a paradigm of human genetic disease since its discovery in 1934.Unit Objectives: At the end of this unit you should know• The history of the founding of the field of behavioral genetics• What the eugenics movement was and how it impacted psychology and behavioral genetics• What the field of behavioral genetics covers• How the John/Joan case represented the extreme of the “Blank Slate” mentality within psychology• Why Phenylketonuria is considered a public health success and model of human genetic diseaseLecture Modules:A. The Nature-Nurture Debate and Founding of Behavioral GeneticsB. The Eugenics MovementC. What is Behavioral GeneticsD. The John/Joan CaseE. Phenylketonuria (PKU) F. Huntington Disease (Supplemental)

1A: The Nature-Nurture Debate and Founding of Behavioral Genetics 14:42

1B: The Eugenics Movement 15:50

1C: What is Behavioral Genetics? 7:11

1D: The John/Joan Case 17:34

1E: Phenylketonuria (PKU) 15:49

1F: Huntington Disease - Supplementary 18:54

Unit 1 Office Hours Video 20:22

Meet the Instructors

Matt McGue
Regents Professor
Psychology

Okay, welcome back to An Introduction to Human Behavioral Genetics.

This is the third module of the first lecture unit.

And in this module what I'm going to do

is actually give you my definition of what behavioral benetics

is, the field is, and also provide an overview of

what I'm hoping to accomplish in this eight week course.

So this is my definition of behavioral genetics.

It's the area of psychology that involves the use of genetic methodologies to study

the nature and origins of individual differences in human and animal behavior.

Although in this course we really will only focus on human behavior.

There are three aspects of the definition I'd like to focus on.

The first is that behavioral genetic involves the use of genetic methodologies.

Behavioral genetics is really a field within psychology,

it's not, I don't see it as a field

within genetics, but what it's doing is it's taking

genetic methodologies in an attempt to answer psychological questions.

So one of the things that we'll do in this course

is talk about specific genetic methodologies,

the methodologies that behavioral geneticists use.

Those methodologies might be traditional methodologies, like

the use of twin, adoption and family studies.

And those will be a focus of the second lecture unit.

Increasingly, as you will learn, behavioral geneticists

have moved beyond the traditional methodologies,

although we certainly use those methodologies today.

But have moved beyond the traditional methodologies to use and analyze DNA.

And this is something that has really been enabled through the Human Genome Project.

So in lecture, in lecture unit three we'll

talk about DNA, the Human Genome Project and

genes, and these new DNA-based methodologies.

The second aspect of the definition I'd like to

emphasize is that behavioral genetics is interested in individual differences.

There are two ways we might think about genetics influencing our behavior.

And those two ways are actually,

are represented in two different sub-disciplines

within psychology.

Genetics might influence common psychological mechanisms that

we all share by virtue of being humans.

The way we perceive objects in space. The way we learn material.

The way our memories work. How our basic emotions operate.

The area of psychology that's interested

in how genetics shapes these common psychological

mechanisms or processes is called evolutionary psychology.

We won't be talking about evolutionary psychology in this course.

Rather what behavioral genetics is interested in is not so much

the commonality in our psychological processes, but the differences among us.

Why some of us suffer schizophrenia and others don't.

The way some of us are

extroverted while others are introverted.

So behavioral genetics is interested in individual differences.

In this course, it'd be difficult and, and probably a little tedious to go through a

whole bunch of different psychological traits and talk

about the behavioral genetic research on those traits.

So what I've decided to do is focus on two paradigmatic psychological

traits and how genetics has shaped our understanding of these traits.

In the fourth unit we'll talk about schizophrenia,

which I guess is also a psychiatric trait.

As representative of behavioral genetic research, not only

on a psychiatric trait but on the trait

that's, essentially neither or, it's a diagnosis, you,

you either have the diagnosis or you do not.

The second trait that we'll focus on in Unit five is intelligence, or IQ.

And this has generated a lot of

controversy for the field of behavioral genetics.

But it's certainly something worth our discussing.

IQ, or intelligence is a representation of behavioral genetic research, not to

an either/or trait but to a trait that's continuously distributed, or quantitative.

The third aspect of the definition I'd like

to focus on here is that what behavioral

geneticists are interested in is using these methodologies

to understand the origins of individual differences, their nature.

One way we try to understand the origins of individual differences in behavior

is calculating the heritability coefficient, something that

we'll talk about in the third unit.

It's a very

controversial term within behavioral genetics, but we'll

go through exactly how behavioral geneticists attempt to

estimate the heritabliity and what they think the

heritability tell us about individual differences in behavior.

I think one misunderstanding of behavioral genetics

that many people have is that what

behavioral geneticists is about, or behavioral genetics

is about is establishing that behavior is heritable.

That our behavior is genetically influenced.

I think of behavioral genetics as much more than that.

Again, I think of it as

using genetic methodologies to answer psychological questions.

And sometimes those psychological questions don't deal

with genetics, but rather deal with the environment.

And in the seventh unit, what I'm going to do is

talk about the use of genetic methodologies to not only tell

us something about the genetic origins of behavior, but

also about the environment, or the nurture side of behavior.

And I think you'll find that behavioral genetic research has led to, or

resulted in some very significant insights on the environmental side of the equation.

Finally the last unit will be a wrap up unit, but I mostly want

to try to touch on two things here, is

how behavioral genetic research might, or is being applied.

Applied in terms of a, a growing field of genomic or individualized medicine.

To what extent can behavioral genetic research be used,

or is it being used in our legal system?

And then finally, what are the prospects going forward for this field

of behavioral genetics?

So that gives you hopefully an overview of

how I see the field of behavioral genetics.

And also how this course is organized, and what I'm

hoping to achieve with you over the next eight weeks.

Next time in the next lecture module we'll talk

about a very famous twin study called the John/Joan case.

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