Steven Crane Compiled Section Handouts. Human Behavioral Biology 2012

context in which this plays out is widely variable (base jumping vs. chess playing).

Before the motor symptoms of Huntington's disease comes disinhibition of the frontal lobe. This actually leads to people with Huntington's to outreproduce their siblings during this period, providing an individual selection mechanism that explains the persistence of this disease.

What are the symptoms of Tourette's syndrome?

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  Twitches, ticks, body jerks, sounds, barking sounds, rhythmic coughing, grabbing at body parts.
  

How have we as society changed in how we view the disease?

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  Used to be burned at the stake or exorcised for doing those things. Now we know it's a disease and try to accommodate it. We've drawn a line between the person and the disease.
  

What evidence do we have that Tourette's might be related to autoimmunity? PANDAS disease.

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  Kid gets strep infection, along come ticks and other Tourette's symptoms
  
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  Immunosuppressants take the symptoms away.
  
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  When you get sick again, the symptoms return along with high fevers
  
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  Interpretation: maybe the high fever opens up the blood-brain barrier and the immune system attacks the brain.
  

And what brain region is implicated?

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  The caudate: seems to be abnormally small in Tourette's
  

And then there's the endless variety of bizarre and surprising disorders resulting from our biology. I would just be repeating what Dr. Sapolsky said word-for-word, so I'll skip those and leave them up to you to review.

Will advancement of science rob the universe of all mystery, wonder, and meaning?

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  Yes. Jk. No.
  

Take-home points:

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  Life is complicated and bizarre and more mysteries open up with every discovery.
  
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  We as a society suck at understanding human behavior and its biological underpinnings.
  
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  Biology can be woefully mis-applied when done incorrectly (Lorenz, etc.)
  
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  Just because it's complicated, that's no excuse to do nothing.
  
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  You don't have to choose between science and compassion. You can do both.