Biosocial Anthropology, Health and Environment (ANTH0100)

Description

Module Content

This course will critically examine and engage with approaches, topics and themes related to a new and emerging field of Biosocial Medical Anthropology. The health effects of climate change, the growing threat of epidemics (including the current Covid-19 pandemic) and the embodied inequalities of exposure to chemical toxicity or pollution require cross disciplinary approaches that can better align ecological, evolutionary approaches alongside social and medical anthropology. At the same time emerging fields of science and medical research including epigenetics, neuroscience and microbiome science are shaping clinical, public and global health interventions that require critical and reflexive consideration of how biosocial approaches have been and are being defined and acted upon, but also how this informs and transforms long standing debates about nature and nurture or culture and environment. With input from staff working in the fields of medical and biological anthropology as well as human ecology this course provides a unique cross disciplinary perspective that can consider and address how we can bettter align the biologial and social in addressing pressing health care challenges.

Delivery Method

One 2 hour seminar per week.

The aim of this module is to review advances in our understanding of mental disease from a neurobiological perspective drawn mainly from animal research but...

Molecular Basis of Neuropsychiatric Disorders (ANAT0012)

The last few years have seen a remarkable increase in our understanding of the basic biological mechanisms underlying human neurodegenerative diseases....

The Neurobiology of Neurodegenerative Disease (ANAT0008)

The last few years have seen a remarkable increase in our understanding of the basic biological mechanisms underlying human neurodegenerative diseases. Identification of mutations in a variety of genes found to encode proteins present in neuro-pathological inclusions, has suggested that a common feature of all these diseases might be the intracellular accumulation of fibrous protein aggregates within neurons, resulting in neuronal cell death. This module will discuss this hypothesis in the light of contemporary research and provide a foundation for our current understanding of neurodegenerative diseases. It will focus on the genetics, cellular and molecular biology of Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s, Motor Neuron Disease and Prion diseases, with the main emphasis on the mechanisms leading to cell death. Taking the module will enable you to assess critically the contemporary literature on this topic and provide insights into future directions for innovative therapies.

This module is an option for students on the iBSc Anatomy, Cell and Developmental Biology and MSci Cell Biology programmes, and may be taken as an elective by students (including affiliate students) on other degree programmes.

Indicative lecture topics (based 2021/22 syllabus):

A combination of lectures and video presentations will cover topics including:

Huntington's Disease
	Parkinson's Disease
	Basal Ganglia Neuroanatomy
	Motor Neuron Disease
	Frontotemporal lobe dementia - Motor neurone Disease
	Alzheimer's Disease - Beta-Amyloid
	Tau, FTLD, AD
	Cryo EM and filament structure
	CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy)
	Prions
	The prion-like behaviour of protein aggregates.