UWA Handbook 2025

Minor Overview

About this minor

The minor in Brain and Behaviour introduces students to basic concepts in neuroscience (brain) and behaviour and then provides deeper exploration of brain anatomy, organisation and evolution as underpinnings of complex functions. This knowledge is pertinent to: 1. students studying biological and health sciences, because they will gain an understanding of how the complexity of the brain leads not only to sophisticated behaviours but also to devastating medical conditions. 2. students in other disciplines, including arts, computing, engineering etc, because we show how basic science promotes discovery and innovation using nature as inspiration. Although human brains are included in the curriculum, the unique neural adaptations of the animal kingdom provide inspiration to apply, innovate and create new knowledge and applications (eg robotics, neural networks). The objective is to provide graduates with multidisciplinary skills to tackle highly complex problems by drawing on multidisciplinary resources and applying critical thinking. For students taking a minor which shares units with their other unit sets (majors or minors): in order for minors to be recognised on academic and graduation documents, students may only have a maximum of one unit overlapping between their unit sets.

Outcomes

Students are able to (1) demonstrate an understanding of the basic organisation and function of the human brain; (2) apply and evaluate experimental design in neuroscience; (3) analyse concepts driving brain evolution; (4) create effective strategies to communicate complex and multidisciplinary information; (5) analyse the biological underpinnings of complex behaviours in a wide range of species including humans; and (6) explore how an understanding of brain structure and function can inspire innovation.

Incompatibility

MJD-NEURS Neuroscience, MJD-HSNEM - Human Science and Neuroscience

Units