Day 3

Saturday March 19, 2011

Today I headed up to the library to see if I could find more suitable books to my question apart from the ones I got at SFU. I made a list of the most important keywords that I have based by research on:

Biology, neuroscience, psychology, neuropsychology, biopsychology, pharmacology, pharmacodynamics, social neuroscience, neurochemistry, neuropsychopharmacology, neural mechanisms, neurobiology, drug therapy, drug tratment, cognitive mechanisms, molecular biology, epigenetics.

I found 3 books that I consider will be useful, I skimmed through them for an hour.

I came across the area of Biosocial criminology, and I spent about 1 hour researching on the topic. There are not many peer reviewed articles on the area, as it started emerging until fairly recently. There are articles on biomedical experiments that seek a genetic predisposition to social issues that relate to crime, including anger and aggression. During my research, I also went back to my neuroscience notes and recalled some structures of the brain that relate to aggression, such as the amygdala, are also closely related to fight vs. flight reactions and fear. I'd like to explore the role of emotions in addictions.

I spent two hours researching on the field of epigenetics. My background on this subject comes from Neuroscience, and I find it really interesting as it is a relatively new field of study; therefore, the research that is being done on it is rapidly changing and increasing. This is also a negative aspect, nonetheless, as there are not many peer reviewed articles on epigenetics and addictions. I would like to incorporate this area to my question as I feel like it would be important in order to study the hereditary aspects of addictions (if there are any).