Adaptive Brain and Behavior Curriculum Model

The ABB Minor takes transdisciplinary approach to the study of Whole Health and developmental optimization by elucidating interdependencies in the brain-behavior-context triad. The ABB curriculum features a beyond boundaries, whole-student approach to education that includes both traditional lecture courses and many opportunities for students to engage in high-impact experiential learning. This curriculum seeks to promote content expertise, systems thinking and self-care competencies to support wellbeing, resilience and flourishing in our students.

Figure 1: The arrows indicate the ways in which the elements of the model can interact to the benefit, maintenance or detriment of one another.

Behavior, Thought, and Belief

Conscious and unconscious responses and patterns of activity, including decision making, personality, strengths, habits, creativity and performance.

Brain and Biologic Systems

The multi-level, biological, and structural underpinnings of behavior, including the Brain and extended networks, such as the PNS and endocrine system.

Social and Environmental Context

The physical, social and informational ecologies in which individuals are nested and develop over time, including families, communities, cultures and institutions.

Adaptation, Interactivity, and Interdependence

Students in ABB courses will learn how social and environmental contexts can have direct impacts on physical brain development, such as with the victims of the Flint water crisis where environmental toxins have derailed normative brain function. The ABB model pushes beyond the physical interactions to also consider the impact of social and political dysfunction in creating a toxic context for Flint's inhabitants. From a more optimistic perspective, the ABB model also recognizes that the human brain is plastic and resilient and that regions of the brain with highly specialized functions, such as empathy and ethical reasoning are also directly involved in the ongoing solutions to the Flint problem.

While is it clear that much of human behavior is dependent on the physical state of the brain, the brain is also dependent on our behavior. The ABB perspective will also help students understand that health behaviors, such as dietary choices and habits of physical activity can directly alter brain structure and chemical composition.

Where physical and biological trauma, as well as addiction undermine routine performance and quality of life, the ABB curriculum feature research demonstrating how humans are capable of restructuring the brain and changing behavior to recover of lost function. Additionally, the ABB model asks us to consider the ways in which behavior change is influenced by both individual motivations and contextual factors, such as social support and access to adequate care during the recovery process.

ABB's multi-level, tripartite approach can guide inquiry and problem solving for many of today's "wicked" problems. For instance, ABB can bring additional perspective to issues of equity and social change, as breakthroughs in neuroscience have revealed the detrimental effects of poverty and discrimination on the structure and function of the brain. Issues of aging and the transformation of a dysfunctional health-care system can also be informed by ABB's approach. The ABB model provides a more complete approach than the old mechanistic model of human health, recognizing the importance of social and environmental context, as well as health behaviors, in the prevention and treatment of disease and the optimization of aging.

The ABB minor will bring students from across the university together into interdisciplinary spaces where the natural sciences and social sciences converge to give us a deeper understanding of the interdependencies of brain, behavior, and environment. ABB provides students with a scientific, multilevel framework to analyze human behavior, including factors that contribute to optimal growth and development across the lifespan. The issues covered in this minor are global in nature and central to questions of identity, equity, and ethical considerations that VT students should be aware of as they endeavor to invent the future.