Students will learn about the emergence and evolution of life, human thought, cognition,
and decision mechanisms through the prism of biology, cognitive science,
and neuroscience.
What you’ll
consider in this area
The rapid advance of globalization is creating problems that transcend regions and national borders to present common challenges for the whole of humanity worldwide, including issues relating to the environment, food, human rights, and economic disparities. There are no clear answers to these problems, so they are tricky to solve immediately.
So how do we go about finding a solution to them? To tackle challenges without an answer, we must first actively think for ourselves and plan solutions. As it is impossible to devise adequate solutions singlehandedly, it is necessary to collaborate with others. In solving problems, it is vital to communicate with a variety of people and build up experience.
What you can learn
in this area
To tackle issues relating to humans, such as how humans address threats to health and how to maintain mental and physical health, it is necessary to understand not only the molecular and chemical functions of life, including genes and proteins, but also human decision-making and mental activity. Accordingly, you will study basic biology, including molecular cell biology, physiology, and biochemistry, as well as human science, with a focus on cognitive science, neuroscience, and bioethics, among others.
You will examine various social problems—among them climate change, pandemics, food problems, environmental pollution, stressful societies, medical care, and welfare—from the molecular and cellular level, including genes and proteins, or from the human level, using such techniques as behavior analysis and functional neuroimaging. You will then learn how to solve those problems.
Features of this area
In the Humans and Life area, you will work on solving a variety of social issues such as the following, based on basic research in the fields of life science, cognitive neuroscience, and neuroscience, in conjunction with knowledge from the fields of agricultural science, pharmacology, medicine, engineering, information science, educational studies, economics, and sociology.
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