PSYCH 119JBrain Bugs: Understanding Brain through Its Flaws
Psychology · 4 units · Undergraduate upper division (100-199)
Designed for juniors/seniors. Psychology of brain flaws and limitations to understand how brain works by studying what it does well and understanding neuroscience of why brain is poorly suited to perform some tasks such as numerical calculations, memorizing lists and names, and making unbiased decisions. Topics include memory (types of memory, false memories, misinformation and memory, memory capacity) and cognitive biases (framing, anchoring, and temporal discounting). Exploration of underlying neural causes of brain flaws and limitations in context of brain’s associative architecture. Basic neurophysiology, synaptic plasticity, cortical plasticity, neural basis of learning and memory, and some computational neuroscience.
P/NP or letter grading.
When it runs
- Spring 2026
- Spring 2027
Scheduled, not typical — from UCLA’s Schedule of Classes, which publishes Fall 2025 through Spring 2027 and nothing before it.
Requisites
Official UCLA wording
Requisite: course 115 or M117C.
BruinTree reads · Prerequisite
confidence 1.00 · from textRequires
Everything that has to come before this course, not just the courses named in the requisite above.
PSYCH 119J
- PSYCH 115Principles of Behavioral Neuroscience
- PSYCH 100APsychological Statistics
- PSYCH 10Introductory Psychology
- COMPTNG 10AIntroduction to Programming
- STATS 10Introduction to Statistical Reasoning
- LIFESCI 7ACell and Molecular Biology
- LIFESCI 15Life: Concepts and Issues
- PSYCH M117CNeuroscience: From Molecules to Mind—Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience
- PSYCH M117ANeuroscience: From Molecules to Mind—Cellular and Systems Neuroscience
- PHYSICS 1BPhysics for Scientists and Engineers: Oscillations, Waves, Electric and Magnetic Fields4 more beneath
- PHYSICS 1BHPhysics for Scientists and Engineers: Oscillations, Waves, Electric and Magnetic Fields (Honors)6 more beneath
- PHYSICS 5CPhysics for Life Sciences Majors: Electricity, Magnetism, and Modern Physics1 more beneath
2 direct requisites. Showing 15 courses over 3 levels; the branches marked with a count carry on past it. Every course here opens its own tree.
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What this course is a requisite for, and what those courses lead to in turn.
No course in the catalog lists this as a requisite.