This course will follow the integrated Neuroscience model by combining information from biology, chemistry, and psychology to provide an understanding of the two neural mechanisms that regulate physical stress responses. One of these responses, known colloquially as the Flight or Fight Response, occurs through rapid changes in neurohormone levels in several brain regions that direct equally rapid changes of hormones in target tissues in the body. Formally this is the sympathetic Adrenal Medullary (SAM) system and this mechanism evolved in mammals to to respond to emergency situations. In contrast the  Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis developed in mammals to respond on a slower, cyclical basis to daily events and  chronic situations. The HPA axis is of particular research interest because the regulation of this system is vulnerable to fetal and early life events, and changes in HPA functioning in young organisms can result in in enhanced and aberrant responses to percepions of stress across the lifespan of the organism. Students in this course will read, discuss, and critique a range of research literature that examines these neural mechanisms in a variety of mammalian species, including humans.