Department: Neuroscience
Instructors: Grace Padilla
Instructors' Emails: g1padill@ucsd.edu
Dates: July 7 - July 25
Schedule: 9am - 4pm (Lunch from 11:30am - 1:30pm)
Location: 8980 Via La Jolla Drive, La Jolla 92037
Room: TBD
This course will provide an exciting introduction into neuroscience! Students will explore how the brain works and learn to design experiments and generate hypotheses to test interesting questions related to the brain. This course will be a mixture of lectures, discussions, laboratory experiments, and group projects. We will begin by exploring the anatomy of the nervous system, the neurons and cell types within, and how these neurons communicate with each other. Then, students will gain an understanding of how we sense our environment by exploring the basic principles of sensory processing, specifically visual information. Finally, students will investigate how hormones act on the brain, and different types of learning to begin to unpack the complexity of the nervous system.
Students will conduct experiments to learn about fundamental neuroscience principles using a wide array of techniques, including working with invertebrate animals. These experiments will demonstrate the conserved aspects of our nervous systems that we find in all life forms, and showcase the material we learn through lectures and projects.
This course will cover many sub-fields in neuroscience to provide an overview of how the brain works. Students will conclude the course with a final project on a topic of their choosing, allowing students to explore the areas that interest them most. This course should be useful to everyone, especially students interested in biology, psychology, chemistry, or neuroscience.
Expectations:
Students are expected to be active participants in class discussions and group work. Students are expected to complete assignments and readings on time, and be engaged in all lab exercises. For group work, students are expected to share equal workloads with project members and be involved in all aspects of the project. This goes for the final group project as well. Students will be evaluated on their class participation, completion of assignments, lab work, and group projects. Students will be respectful of their professors, other students, lab equipment, and invertebrates
By the end of this course, students will be able to identify different anatomical structures of the brain and their primary functions. Additionally, they will understand the structure of neurons, how they generate action potentials, and neurotransmission mechanisms. Students will also gain an understanding of sensory neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, and neuropharmacology. Finally, students will learn to develop and test hypotheses through laboratory experiments, research existing literature, and work with multiple invertebrate species, including the cricket and cockroach.
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*Courses vary by experience and exposure to content. Instructors have the ability to change content and pace to serve the needs of students. Courses have been modified for online teaching.