Textbook: Mark Bear, Brian Connors, and Michael Paradiso (2007) Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain, 3rd ed. Baltimore: Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins. Same text and edition as last year. The book is available at the Food for Thought bookstore, on North Pleasant Street just past CVS.
Other readings: All scientific articles listed in the course outline will be supplied by electronic reserve via the Course Documents section of our course=s Blackboard site. You are expected to print these out, read them, put a response on the Discussion Board the night before the class when the article is discussed (details to be given in class about this), and bring the printout to class. Lab materials will be handed out.
Laboratory: Labs will meet, depending on your section, on either Tuesday or Wednesday from 2:00-5:00 in Life Sciences 145. Plan to be there at least 5 minutes before 2:00 PM - we will start right on time every week. (There is no lab during the first week of the semester.)
How your grade will be determined:
(1) Exams:
• Three midterms, on February 25/26, April 1/2, and April 22/23, each 15% of the total grade. Two dates are shown for each exam because each can be taken either on Thursday evening from 8-10 PM, or Friday during class and the preceding or following hour, i.e. either 9 – 11 AM or 10 AM – 12 noon. Given this flexibility in scheduling, the only acceptable reasons for taking the exam at a different time are personal illness documented by a physician or family emergency documented by the Dean of Students.
• Final exam, 20% of the total grade. This is a take-home exam, to be picked up any day between Friday, May 7 and Tuesday, May 11, and turned in up to 3 days later.
(2) Problem set, 5% of the total grade. Due Friday, February 12.
(3) Lab practical exam, 10% of the total grade, covering sheep brain anatomy in the laboratory. This exam will be taken in your lab period either Tuesday or Wednesday, March 9 or 10.
(4) Lab reports:
• Report #1 is on the 2nd and 3rd weeks of electrophysiology (weeks of March 22 and 29), 8% of the total grade, due Friday, April 9.
• Report #2 is on the dopamine lesion lab sequence (weeks of April 5, 12, 19, and 26), 12% of the total grade. More specific instructions will be provided in lab sections. A first draft of the lesion experiment report is due Friday, April 30, and the final report is due on the last day of classes, Friday, May 7.
Guest Lectures:
April 12: Prof. J-P Baird, Amherst College
April 30: Dr. Robert Ferrante, Boston University School of Medicine