2017-18 Catalog

An advanced course of lectures, readings, and student presentations focusing on neural basis of appetites such as hunger and thirst. This course will cover the mechanisms that control appetites both at peripheral and central level. These include genetics, neural manipulation, and viral tracing tools with particular emphasis on the logic of how the body and the brain cooperate to maintain homeostasis. Given in alternate years; not offered 2017-18.

What functions arise when many thousands of neurons combine in a densely connected circuit? Though the operations of neural circuits lie at the very heart of brain science, our textbooks have little to say on the topic. Through an alternation of lecture and discussion this course explores the empirical observations in this field and the analytical approaches needed to make sense of them. We begin with a foray into sensory and motor systems, consider what basic functions they need to accomplish, and examine what neural circuits are involved. Next we explore whether the circuit motifs encountered are also found in central brain areas, with an emphasis on sensory-motor integration and learning. Finally we discuss design principles for neural circuits and what constraints have shaped their structure and function in the course of evolution. Given in alternate years; not offered 2017-18.

The neuroscience of drugs for therapy, for prevention, and for recreation. Students learn the prospects for new generations of medications in neurology, psychiatry, aging, and treatment of substance abuse. Topics: Types of drug molecules. Drug receptors. Electrophysiology. Drugs activate ion channels. Drugs block ion channels. Drugs activate and block G protein pathways. Drugs block neurotransmitter transporters. Pharmacokinetics. Recreational drugs. Nicotine Addiction. Opiate Addiction. Drugs for neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease. Drugs for epilepsy and migraine. Psychiatric diseases: Nosology and drugs. The course is taught at the research level. Given in alternate years; not offered 2017-18.

An introduction to the comparative study of the gross and microscopic structure of nervous systems. Emphasis on the vertebrate nervous system; also, the highly developed central nervous systems found in arthropods and cephalopods. Variation in nervous system structure with function and with behavioral and ecological specializations and the evolution of the vertebrate brain. Letter grades only. Given in alternate years; not offered 2017-18.

This class will focus on understanding what is known about the large-scale organization of the brain, focusing on the mammalian brain. What large scale brain networks exist and what are their principles of function? How is information flexibly routed from one area to another? What is the function of thalamocortical loops? We will examine large scale networks revealed by anatomical tracing, functional connectivity studies, and mRNA expression analyses, and explore the brain circuits mediating complex behaviors such as attention, memory, sleep, multisensory integration, decision making, and object vision. While each of these topics could cover an entire course in itself, our focus will be on understanding the master plan--how the components of each of these systems are put together and function as a whole. A key question we will delve into, from both a biological and a theoretical perspective, is: how is information flexibly routed from one brain area to another? We will discuss the communication through coherence hypothesis, small world networks, and sparse coding. Given in alternate years, not offered 2017-18.

Reading and discussions of behavioral and electrophysiological studies of the systems for the processing of sensory information in the brain. Given in alternate years; not offered 2017-18.

A general survey of the structure and function of the cerebral cortex. Topics include cortical anatomy, functional localization, and newer computational approaches to understanding cortical processing operations. Motor cortex, sensory cortex (visual, auditory, and somatosensory cortex), association cortex, and limbic cortex. Emphasis is on using animal models to understand human cortical function and includes correlations between animal studies and human neuropsychological and functional imaging literature. Given in alternate years. Not offered 2017-18.