Courses

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Courses I teach at Wellesley College:

NEUR 100: Brain, Behavior and Cognition: An Introduction to Neuroscience (with practicum)
This course will provide a broad introduction to neuroscience, focusing on examples and approaches from cellular and molecular, cognitive, behavioral, systems, and computational neuroscience. The lecture aspect of the course will be accompanied by a 70-minute practicum in which students will engage directly in experimental neuroscience.

NEUR 110 FYS: Animal Cognition
How do animals 'see' the world? Do they have abstract concepts, and can they use information about time and number? How do animals learn about cause and effect? Do they reason and are they self-aware? In this first-year seminar we will investigate topics that have been traditionally considered as uniquely human, such as theory of mind, episodic memory, social learning (culture), and language. Each week we will explore a different question.
Instruction materials will be selected from traditional text books, news or popular scientific articles targeted to a lay audience, and clips from radio or television. Original research articles will be used as the basis for our discussion of both the scientific findings and how these findings are represented in the popular media. This course is taught as a Maurer-public speaking intensive course.

NEUR 200: Neurons, Networks and Behavior (with Laboratory)
This course will build on basic concepts in neuroscience. Current issues will be examined within a broad framework that includes examples and readings in cellular and molecular, cognitive, behavioral, and computational neuroscience. Topics such as sensory systems, learning, memory, and cognition will be covered. The accompanying laboratory is designed to expose students to basic methods and experimental approaches in neuroscience.

NEUR 300: Capstone Seminar in Neuroscience
In this capstone seminar for neuroscience majors, students will give group presentations of articles on cutting edge areas of neuroscience research. The authors of these articles will be invited to campus to present their research and meet with the class. Potential topics to be discussed include: developmental neuroscience, computational and systems neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, cognitive neuroscience, learning and memory, and neurodegenerative disorders. In addition, careers in neuroscience will be discussed.

NEUR 325: Neuroscience of Sleep, Learning & Memory (with Laboratory)
Although we spend a major part of our lives sleeping, we understand surprisingly little about sleep and dreaming. In this course we will discuss recent advances made in the field of neuroscience of sleep. Course topics include basic neurobiology of sleep (what is sleep, how is it regulated) as well as specialized discussions of sleep-related learning and memory investigated in different model systems. You will get familiar with these topics through a combination of in-depth review sessions, in-class activities and student presentations of the primary literature. Assignments are given to train presentation and writing skills and to give students the opportunity to explore their favorite topic in more detail. In the laboratory section of this course, we will design and execute a complete, novel, experiment with a small group. We will investigate sleep, learning and memory in different model organisms. The project groups will write up their results in a research article to be submitted to the undergraduate journal "Impulse".

NEUR 350G: Group research - Behavioral Neurobiology
An introduction to selected topics from the literature and research methods of behavioral neurobiology, which seeks to relate animal behavior to activation in specific cell circuits in the nervous system. Students will develop research questions by conducting literature searches and critically reading and evaluating original research articles. Students will be exposed to current methods in behavioral neurobiology, including behavioral methods, wet-lab techniques, histology and anatomy, as well as computer analysis of the resulting neural and behavioral data. Individual and group laboratory projects will be offered.