BIOL 422 Neurophysiology
This course will provide a deeper understanding of the physiological properties of the nervous system. We will address the mechanisms underlying electrical activity in neurons, as well as examine the physiology of synapses; the transduction and integration of sensory information; the function of nerve circuits; the trophic and plastic properties of neurons; and the relationship between neuronal activity and behavior. During the semester a few labs will be offered which will apply electrophysiological methods to examine neuronal activity and will include experimental design as well as analysis and presentation of collected data. Throughout the course, we will focus on past and current neurophysiology research and how it contributes to the field of neuroscience. This course is intended as an upper division elective in the Biology Major
First day attendance is mandatory.
Prerequisites
- BIOL 112: General Biology II and BIOL 111: General Biology I and STAT 201: Statistics I
- or BIOL 112: General Biology II and BIOL 111: General Biology I and MATH 208: Applied Calculus
- or BIOL 111: General Biology I and BIOL 112: General Biology II and MATH 211: Calculus II
- or BIOL 301: Genetics
- or BIOL 316: Behavioral Ecology
- or BIOL 322: Comparative Animal Physiology
Special information
3 Undergraduate credits
Effective January 8, 2018 to present
Learning outcomes
General
- Examine neural signals and hypothesize what cellular properties lead to their differences.
- Assess the function of and construct different theoretical neural networks illustrating their understanding of how neurons work together to process information
- Critically analyze current literature in the field of neuroscience
- Formulate a methodology for testing a hypothesis about a behavioral or neural scenario
- Synthesize information from known scenarios and adapt it to apply to novel situations to determine how to examine a neural or behavioral phenomena.