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MEDS 371, Systems Neuroscience Course
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Dates: January 18 - May 3, 2007
Day/Time: Mon., Thur., 4-5 pm
Location: E-4036 (Neuroscience Conf. Room)
Credits:
2
Prerequisite: consent of the instructor
Textbooks:
D. Purves et al.,
"Neuroscience", 3rd Ed., Sinauer, 2004;
E.R. Kandel et al.,
"Principles of Neural Science", 4th Ed., McGraw-Hill, 2000
Note: Copies of these
textbooks are on reserve in the UCHC Library.
Instructors: Dr. D. O. Kim ( kim@neuron.uchc.edu ), 679-3690
Dr. L. Conti (conti@psychiatry.uchc.edu ),
679-4793, and staff
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Part
of a core series in the Neuroscience
Graduate Program . This course addresses brain functions at a systems
level. The students' grades will be based on quizzes, a midterm
examination and a final examination.
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List of topics
A. Sensory systems
A1.
Overview of the brain organization; Kim
& Conti, Jan. 18 (Thu)
reading: Kandel
chapters 17-18; Purves Appendix A
figures-part 1 ; figures-part 2 ;
A2.
Peripheral somatosensory system ; Kim, Jan. 22 (Mon)
summary ; figures
Study question: What are the
effects of the receptive-field size and innervation
density on the resolution of neural encoding of
a stimulus?
A3. Central somatosensory
system ; Kim,
Jan. 25 (Thu)
summary ; figures
Article on plasticity of the somatosensory cortex: Elbert et al., Science 1995
Study question:
How is lateral inhibition produced and what is its effect on neural
representation of a stimulus?
A4. Pain system ; Kim,
Jan. 29 (Mon)
summary ; figures
website of "chronic
pain, NINDS, NIH"
Study question: Compare and contrast the pathways
of the pain system and those of the discriminatory somatosensory
system.
A5. Peripheral auditory system; Kim, Feb. 1
(Thu)
text ; figures
Study question: What are the differences between
the inner-hair-cell and outer-hair-cell subsystems?
A6.
Central auditory system: hindbrain & midbrain; Kim, Feb. 5 (Mon)
summary ; figures
Study question: What are the examples of parallel pathways of the auditory system originating from different cell types of the cochlear nucleus?
A7. Central auditory system: midbrain & forebrain ; Oliver, Feb. 8 (Thu)
Oliver article ; figures
Study question:
What neural mechanisms are used to process different types of information about
a sound stimulus? How does auditory information interact with visual
information?
A8.
Visual system anatomy; Kuwada, Feb. 12 (Mon)
summary
; figures ;
Study question: What is the advantage of making
the receptive fields of ganglion cells the way they are?
Recent review article of the retinal circuitry: He et al., 2003,
Science 302: 408-411
A9. Visual system physiology, up to
V1; Kuwada, Feb. 15 (Thu)
text-figures
; figures ; Hubel movie
Study question: What is a hypercolumn
and what are its advantages?
A10. Visual processing of depth and motion;
Waitzman,
Feb. 19 (Mon)
Study question: What are
the two visual streams and what kinds of tasks are common to both? What tasks
are different? If an object is moving toward you what portion of the hemisphere
would be activated? What portion of the cortex would recognize the object?
A11. Vestibular system ; Kuwada, Feb. 22 (Thu)
text-figures
Study question: How does the vestibular ocular
reflex work to stabilize an image on the retina?
A12. Chemosensory
systems;
Frank, Feb. 26
(Mon)
text
; figures ;
Study question: Are taste and smell labeled-line
systems?
A13. Psychophysics of Sensory Systems; Bernstein, Mar. 1 (Thu)
summary ; review
chapter ; figures1
Study question: What advantages do modern
psychophysical methods (e.g., TSD-based measures) offer over the classical
methods? What are their disadvantages, if any?
A14. Multisensory association
cortices; Kim, Mar.
5 (Mon)
Midterm Examination ------------------------------------ Mar. 8 (Thu)
B. Motor systems
B1. Eye
movement Waitzman, March
12 (Mon)
text-figures ; figures
Study question: In the generation of rapid eye movements, horizontal and vertical movements are generated in separate areas. In the generation of an oblique saccade, how would the two regions be coordinated? What happens if one component (e.g., the vertical) is much larger than the other component? How might this occur?
B2.
Spinal reflexes; muscles, motor neurons; Kuwada, Mar. 15 (Thu)
spinal reflexes;
spinal
motor neurons;
Study
questions: (1) How is the myotatic
reflex the basis for muscle tone? (2) What are the critical
features that make the rate and size principle a key mechanism for controlling
muscle force?
B3. Voluntary movement ;
Potashner, Mar. 19 (Mon)
text-figures
; figures
motor pathways
Study question: Assume
a voluntary motor behavior which consists of reaching for
and picking up a bottle of juice. Describe the features of the various
descending motor pathways that are responsible for grasping the bottle and, at
the same time, maintaining the trunk in an upright position.
B4. Posture & balance
;
Potashner, Mar. 22 (Thu)
text-figures
; figures
Study
question: Devise an experiment (other than the one included in the
syllabus) that can be done during a few minutes of lecture time to demonstrate
the operation of feed forward postural controls. Explain the neural mechanisms
and the motor pathways involved.
B5. Basal ganglia ;
Potashner, Mar. 26 (Mon)
text-figures
; figures
Study question: In Parkinson's disease, at least 80% of the dopamine neurons in the substantia nigra degenerate. Draw a diagram (model) showing the consequences of this loss for neural processing by the basal ganglia. Use different types of lines/arrows (e.g., thin and thick lines) to denote deficient and excessive neural signaling. Be prepared to explain your reasoning.
Recent article on the roles of the basal ganglia on cognitive
reinforcement learning:
Frank et al.,
Science 306: 1940-1947, 2004
B6. Cerebellum ;
Oliver, Mar. 29 (Thu)
text-figures ; figures
Study question: How do the cerebellum and basal ganglia interact to influence motor behavior?
Spring
break, no lectures ------------------------ Apr 2~6
C. Complex Brain Functions
C1.
Autonomic system ;
Conti, Apr. 9 (Mon)
summary ; figures
Study question: In what ways do the parasympathetic and sympathetic limbs of the autonomic system act alone and interactively to regulate blood pressure?
C2. Modulatory systems of the brain stem ;
Conti, Apr. 12 (Thu)
text-figures ; figures
Study question: Disorders of dopamine and serotonin nuclei in the brainstem tend to have a global impact on behavior, emotion and affect (expressed emotion) in humans. How might you explain this?
C3.
Emotion; limbic system
Conti, Apr. 16 (Mon)
text-figures
; figures
Study question: If you destroyed either the anterior cingulate gyrus, or its efferents, what impact would this have on emotional expression in humans?
C4.
The addiction and reward systems ;
Conti, Apr. 19 (Thu)
summary
; figures
Study question: How might antipsychotic drugs that are used to treat schizophrenia cause movement side effects?
Recent article on this topic:
Tafet
et al., Prog Neuropsychopharm Biol
Psych 27: 893-903, 2003
Sawa & Snyder, Science 296: 692-694, 2002
C5. Learning and memory ;
Antic, Apr. 23 (Mon)
summary;
figures ;
Study questions: (a) What is the experimental design for studying the cellular basis of working memory? (b) What is the role of hippocampus in learning and memory? (c) Describe three putative cellular/molecular mechanisms for storage of information in neurons or neural circuits.
Recent article on
the roles of the basal ganglia on cognitive reinforcement learning:
Frank et al.,
Science 306: 1940-1947, 2004
C6.
Birdsong
system;
Kim, Apr. 26 (Thu)
Study question: In what ways is the birdsong system similar to the human speech
system?
Recent review article:
Jarvis ED, 2004, Learned birdsong
and the neurobiology of human language. Ann Acad Sci 1016: 749-777.
C7.
Speech and
aphasia;
McCullough, Apr. 30 (Mon)
summary ; figures
Study questions:
(a) What is the difference between aphasia
and dysarthria? Do they localize to different areas
of the brain?
(b) What is "Broca's
aphasia"? How does it differ from Wernicke's
aphasia and conduction aphasia?
(c) How does disturbing the connections
between the right and left brain affect language? What does this tell us?
(d) Why do patients with expressive aphasia
usually have an associated hemiparesis? Why do
receptive (fluent type) aphasics usually have visual field cuts? Are there
anatomical reasons?
Final Exam. ------------------------------------------------- May 3 (Thu)
(Total 27 sessions plus 2 examinations)
On-line course survey:
The enrolled students are required to complete an
anonymous on-line survey of Meds 371, Systems Neuroscience. The on-line survey
will become available after May 3, 2007, at the following website (called
Blackboard Learning Portal of UCHC).
http://help.uchc.edu
When you are in the above website, login using your assigned login name and
password. If you have a problem logging in, please contact
Dr. Kim.
Related web sites:
List of UCHC Neuroscience courses with Web Sites
List of all courses of UCHC Neuroscience Graduate Program
Neuroscience Graduate Program, UCHC
For
questions and comments, contact Dr. Kim, kim@neuron.uchc.edu
or Dr. Lisa Conti, conti@psychiatry.uchc.edu
Created on August 11, 2000; last updated on August 25, 2009
Copyright (C) 2000-2006 by University of Connecticut Health Center