Second Year

Neuron, Brain, and Behavior

Course Number: MDC 7029A

Course Director

Diana Glendinning, PhD Department of Neuroscience 732-235-4137 glendids@umdnj.edu

This course uses an integrated approach to teach medical neuroscience to second year medical students.  Information from the fields of neuroscience, psychiatry, neurology, pharmacology and pathology are presented so that students can understand brain function from multiple clinical and scientific perspectives.  Students learn the basic structure and function of the brain and spinal cord at the gross and cellular levels.  Behavioral, sensory, and motor pathways and circuits are covered.  For each system, common neurological and psychiatric conditions are described in terms of the pathophysiological and neurochemical abnormalities.  The emphasis is on relating the knowledge of central nervous system processes to a wide variety of clinical symptoms, history, and pathological findings.  Typical treatment approaches to common neurological and psychiatric conditions are covered.  Students are presented with the pharmacological background to understand the design of the major classes of drugs used to treat mental, psychiatric and neurological symptoms.  Several guest speakers present first-hand accounts and demonstrate symptoms.

Small group activities and additional learning experiences include wet-lab, clinical case-work, and reviews of the scientific medical literature.  The wet-lab dissections enable hands-on learning of gross brain structures, which are relevant to understanding the 3-dimensional radiological images typically seen in MRI and CT scans.  Small group activities and jigsaws foster the development of clinical reasoning and problem solving skills.  These activities are focused on real-life clinical cases that affect the brain and, in some cases, other organ systems.  Literature reviews provide students with hands-on knowledge of the scientific reasoning underlying clinical decision-making to form the basis for the practice of evidence-based medicine.