Scope
of
course Staff Discussion
sections Background......... Mechanics
of
the course Exams
&
Grading Text Web
site Recommendations Students
with disabilities Notes for Background Simulation Programs
This class is being offered on Zoom
for the first time, so the syllabus is provisional
for now.
Lectures will be pre-recorded and can be viewed at
your convenience after they are posted.
Class time will be for discussions of the material,
so you should watch the videos before then.
Evaluations will occur during the course and their
goal will be to help you with the material and its
implications.
Grading will not be on a curve, helping others will
help yourselves. Motto for course this year:
We are all in this together.
Scope of course
The course is designed to provide a foundation
needed for the eventual understanding of the neural basis of
behavior and cognition. We will consider data and theories of
brain-behavior relationships from research in the neurosciences.
Progress in neuroscience requires a detailed knowledge of brain
function and so cuts across areas such as neurophysiology,
neuroanatomy, and neurochemistry. In the first part of the course we
will take a reductionistic approach and focus on the basic element
of nervous systems -- the neuron. The objective is to understand the
signaling capacities of neurons in terms of cellular mechanisms. In
the second part of the course we will take a more integrative
approach and consider how we might understand how simple sensory,
motor, and learning capacities arise from the operations of
neural networks. We will also consider how hormonal and neural
elements interact to produce motivation and emotions.
The course emphasizes fundamentals. It
should give you a solid grounding in the basic operating principles
of neural tissue, and let you progress with confidence to more
advanced courses. This is not a survey course, although we will
touch at least briefly on many areas of current research. Staff
...........*** ...........***Head Teaching
Assistant. **Don't be shy. We didn't schedule
office hours so you have maximal flexibility.
But, a great time for JW is after class on Tuesday, and on
Thursday until 3. Discussion sections
The twice-weekly discussion sections have been discontinued. To
replace these, you are encouraged to visit the course assistants
during their office hours or by appointment. Background section
An extensive handout is available for students who need background
in simple electricity (high school level). After you have
enrolled in the course, you can get to that material by clicking here. Mechanics of the course
Illustrated lectures. A given topic will be covered by both lectures
and readings, but the way in which the material is presented will
usually differ somewhat. Different perspectives should make
new ideas easier to assimilate. As the course progresses, some
topics will be covered only by readings or lectures. That will allow
us to cover more ground with only minor loss in depth of
understanding. Lecture notes and lecture slides will be
available on the web. Grading.
For this online class, grades will be
based on engagement with the material, as judged by viewing of
recorded lectures, completion of feedback assignments, and
discussions during zoom class sessions/individual sessions.
The expected grade range will be narrow, A+ for exceptional effort
to B- for acceptable effort. It is possible, but not
expected, for a student to fail by simply not responding. If
you are having difficulties that could cause this unwelcome
outcome, let us know!
Here is updated guidance on getting the text this year if you are
offsite.
"Students can
order through our website stanfordbookstore.com. If they
order an eBook, they will receive an email with the website
and eBook credentials to access the material. If they
order a physical book, then we will ship it via UPS. If
they rent the physical book, then they would ship it back to
us at the end of finals."
Principles of Neural Science, 5th edition (McGraw-Hill)
This is a large, comprehensive text appropriate for
a full-year course. Of the 67 chapters and 6 appendices,
fewer than one third are assigned reading for this course.
However, the text costs little more than diluted versions, and can
serve as a rich resource for students who have more than a passing
interest in neuroscience. The chapters
and parts of chapters to be read are listed in the schedule (these
can change, so use the web rather than a printed version) and
additional guidance will be given as we proceed. Chapter
numbers in parentheses means you should 'read lightly' as opposed
to studying the chapter. Usually a good method is to start
is to read the section headings, and the opening paragraph; also
look at the figures and read the figure captions. If you
read something that is also covered or referred to in lecture,
that part should be read more carefully. If you read
something that you find interesting, you might guess that your
instructors find it interesting too, although this is not a
certain guide.
The book weighs 9 pounds! It is quite impressive on your
bookshelf, but if you like to carry information with you an
alternative is to get the eBook version which you put on your Mac,
iPad or Windows computer as well.
All
students should retain receipts for books and other
course-related expenses, as these may be qualified educational
expenses for tax purposes. If you are an undergraduate
receiving financial aid, you may be eligible for additional
financial aid for required books and course materials if these
expenses exceed the aid amount in your award letter. For more
information, review your award letter or visit the Student
Budget website. (https://financialaid.stanford.edu/undergrad/budget/index.html) Recommendation letters
Students who do well in the class often request
letters of recommendation. I am happy to write letters, but I
only do so in August of each year, so you should plan
accordingly. Instructions
can be found on my teaching page.
Website
The website provides you flexibility in reviewing notes and keeping
track of what is going on in the course. A great advantage of
the web is that links provide a convenient method to move around on
a site and to switch among related topics. In the past,
attempts to incorporate these web pages with Canvas created
problems, but for this entirely on-line class Canvas will be used
extensively.
The lectures are password protected. You will be given a
password in class. Passwords are a source of frustration for
everyone, and I would like to eliminate them. However, for a
variety of reasons it isn't yet practical to do that.
Students with disabilities
"Students with
Documented Disabilities: Students who may need an academic
accommodation based on the impact of a disability must initiate
the request with the Office of Accessible Education (OAE).
Professional staff will evaluate the request with required
documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an
Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in
which the request is made. Students should contact the OAE as soon
as possible since timely notice is needed to coordinate
accommodations. The OAE is located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone:
723-1066, URL: http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae)."
If you have trouble viewing web pages try Firefox,
which is the browser I use.
Each lecture except the introductory lecture is preceded by an outline.
By
clicking
on either the outline topic or the pebble in front of it, you can
jump to that section of the lecture: use the back button on your
browser to return to the index.
Links also allow you to pursue a topic in greater depth by
providing instant access to supplementary material and original
articles. I hope you find that many of the
non-required links take you to material that is useful and
interesting.
Each page has a date indicating when it was last edited. Now that
we are using Canvas extensively the website is not being
maintained and so is somewhat out of date, but I hope it will
still prove to be useful.
Please let me know (wine@stanford.edu)
about any problems with the pages. A major problem of which
we are fully aware is the lack of graphics in many pages, and the
poor quality of some of the graphics we do have.
Scope
of
course