Neurobiology Laboratory Exercises in Software

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This collaboration between scientist/educators at Yale and the University of Texas at San Antonio addresses a basic need in undergraduate neuroscience education: a means to illustrate and explore the processes that underlie neuronal function. The objective is to create a series of laboratory simulation exercises, with an accompanying manual, that are designed to reinforce learning of basic concepts, promote creative thinking through problem solving, encourage productive interplay between simulation and experimentation, and provide a launching point for students who wish to pursue independent research projects. The proposed work has three principal advantages over existing educational simulators. First the potential audience will be maximized by keying these exercises to several leading neuroscience textbooks. Second, important topics will be addressed that are not covered by present educational simulators. Third, these exercises will be implemented using NEURON, which runs under MS-Windows (3.1, 95 and NT) and UNIX, and which will be running on Macintosh systems by mid-1997. NEURON is a research level tool that provides a flexible and powerful environment for neural simulations, so that teachers can tailor and extend these exercises, and students can create their own models and simulations. The assistance of an expert consultant will be enlisted for overall guidance in project evaluation. Feedback will also be solicited from a panel of advisors who have considerable experience teaching neuroscience to undergraduates at several colleges and universities, some of whom have themselves developed software for neuroscience education. The educational utility of these exercises will be assessed by their impact on student performance and attitudes regarding neuroscience. Project results will be disseminated through presentations at professional society meetings, articles, the Internet, and publication of the manual and software by a major scientific publishing house.