Integration of Research into Behavioral Neuroscience Instruction

将研究融入行为神经科学教学

• 批准号: 0126422
• 负责人: Stephen Siviy
• 金额: $ 2.99万
• 依托单位: Gettysburg College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-06-01 至 2005-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0126422&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Integration; Research; into; Behavioral; Neuroscience

Psychology - Biological (71)This project is enhancing learning experiences in behavioral neuroscience at the undergraduate level by providing opportunities for students to conduct sophisticated empirical research projects from the introductory level through senior-level independent research. This project is adapting an approach successfully developed in an NSF-funded project and used by Dr. Michael Kerchner of Washington College. Dr. Kerchner teaches students how to use an acoustic startle system in their projects, and makes research experiences more accessible at several levels of instruction. The goal of the current project is to provide the means by which students collect behavioral data efficiently and objectively. Students are able to collect more data in less time and focus more on the process of doing hypothesis-driven systematic research. By actively engaging in the scientific enterprise, students better understand concepts being covered in class and are better prepared for conducting advanced research in behavioral neuroscience. Two behavioral assays that are more commonly used in dedicated research environments are being adapted for use in several undergraduate courses in behavioral neuroscience. One of these systems allows for the video-tracking of individual animal movements as well as social interactions among pairs of rats (BM Spruijt, T Hol, & J Rousseau, "Approach, avoidance, and contact behavior of individually recognized animals automatically quantified with an imaging technique," Physiology and Behavior, Vol. 51: 747-752, 1992). The other assay assesses pre-pulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response. These systems allow students in courses with and without a dedicated laboratory component to actively engage in the research process, working in small groups. Examples of research topics are age-related differences in social interactions and responsiveness to novelty (see LP Spear, "The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations," Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, Vol. 24: 417-463, 2000); the role of brain monoamine systems in sensorimotor gating (see C Johansson, DM Jackson, J Zhang, & L Svensson, "Prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle, a measure of sensorimotor gating: Effects of antipsychotics and other agents in rats," Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, Vol. 52: 649-654, 1995); and assessing animal models of schizophrenia (MA Geyer, K Krebs-Thomson, DL Braff, & NR Swerdlow, "Pharmacological studies of prepulse inhibition models of sensorimotor gating deficits in schizophrenia: a decade in review," Psychopharmacology, Vol. 156: 117-154, 2001). Each of the pieces of equipment used to support this project are linked to the campus network and students take advantage of a web-based classroom support environment to load their data directly into a course web-site, where it is shared by the entire class. Creation of individual web-sites and on-line discussion about the data also occurs in this support environment. As students progress through the curriculum, they become increasingly familiar with the behavioral assays supported by this grant and the experiments that they work on become more open-ended and are more likely to yield novel findings. Consequently, students are more likely to experience the excitement associated with scientific discovery. The project is leading to changes in other courses in the curriculum and provides a model for other institutions that plan to integrate research experiences into undergraduate training in behavioral neuroscience.

心理学-生物学（71）该项目通过为学生提供从入门级到高级独立研究的复杂实证研究项目的机会，增强了本科阶段行为神经科学的学习经验。该项目采用了一种在国家科学基金会资助的项目中成功开发的方法，并由华盛顿学院的Michael Kerchner博士使用。Kerchner教授学生如何在他们的项目中使用声学惊吓系统，并使研究经验在几个层次的教学更容易获得。目前项目的目标是提供学生有效和客观地收集行为数据的方法。学生能够在更短的时间内收集更多的数据，并更专注于做假设驱动的系统研究的过程。通过积极参与科学事业，学生更好地理解课堂上涵盖的概念，并为进行行为神经科学的高级研究做好更好的准备。两个行为分析，更常用的专用研究环境正在调整使用在几个本科课程的行为神经科学。这些系统中的一个允许视频跟踪单个动物运动以及成对大鼠之间的社会互动（BM Spruijt，T Hol，J Rousseau，“Approach，avoidance，and contact behavior of individually recognized animals automatically quantitated with an imaging technique，”Physiology and Behavior，Vol.51：747-752，1992）。另一种试验评估声惊吓反应的前脉冲抑制。这些系统允许学生在有或没有专门的实验室组成部分的课程中积极参与研究过程，在小组中工作。研究主题的实例是社会互动和对新奇事物的反应性中与年龄相关的差异（参见LP Spear，“The adolescent brain and age-related behavioral manifestations，”Neuroscience and Biobioral Reviews，Vol.24：417-463，2000）;脑单胺系统在感觉运动门控中的作用（参见C Johansson，DM杰克逊，J Zhang，&L Svensson，“Prepulse inhibition of acoustic startle，a measure of sensorimotor gating：Effects of antipsychotics and other agents in rats，”Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior，Vol.52：649-654，1995）;以及评估精神分裂症的动物模型（MA盖耶，K Krebs-Thomson，DL Braff，&NR Swerdlow，“Pharmacological studies of prepulse inhibition models of sensorimotor gating deficits in schizophrenia：a decade in review，”Psychopharmacology，Vol. 156：117-154，2001）。用于支持该项目的每件设备都连接到校园网络，学生利用基于Web的教室支持环境将其数据直接加载到课程网站，并由全班共享。在这一支助环境中，还建立了个人网站和在线讨论数据。随着学生在课程中的进步，他们越来越熟悉这项资助所支持的行为测定，他们所做的实验变得更加开放，更有可能产生新的发现。因此，学生更有可能体验到与科学发现相关的兴奋。该项目正在导致课程中其他课程的变化，并为计划将研究经验整合到行为神经科学本科培训中的其他机构提供了一个模型。