Brain Anatomy Review

I'll be completely offline until Sunday evening.  Make sure you spend your review time wisely!

Brain Mnemonics Part 1 and Part 2
Brain Atlas and Interactive Explorer
Occiptal Lobe snack about the Limbic System
Get to know your cerebral cortex jus' a lil bit better

Neuroscience Blow Out!

Think that you've got a handle on all things neural? Think again! Take a look at all of the following resources to deepen your understanding and broaden your mind (or perhaps more accurately, stretch your dendrites???).

First, make sure that you understand the basics of neural transmission. Watch this short animation, then take a look at both "Synapses Change" and "The Synapse", both of which are narrated in a slightly childish tone, but do an excellent job of providing an overview of what happens when neurons "communicate". Reward yourself after wards with the "Synaptic Cleft Rap".  This collection of animations can be reviewed as one entry on your summary work due Tuesday.

Next, take a listen to an NPR interview with one of the authors of a new neuroscience book "Welcome to Your Child's Brain". The interview is 16 minutes long. Please take notes while listening so that your summary is detailed and intelligent.


Finally, you may choose between one of the two following options. Option 1 is a National Geographic article, "Beautiful Brains", a really interesting article about the teen brain. If you choose this option, please read the entire article and compose a thoughtful response.
Option 2 consists of two fascinating videos from one of the most well respected neuroscience researchers, V.S. Ramachandran. I won't pretend that the concepts are not difficult, but if you're up for a challenge (again keep in mind that your dendrites will benefit :)) I applaud you. If you choose this option, I recommend a separate review for "The Neurons that Shaped Civilization" and "The Uniqueness of Human Consciousness".


Good Luck, happy learning and I have the utmost confidence in all of you, but particularly those among you who, like Thomas Jefferson, are "great believers in luck" :).

Artificial Selection of... RATS!!!!!

As we saw in class, artificial selection is a powerful tool and perhaps gives us a view on how natural selection works if we had the perspective of millions of years as opposed to decades. Through our simulation we saw how humans have "selected" physical and behavioral characteristics for dogs. Check out this article summarizing an experiment in which researchers selectively bred for aggression in rats. Please respond to this thread with your comments.

Celebrate Labor Day with.... Research Methods and Statistics!

Hopefully all the work you've already done has led you to a greater understanding of Methodologies and Statistics. If not, there's still hope for you!

The 2008 Free Response question will give you the chance to either put everything you know into words, or it will give you the opportunity to figure it all out for the first time. Before you begin, you'll need to give yourself some background on the experiment referenced in the question. Solomon Asch originally conducted this experiment in the 1950s. You should read "The Asch Effect" on pages 571-2 to familiarize yourself with his method and then watch a version of the experiment from the 70's.  The question asks you to think about participant responses in Asch's experiments might be related to the idea of cognitive dissonance (pgs 587-8) and Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (p.322). Familiarize yourself with these concepts before you begin your response.

The symbols, formulas and graphs for interpreting statistics that we viewed in class, should assist in calculating the Standard Deviation for 3rd period test scores.