Course design and teaching by
Neville Sanjana & Emily Hueske
Synopsis
SPLASH 2005's Neuroanatomy class ("How the Brain Works") took place on
November 19-20, 2005. Emily and Neville had over 60 enthusiastic
students (and many very helpful parents!) who were in grades 6
through 12 from schools all over New England and even some from other
parts of the US. We gathered in MIT's main Lobby 10 and then headed
over to the Department of Brain and
Cognitive Sciences's brand
new building and teaching labs. Once there, we briefly talked
about the cerebral
cortex and the five senses, emotion and memory in the limbic
system, and the unconscious abilities of the brainstem.
After a short break, we looked at some coronal and sagittal sheep
brain sections to get familiar with the spatial arrangement of the
central nervous system.
Then, with the help of some interesting patient case studies, we dived into a hands-on dissection of real sheep brains using proper lab safety procedures. We first cut the corpus callosum to separate the cerebral hemispheres and identified many of the structures visible in a mid-sagittal section. Then, we dissected out the hippocampus, a brain area studied by many neuroscientists at MIT due to its prominent role in learning and memory. Lastly, we removed the cerebellum for a fully exposed view of the brainstem.
Make sure to check out all the great photos that we have from Saturday's and Sunday's classes!
Sponsors
- We are very grateful for the generous and enthusiastic support of
Prof. Sebastian Seung, who covered
the majority of the costs for this program. Prof. Seung has funded the
class all three years that it has been taught and, through his
financial support, allowed us to present the best possible class every
year. This year, we are also pleased to have the Department of Brain and Cognitive
Sciences join in funding some of the classroom expenses; this
funding was facilitated by Jason Jacobsen.
- We would also like to thank Prof. Gerald
Schneider, who originally taught us how to lead a dissection of
the mammalian brain when we were TAs for his Introductory Neuroscience
course for MIT undergraduates, and Dr. Sonal
Jhaveri, whose has lent dissection tools and manuals to the class
every year since its inception.
- Lastly, we want to thank the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for use of their undergraduate laboratories and teaching equipment.
Class Photos
Thanks to two great parents, we have pictures from both Saturday and
Sunday's classes. If you were in the class, click below to find yourself!
2005 class photos (includes photos of SPLASH booth, CNS overview presentation, class members, story readings, and dissections)
Handouts & Slides
Both of us (Emily and Neville) faced a serious challenge in trying to give an overview of neuroanatomy to students who had never taken any anatomy and little, if any, general biology before. And our goal was to do it in just 3 hours. Luckily, they were young and equipped with very plastic brains.
We decided to focus on three major divisions of the central nervous system: the cerebral cortex, the limbic structures, and the brainstem. The slides below were used at the very beginning of the class to describe these three areas and their spatial organization within the CNS.
The readings included two stories from Dr. V.S. Ramachandran's excellent book Phantoms in the Brain and an interesting story of one chicken with just a brainstem. We read these stories as we proceeded through the dissection, exploring the role of the corpus callosum, the limbic system, and the brain stem. Also, we provided a neuroanatomy guide based entirely on MIT's 9.01 (Introduction to Neuroscience) dissection guide for undergraduates; this material is courtesy of Prof. Gerald Schneider.
- Readings (Split-brain, Capgras' delusion, brainstem survival)
- Neuroanatomy Guide (Labeled sections: mid-sagittal, dorsal surface, hippocampus exposed)
Links
Last Updated on Saturday, 26-Nov-2005 8:17:29 EST .