Neuroscience Course-international
Exposure Program, Southern
Illinois University, Carbondale, Il,
USA 2017
Various topics covered includes: Introduction to the structure of brain, both as seen by the naked
eye and as revealed by the microscope, how the cells of the brain use electrical signals to process
information to other cells within larger circuits, theories of emotions and how it emphasises the
relationship between physiological arousal states and cognitive perception of emotions, how
transmitters like GABA and norepinephrine are implicated in the modulation of aggression, stress
and its association with autonomic reactivity, how stress and emotions have a signicant impact
on human diseases, psychopathology, how t he biological approaches have led to an
understanding and treating psychiatric disorders have yielded substantial improvements over the
last century, lobotomy, CBT for depression, the Wernicke-Geschwind model of aphasia for
understanding the neural mechanisms of language processing, about the brain stimulation
mapping and functional imaging techniques, memory, learning and development are a few topics
from a lot many.
The Neuroscience (Life Science) Laboratory of Dr Hylin was very student friendly as well as
environment friendly. The laboratory had deep freezers to store rat brains and other specimens.
The laboratories had a spacious room for rats, kept in glass boxes. And the corner of the room
contained puzzles and mazes for the rats along with the spinning wheels. We were also showed
how a rodent brain is looked through the microscope with a specic dye and how a healthy brain or
an issue in various other parts like hippocampus, amygdala, microglia, cortex and corpus
callosum is identied. It was a worthwhile experience!
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