Announcements

Here's a few cool neuroscience things. The first is an article from Scientific American on the shark's incredible electrical sense

(click the icon).

The second is another Scientific American article about synesthesia (e.g. tasting colors, seeing tones), a condition that I briefly mentioned in class

. It's a few years old, but still cool nonetheless. Have a great weekend!!!!!!!!!!

Hope you're enjoying this great weather. Quiz 5 is now posted and will be due at the end of class on Friday 4/18/08. Also note that you have until library closing time on Monday 4/14/08 to take Lecture Exam 1.

As I mentioned in class, there are a few schedule quirks next week since there are no classes on Wednesday. So, there will be lecture on Thursday 4/10/08 at 9:00 A.M. and at 10:00 A.M. on Friday 4/11/08 and there will be lab on Friday afternoon 4/11/08 (I didn't control the scheduling so it's not my doing). For Friday's lab we will be doing the Blood Supply and the Ventricles labs (we'll do the Motor and Vestibular System labs the following week). In front of the lab protocols for the Blood Supply and the Ventricles labs there is a short handout to read that's about one page of text and a few figures. Please make sure to read those before coming to lab or your understanding of the lab may be limited. Also, the material from those handouts (not the lab protocols themselves) will be covered on Lecture Exam 2 because, again, I'm sorry but I can't cover all lecture material you need to know in class. Given that, I've tried to make those handouts as simple as possible for you.

With regard to strongly recommended readings for your own benefit, much of the Visual System stuff is covered in Chapter 14 of Cunningham and Klein and the Auditory System stuff is in Chapter 17.

Here's something that's pretty cool: an animation showing what happens to the rod photopigment rhodopsin when light hits a rod (just click the eyeball)

. The cylinders represent the opsin protein srtung through the disk membrane. The opsin is the metabotropic receptor. The light sensitive retinal molecule, which looks like a hexagon with a tail, is embedded within the opsin protein. When you click on the light switch, light filters through the opsin and hits the retinal. This produces a configurational change in the retinal, which leads to a configurational change in the opsin. This configurational change in the opsin represents activation of the opsin (the metabotropic receptor). The most significant part of this activation is the extension of the cytoplasmic tail of the opsin protein, which then sets in motion a metabolic change within the rod (not pictured).

On a lighter note (there's a pun here), check this out (CLICK HERE). It's an animation about the retino-hypothalamic pathway and the neural control of circadian rhythms by light. Click on TOPICS on the left side and then point to BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS and then click on ANIMATION. Then click on the icon to the right of the words HUMAN SUPRACHIASMATIC NUCLEUS. The animation will load and then you may have to click on the little "play" triangle to get it to run. If you're so inclined, after running that animation, close it and click on the MAMMALIAN MOLECULAR CLOCK MODEL icon to see how the suprachiasmatic nucleus cells produce a "biological clock" on a molecular level. You can get an explanation of what you're looking at by clicking on the LEARN MORE link. It's a pretty cool web site in general.

Thursday 4/24/2008

Hi People,

First, Quiz 6 has been posted and will be due on Wednesday 4/30/08 at the end of class. As has been noted on your schedules all along there are two lectures on that day, one at 10:00 A.M. and one at 11:00 A.M. The lab on that day will be a review of the specimens from the second half of the course (Special Senses, Blood Supply, Ventricles, Motor System, Vestibular System). I will not be able to get everything set up by 1:00. It will most likely be ready by 2:00. Therefore, I will stay until about 6:30 so that if you're in the first lab group that day you can come at the end of the day and complete your viewing time.

Lecture Exam 2 and Lab Exam 2 will both be given on Monday 5/5. The Lecture Exam will be IN-CLASS and given from 11:00-12:15 in Lecture Hall 125. It is NOT cumulative and will cover all my lecture material starting from page 11 of the Somatosensory System lecture notes up to and including whatever I cover in class by the end of the last lecture on Wednesday 4/30. **The exam will also include the handout I posted on the Anterolateral System (see 4/4/08 message), the section at the end of your Visual System notes on the Retino-tectal System and the two single pages of text that immediately precede the Blood Supply and Ventricles lab protocols ** If you have any questions about any material while you are studying, stop by my office in Biomedical Sciences and Pathobiology (Rm. 214L). If I am not there, write me an e-mail and we can try to set up an appointment. You can also call my office at 231-7398 to talk or you can leave me a message and I'll get back to you. If you need to, you can ask me your question by e-mail, but as I noted before, I often find it difficult to explain certain concepts without the use of diagrams.

The Lab Exam (also on 5/5) is ALSO NON-CUMULATIVE and will cover the following labs: Special Senses, Motor Systems, Vestibular System, Blood Supply and Ventricles. The format will be the same as last time, including some atlas photos. The lab exam times are currently scheduled from 2-3:20 and 3:30-4:50, but I have to check with MDL on which group goes first. Although Lab Exam 2 is not cumulative, there are several structures we look at in the second half of the course that we also looked at for Lab Exam 1, but those structures hopefully have greater relevance now since we discussed them in lecture. As I also mentioned to some of you, I never had the opportunity to develop a lab learning program for the second half of the course (since it cost several thousands of dollars and took several years). However, I do have photographs of almost all the specimens. You can access them from here (click here). For each lab, you will see a string of numbered photo links, as well as a link for a key to the pin abbreviations for that lab.

I think the Strongly Suggested Readings that I listed in the syllabus I gave you at the beginning of the semester (and that can be found under the Course Organization section of this web site) will be a helpful aid for studying the lecture material. However, those readings are not required. The reading list notes the course topics and the appropriate corresponding chapters from Cunningham and Klein's Textbook of Veterinary Physiology, 4th edition.

Finally, here's a fascinating article related to the control of robotic movement by motor cortex signals in case you are interested . Whether or not you agree with the science, it's still pretty incredible.