Okay, now, I'd like to turn my attention

to the course itself, and then, to your

part in the course.
So let me tell you a little bit about
medical neuroscience more than what
you've been able to get so far from the
website and the short introductory video.
so, I'd like to, to give you a sense of
what is the content of this course.
Well, the content of medical
neuroscience, it's going to be organized
around a set of core concepts in the
field of neuroscience, and these core
concepts are not original to me, they
were defined through several years of
work and activity on the part of the
society for neuroscience.
We really attempted to address what are
the core concepts in the field of
neuroscience that all educated people
should know.
And surely, any survey course in the
field of neuroscience ought to include
coverage of these core concepts.
Now, you can read more about these core
concepts at a wonderful website that I
hope to encourage you to visit frequently
throughout medical neuroscience.
The website is called BrainFacts.org, and
it's a freely accessible site that is
supported by the Society for Neuroscience
among several other partners.
And this should be consdiered the best
neuroscience site on the internet that
has the most authoritative, most credible
information about this amazing field that
you found yourself drawn to, the field of
neuroscience.
Well the Society for Neuroscience would
suggest there are really eight core
concepts that define this field, and let
me just walk you through them.
The first, I think will be quite evident
to you as we begin our studies of the
anatomy of the human brain, and that is,
the brain is the body's most complex
organ.
Soon into the course, we will turn our
attention to the means by which neurons
generate signals and what you will
discover is that neurons communicate
using both electrical and chemical
signals.
So, we'll spend some time thinking about
those mechanisms that operate at the
molecular and cellular level.
We'll turn our attention to the structure
and function of neural circuits and we'll
see that the basic neural circuits for
sensation, for motor control and for
cognition have a genetic foundation.
And, these genetically determined
circuits provide a foundation for all
function within the central nervous
system.
Now, that genetic determination does not
mean that the systems are not changed by
our life experiences.
Indeed, they are, and this will be a
wonderful component of the course where
we get to explore the mechanisms of
neural plasticity.
And what we'll see is that indeed our
life experiences can change the very
structure and function of the nervous
system.
We'll move on then to consider what we
might call some more complex brain
functions.
really it's all complex, but I would
consider this to be a more integrative,
an associative function of the brain.
And, it's in this portion of the course
that we'll see that our notions of, of
human intelligence arise as the brain
reasons, plans, and solves problems.
So we're going to want to understand as
much as we can about how the brain
achieves these important functions.
Our next core concept concerns language
and what we'll discover is that it's the
brain that makes possible our ability to
communicate knowledge through language.
Language obviously, is very important for
human culture and human society.
It's also important from a clinical
perspective as we consider what a problem
with human language might tell us about
the localization of injury in the brain.
I hope as we study the brain and consider
just this amazing organ that we will get
to know and understand at least to some
limited capacity as we as we pursue that
knowledge.
I really hope that we don't lose our
curiosity and our sense of wonder.
And I hope that we even have an
opportunity to reflect on the fact that
it's the brain itself that gives us this
capacity to exercise our curiosity and
pursue knowledge and understanding about
how the brain works and how the brain
interacts with the world parameters.
Then, lastly, our eighth core concept is
that fundamental discoveries promote
healthy living in the treatment of
disease.
We will spend some time in this course
talking about injury to the brain and
neurological disease of various sorts.
but this primarily is going to be a
course about the normal structure and
function of the human brain.
We will use disease and injury as a way
to reinforce knowledge about fundamental
structure and function, and along the
way, I hope to shed some light on current
discoveries and current research that is
aimed at breakthroughs that will help us
translate neuroscience discovery into
effective treatment to alleviate human
dysfunction and human suffering.
Okay.
So, these core concepts provide a
framework for thinking about the story of
the human brain that I hope to unfold in
medical neuroscience.
Well, let me just highlight two other
important domains of the course.
in addition to our progression through
these eight core concepts.
first of all, I'd like to make it clear
that our focus is going to be on what we
might call systems neuroscience.
And systems neuroscience pertains to
understanding the organization and
function of our sensory systems, as well
as our motor systems.
And those systems that operate to perform
more complex or more associative
functions of the human brain, those kinds
of functions from which cognition and the
various domains of of our cognitive
faculty arise.
And then finally I would emphasize that
in this course, it is medical
neuroscience after all.
We are going to be concerned with
functional human neuroanatomy.
And we are going to, understand and
comprehend the organization of this
organ.
So we're going to focus on a variety of
aspects of human neuroanatomy beginning
with the surface anatomy of the human
brain.
We're also going to take this brain apart
in various ways and we're going to focus
on the parts of the brains we discovered
as we begin to dissect through the human
brain.
We will do the same for a region of the
brain that we call the brainstem and this
is a complicated part of the brain, but
one that's very important for clinical
practice.
So we'll consider the surface anatomy of
this part of the brain, including the
cranial nerves.
And then, we will consider the internal
anatomy of the brainstem, including the
cranial nerve nuclei, but we won't stop
at the brainstem.
We'll extend our studies further inferior
in the central nervous system and
consider the spinal cord.
And we will discuss the internal
organization of grey and white matter in
the spinal cord, including the long
sensory and motor pathways that extend
from the spinal cord, all the way up
through the brainstem and into the
forebrain.
And I also want us to consider the blood
supply to the human brain and spinal
cord.
And this will give us an opportunity to
consider the impact of stroke, which
implies an insufficiency of blood
delivery to parts of this human central
nervous system.
And as you'll see, we'll use stroke quite
regularly in our discussions of clinical
cases as a means by which we can
emphasize and apply our anatomical
knowledge, so that we can understand what
part of the injury might be affected in a
stroke given the set of clinical signs
and symptoms.
This brings me to the final point that I
would make about the content of the
course, and that is, that I want you to
engage in an exercise of problem solving
through the study of clinical cases.
Now, you're going to spend quite a lot of
effort, especially in the early weeks of
the course, understanding the fundamental
structure of the human brain and indeed
the entire human central nervous system.
And this will lay the foundation for
understanding how regional focal injury
to the central nervous system can impact
neurological function.
And so, what I'm going to do is
illustrate for you the importance of
having an anatomical framework for
understanding neurological signs and
symptoms.
And what you'll see is that, once we
understand the structure of the central
nervous system, we'll be able to predict
what might go wrong with injury and
disease to particular regions in the
central nervous system.
But really, what I want you to be able to
do at the conclusion of the course is to
start with a patient with the
presentation of neurological signs and
symptoms, and deduce or infer what has
been damaged in the central nervous
system.
So we're going to work this cycle from
both sides.
And by the end of the course, I hope you
become quite comfortable relating brain
structure to function, both in the
context of, of normal, of fully
functional individuals, as well as those
who have had some compromise to the
function of some local region of the
central nervous system.