Module BIOL3211: NEUROBIOLOGY (BE)

Department: BIOLOGICAL AND BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES

BIOL3211: NEUROBIOLOGY (BE)

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To provide students with an advanced appreciation of the integrated performance of sensory and motor systems of animals.
• To take the Biological Enterprise where students are introduced to the key processes of business start-up, whether as a new, free-standing business, or as a new venture within an exiting organisation.
• To enhance students' enterprising skills and behaviours.

Content

• Information and encoding in sensory systems.
• The vertebrate retina: photoreceptors, opsins, transduction, adaptation, spatial and chromatic coding, evolution.
• Receptive field organization and central visual processing in the LGN and visual cortex.
• Mechanoreceptors: stretch receptors, the cochlea, auditory hair cells, spatial localization in owls and bats.
• Chemoreceptors: olfaction, receptor encoding and transduction, pheromones and the vomeronasal organ.
• Minor senses.
• Movement and locomotion: muscle receptors, reflexes and motor control.
• Central pattern generators.
• Cerebellum.
• Biological Enterprise - to introduce students to the key processes of business start-up, whether as a new, free-standing business, or as a new venture within an existing organisation.

Learning Outcomes

• By the end of this module each student should be able to: Be cognisant of recent developments in the fields of lymphocyte ontogeny, the molecular basis of antigen recognition and cellular interactions in the immune system.
• Appreciate the overall workings of the human immune system through a computer-aided learning package and through a seminar programme.
• Understand the molecular and functional diversity of voltage-gated and ligand-gated ion channels in neurons.
• Appreciate the functional significance in ion channel distribution and the importance of neuronal polarity.
• Relate the electrical properties of muscle cell membranes to the molecular aspects of muscle contraction.
• Understand how to plan for the launch of a new business venture and appreciate the challenges encountered.

• Acquire, interpret and critically analyse experimental data and present the results effectively.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Taught component: Teaching and learning in this module is primarily through lectures.
• Seminars (demonstration workshops) will be used to reinforce lecture-based information and to direct self-study and self evaluation through the use of CAL packages.
• Enterprise Elective: Teaching and learning will be through short formal lectures and business workshops and simulations.
• Assessment will be by presentation of an externally assessed business plan and by individual SWOT analysis.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

MCQs to assess knowledge.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University