Syllabus NRSC 695B

Neuroscience Colloquium

(1^st year students only)

Content:

Development and exchange of scholarly information through discussion of published and on-going research. Topics of the colloquium have novel, significant, controversial, and/or far-reaching implications that are of general interest and will cover the breath of neuroscience including molecular, cellular, systems, and cognitive neuroscience.

Objective:

• To foster the process of scientific communication, discourse, and synthesis by explaining on-going research.
• To develop academic skills by critically evaluating the rational, design, execution and interpretation of experiments.
• To develop teaching skills by learning how to present and explain scientific work of others or their own.

Semester offered and number of units:

Fall/Spring. This is a 1 credit course, which must be taken by first year neuroscience graduate students for the first 2 semesters unless there is a class conflict (2 enrollments).

Course coordinator:

Konrad E. Zinsmaier, Ph.D. (Neurobiology), Gould-Simpson 627, 626-1343, kez@neurobio.arizona.edu

Course structure:

The colloquium meets every week on Tuesdays (see schedule) and includes:

• Data Blitz presentations (typically 6 short-talks by PI's, post-docs, or graduate students)
• Research Lectures (presented by invited external speakers)
• Student Seminars (lectures by graduate students presenting their own work)
• Journal Club (student presentation and discussion of "hot topics" in neuroscience).

Course requirement:

• Participants are required to attend all sessions
• Each participant must give one journal club presentation of a research publication of their choice (either in fall, spring, or both). The to be presented paper must be cleared by the instructor. Typically, journal club papers will be electronically distributed at least 5 days before the presentation.

Absence:

Attendance is required for all sessions except:

• All holidays or special events observed by organized religions will be honored for those students who show affiliation with that particular religion.
• Absences pre-approved by the UA Dean of Students (or Dean's designee) will be honored.

Grades:

Alternative grades are awarded for this course: S P C D E.

Attendance and active participation in discussion of presentations: 70%

Presentation of research paper (journal club): 30%

Cheating and Plagiarism:

University of Arizona Student Code of Conduct and other policies apply: http://dos.web.arizona.edu/uapolicies/.

Disability:

Students who are registered with the Disability Resource Center must submit appropriate documentation to the instructor if they are requesting reasonable accommodations: http://drc.arizona.edu/learn/index.html.

The information in this course syllabus, other than the grade and absence policies, may be subject to change with reasonable advance notice, as deemed appropriate by the course coordinator.