| COURSE OBJECTIVE:Objective of the course is to enable students to understand development, structure and function of the mammalian nervous system, with special emphasis on typically human functions.
 COURSE CONTENT:
 LECTURES
 1) Communication between the neurons: structure of a neuron; electrical signaling; chemical signaling; types of neurotransmitters;
 2) Structural and functional organization of the nervous system; Autonomous nervous system;
 3) Prenatal and postnatal brain development; Evolution of brain and behavior; Brain ageing;
 4) Reception of internal and external stimuli: mechanism of transduction; transforming the receptor potential into action potential; dynamic range of the receptor; receptor adaptation;
 5) Audition: sound components and their perception; ear structure; auditory pathways; auditory cortex; speech and language; perception of music;
 6) Vision, Gustation and Olfaction: components of picture and their perception; eye structure; visual pathways; visual cortex; olfactory and gustatory receptors, pathways and cortices;
 7) Movement: reflexes and voluntary movements, motor cortex; somatosensory system and its role in movement; regeneration of the peripheral and central nervous systems;
 8) Homeostatic mechanisms: autonomous nervous system; enteric nervous system, endocrine system;
 9) Biological Rhythms: types of biological rhythms; molecular regulation of biological rhythms; pineal gland; physiological roles of sleep; sleep stages and brain waves; neural basis of sleep; sleep disorders;
 10) Learning and memory: classifications of memory; neural circuits involved in explicit, implicit and emotional memory; brain plasticity; synaptic plasticity;
 11) Cognition: aspects of cognition and brain regions involved in their control; brain asymmetry; variations in structural and functional organization of the brain; intelligence; consciousness;
 12) Motivational mechanisms: causes of behavior; motivated behavior; neural regulation of behavior; hormonal regulation of behavior; emotions; examples of regulatory and non-regulatory behavior;
 13) Disorders of the nervous system: neurological and behavioral disorders; neurobiological and molecular basis of the nervous system disorders; personality and its disorders;
 14) Pharmacology of the nervous system: drug routes into the nervous system; agonists and antagonists of neurotransmission; molecular mechanisms of action of the psychotropic agents; tolerance, sensitization, dependence and neurotoxicity.
 
 LABORATORY EXERCISES:
 1) Nervous system: Interactive 3D display of the human central nervous system on the computer; Observing the animal nervous system preparations under a light microscope;
 2) Brain: Isolation and section of the rat brain; preparation of the brain tissue for molecular analyses;
 3.) Autonomous nervous system: Recording of autonomous reactions as a result of emotional reactions on the Biopac system;
 4) Autonomous nervous system: Analysis and interpretation of the results;
 5) Hearing: Visualization of sound and testing of its aspects with the computer program Visual Analyzer
 6) Vision, smell and taste: Testing of the various aspects of the sensory perception using simple procedures (e.g. spatial organization of the taste receptors; the role of olfaction in taste determination; identification of a blind spot in a visual field, etc.);
 7) Somatosensory system: Examining the function of haptic and termoreceptors, and the role of proprioreceptors in balance and movement;
 8) Learning and memory: Examining various types of learning and memory by solving verbal and spatial tasks;
 9)Fly School I: Connecting gene mutations with changes in learning and memory via interactive computer simulation Fly school, writing of laboratory report
 10) Fly School II: individual writing of lab report;
 11) Fly School III: joint analysis of the results, discussion and conclusions;
 12) Pharmacology of the nervous system: Identification of the brain target regions and molecular mechanisms of the psychotropic drug action via interactive computer simulation Mouse party.
 
 SEMINARS:
 1) Mechanisms of stress resilience;
 2) Molecular and cellular brain ageing;
 3) Evolution of language;
 4) Synesthesia;
 5) Treatment of CNS-a with stem cells;
 6) Consequences of sleep deprivation;
 7) The effects of music on brain development and plasticity;
 8) Gender differences in cognition;
 9) Neurobiological basis of sexual orientation;
 10) Neurobiology of social behavior;
 11) Personality and its disorders;
 12) Molecular mechanisms of addiction;
 13) Round table on the chosen topic;
 14) Pub quiz.
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                                            An Introduction to Brain and Behavior, 5th ed., Kolb B, Whishaw IQ, Campbell Teskey G, Worth Publishers, New York., 2016.
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