List adapted from Vermont Brain Bee resource list (https://docs.google.com/document/d/15WVbebQvPDsv4Xf_AOtoUkdNFtf9VzVZG_S2jqdZJdA/edit). All content and links are the property of the original creators.
____________________________________________________________________________
General resources:
___________________________________________________________________________
- “Neuroscience – Science of the Brain”: http://www.scribd.com/doc/68484372/Neuroscience-Science-of-the-Brain#scribd
- Brain Facts – chapter resources and activities: vermontbrainbee.weebly.com
- Neuroscience for Kids: http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html
- Michigan State College Brain Bee study guide: https://www.msu.edu/~brainbee/webstudy.html
- Brainfacts.org; website to Brain Facts with current neuroscience details put out by the Society of Neuroscience.
____________________________________________________________________________
Week 1: Getting started
____________________________________________________________________________ Brain Basics
- Crash Course Psychology on Brain (10 minutes)
- Introduction to neural cell types (10 minutes)
- Anatomy of a neuron (10 minutes)
- Overview of neuron structure (10 minutes)
- Overview of neuron function (10 minutes)
- Two Minute Neuroscience: Action Potential (2 minutes)
- Types of neurotransmitters (10 minutes)
- Types of neurotransmitter receptors (10 minutes)
- Structure of the nervous system (10 minutes)
- Functions of the nervous system (10 minutes)
The Developing Brain
- Prenatal Brain Development (5 minutes)
- Embryology of CNS (10 minutes)
Kinds of Research
- Two Minute Neuroscience: Neuroimaging (2 minutes)
- Crash Course Psychology: Research (10 minutes)
Week 2: The Embodied Mind
____________________________________________________________________________
Senses and Perception
Somatosensation
- Peripheral somatosensation (10 minutes)
- Two Minute Neuroscience: The Retina (2 minutes)
- Somatosensation (10 minutes)
- Somatosensory homunculus (10 minutes)
- Pain and temperature (10 minutes)
Vision
- The structure of the eye (10 minutes)
- Visual sensory information (10 minutes)
- Photoreceptors (rods vs cones) (10 minutes)
- Visual field processing (10 minutes)
Audition
- Auditory structure – part 1 (10 minutes)
- Auditory structure – part 2 (10 minutes)
- Auditory processing (10 minutes)
Touch and Smell
- Olfaction – structure and function (10 minutes)
- Pheromones (10 minutes)
- Gustation – structure and function (10 minutes)
Movement
- Motor unit (10 minutes)
- Muscle stretch reflex (10 minutes)
- Upper motor neurons (10 minutes)
Stress
- Stress in the Animal Kingdom with Robert Sapolsky (8 minutes)
- Responding to Stress (Khan Academy) (8 minutes)
Week 3: Cognition, Sleep, and Aging
____________________________________________________________________________
Learning, Memory, and Language
- Two Minute Neuroscience: The Hippocampus (2 minutes)
- Two Minute Neuroscience: Long-Term Potentiation (2 minutes)
- Crash Course Psychology: How we make memories (10 minutes)
- Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain (Optional – not covered at Brain Bee, but very good intro to language and neuroscience, 50 minutes)
- Neurological Basis of Language Pathology (15 minutes)
- Language and the brain: split-brain and aphasia patients (6 minutes)
Sleep
- Russell Foster at TED: Why do we sleep? (21 minutes)
- Crash Course Psychology: Sleep (10 minutes)
- Sleep stages and circadian rhythms (Khan Academy) (8 minutes)
Aging
- Aging: It’s Not What You Think | Thad Polk at TEDx (15 minutes)
Week 4: Disorders and Complications
____________________________________________________________________________ Childhood Disorders
- Autism
- Neuroscience of Autism introductory video (4 minutes)
- Autism – What we know and don’t yet know Wendy Chung at TED (15 minutes)
- ADHD
- Neurochemistry of ADHD (30 minutes… informative but pretty dry, if a student is interested, good resource)
- Down Syndrome
- Dyslexia
Addiction
- Why do our brains get addicted? Nora Volkow at TEDMED (15 minutes)
- Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong | TED (15 minutes)
Degenerative Disorders
- Alzheimer’s Is Not Normal Aging — And We Can Cure It | Samuel Cohen | TED Talks
(7 minutes) - Coming Epidemic of Neurodegenerative Diseases | Gregory Petsko | TEDxCornellCollege (18 minutes)
Psychiatric Disorders
- Introduction to Mental Disorders (Khan Academy) (5 minutes)
- Schizophrenia | Lecture at Stanford by Robert Sapolsky (For the interested student; 100 minutes; easy to follow college lecture on Schizophrenia).
- Depression | Lecture at Stanford by Robert Sapolsky (For the interested student; 50 minutes; excellent general audience lecture on major depressive disorder).
- Crash Course Psychology: Depression and Bipolar (10 minutes)
Week 5: Injury and Illness
- Brain Tumors
- Introduction to Brain Tumors (8 minutes)
- Multiple Sclerosis
- What is MS? (Khan Academy) (8 minutes)
- MS Signs and Symptoms (Khan Academy) (10 minutes)
- Neurological Trauma
- PTSD TEDxTalk | Janet Seahorn (10 minutes)
- Understanding Traumatic Brain Injury (15 minutes)
- Pain
- Seizures and Epilepsy
- Two-Minute Neuroscience: Epilepsy (2 minutes)
- Epilepsy causes and symptoms (10 minutes)
- Stroke
- My Stroke of Insight | Jill Bolte Taylor | TED (20 minutes)
- Stroke | Khan Academy (10 minutes)
Potential Therapies
- How does gene therapy work? (4 minutes)
- T-Cell Specific Antibodies (4 minutes)
- CRISPR Cas-9 (4 minutes)
- How CRISPR lets us edit our DNA | Jennifer Doudna at TED (15 minutes)
Neuroethics
- Cognitive Enhancers | Anjan Chatterjee (6 minutes)
- Thos Cochrane on Neuroethics (2 minutes)
- Martha Farah | Lecture on Neuroethics (For the interested student: 60 minutes)
- Individual Differences | Robert Sapolsky at Stanford (For the interested student: 53 minutes — useful lecture on interconnections of different levels of biology)
