Psych 3L03, 2001-2002W, Dr. Sun

Psych 3L03 Neuroscience Laboratory

(2003-2004, Term 1)

Instructor: Dr. Hong-Jin Sun
Office: Room 415, Psychology Building, 905-525-9140 Ext. 24367
Lab: Room 213, Psychology Building, Ext. 26031
Email: sunhong@mcmaster.ca
Teaching Assistants:
Ms. Jenny Campos, Room 213, Ext. 26031, CamposJL@mcmaster.ca
Ms. Vikkie Armstrong, Room 133, Ext. 24761, ArmstrVL@mcmaster.ca
Date & Time: Monday, 14:30-17:20
Classroom: Psychology Building, Room 335 (lecture) & 116 (experiment)
course web page: http://www.psychology.mcmaster.ca/3l03sun/
Virtual Classroom: http://www.learnlink.mcmaster.ca

This page was last updated on Monday, September 08, 2003

detailed requirement

COURSE OBJECTIVES

In this course students will have the opportunity
(1) to learn various neuroscience techniques through hands-on experience in performing experiments using animals and human subjects,
(2) to gain experience in research design, including forming experimental hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting data, analyzing data, interpreting the empirical results, critically evaluating research papers, and
(3) to practice communicating your findings through written and oral presentations.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

In this course, students will conduct 3 laboratory projects (two formal experimental projects and one neuroanatomy exercise).

The 1^st lab project is a structured project involving behavioral measurement and electrophysiological recording from animals (rats). The project will be designed by the whole class (through classroom discussion) and all the students and TAs will be involved in data collection. The results from the work of the whole class will be pooled for data analysis.

The 2^nd lab project is a group project. The class will be divided into groups (4-5 students each) and each group will design and conduct its own experiment. You are expected to do library research to derive your hypothesis. You will do most of your work without direct supervision but the TAs and the instructor will be available to you as resource persons and should be consulted on a regular basis during the development, running and analysis of the experiments. As a group, you should provide written reports on the progress and eventually give an oral presentation to the whole class about your study.

During the course of these two projects, we will review topics such as research ethics, research design, statistics, use of spreadsheet software, data collection and presentation, etc.

For the 3^rd project, each student will perform a dissection of a sheep brain (2 students will be provided with one brain). You are required to recognize and memorize some important brain structures with the help of a sheep brain atlas. A quiz will be conducted afterward.

LIST of CONTENT

Lectures

General research issues

Ethics in research using animals
Ethics in research using human subjects
Research design
Basic statistical analysis
Writing of lab report
Oral presentation

Topics related to the lab projects
Spreadsheet software: Microsoft Excel (tutorial)

Projects

#	Title	Techniques Involved	Process
1	Brain mechanisms for skill learning	behavioural training, recording of population field potential, histology	structured, class project & demonstration
2	Human spatial ability	movement measurement, virtual reality	independent, group project
3	Sheep brain anatomy	gross dissection	tutorials & self-learning

Demonstrations

Single cell recording: Neural responses to visual stimulation in pigeons
Histology: Verification of recording sites in rat brains.

SCHEDULE

Wk	Date	During Class	After Class (in addition to the assignment due next week)	Due
1	Sep 8	Introduction to the course (1.5hour) Introduction to Project 2 (0.5h) P2 lecture: overview of research on spatial processing Demo: Literature search	Review course outline Get familiar with LearnLink, posting comments for the design of the course Project 1: review a textbook chapter on neural mechanisms of learning and memory (incl. LTP) P1: read Rioult-Pedotti, et al.
2	Sep 15	Ethical issues with research using animals (1 h) Animal handling, a hands-on tutorial (1h) Project 1: Discussion of paper by Rioult-Pedotti et al (0.5h) P1: Brief introduction to our experiment and apparatus P1: prepare for scheduling (next week) of students' participation in the experiment	Review statistics textbook on testing of significance Excel tutorial -- basics (1h, at computer lab, Room 403 of Psychology building, for students not doing training) P2: form a group (of 4~5 students) and start literature search & reading background papers	Quiz on Rioult-Pedotti's paper
3	Sep 22	Discussion of the design of our experiment (0.5h) schedule students' participation in the experiment (0.5h) P1: conduct experiment for behavioural training (1 h, 10 students)	P1: conduct experiment for behavioural training (1+1 h/per student) Read instructor's guide on writing lab report read part of the review article Excel tutorial -- statistics Tutorial: basic statistics (½h)	P1 behavioral training procedure and data collection Excel assignment 1
4	Sep 29	P1: observing electrophysiological recording (video & lab visit, ½h) P1: results and data analysis (½h) P1: discussion on the review article (½h) Lecture on writing lab report, part 1 (intro and method) (1h)	P2: 1^st formal group meeting to decide on the project direction P2: reading closely related research papers	Excel assignment 2
5	Oct 6	P1: discussion of our results (½h) Lecture: basics of research design P1: discussion of the design of our study Lecture on writing lab report, part 2 (1h)	P2: reading closely related research papers	P1 lab report "introduction" and "method"
6	Oct 13	Thanksgiving Day
6	Oct 20	Lecture and discussion: ethics in research using human subjects (1 hour) P2: group discussion on the experimental design Instructor meets with each group	P2: discussion on background literature (1h)	P1 lab report "results" and "discussion"
7	Oct 27	Lecture: Overview of the brain structures (0.5 h) Sheep brain dissection tutorial P2 pilot data collection (in groups)	P2 pilot data collection	P2 literature review
8	Nov 3	Sheep brain dissection review (optional) Instructor meets with each group	P2 data collection	P1 lab report revision P2 proposal
9	Nov 10	Sheep brain dissection review (optional) Instructor meets with each group	P2 data collection
10	Nov 17	Sheep brain practical exam Instructor meets with each group Comments on the group projects Lecture: presentation technique	P2 data analysis
11	Nov 24	Project 2, Group presentation: Group 1 & 2 concluding remarks		P2 background info for the presentation
12	Dec 1	Project 2: Group presentation: Group 3 & 4		P2 background info for the presentation
	Dec 3			P2 lab report P2 lab notebook P2 group peer evaluation

EVALUATION

CATEGORY	DETAILS	GRADE (%)		DUE		*Identifier* for file name & page heading	hardcopy requirement
CATEGORY	DETAILS	as an individual	as a group	week	time	*Identifier* for file name & page heading	hardcopy requirement
Project 1 (25%)	quiz on Rioult-Pedotti's paper	.5		2	Sept 14 noon	P1QuizNNpaper
	P1 behavioral training procedure and data collection	.5		3	Sept 21 noon	P1Training
	excel assignment 1	0		3	Sept 21 noon	P1Excel1
	excel assignment 2	0		4	Sept 28 noon	P1Excel2
	1st draft: Introduction and Method	11(7)		5	Oct 8 noon (PC 415)	P1Rpt-pt1	yes
	1st draft: Results, Discussion and Abstract, References, etc.	13(9)		6	Oct 22 noon (PC 415)	P1Rpt-pt2	yes
	revision: whole lab report	0(8)		8	Nov 3 class	P1Rpt-Revised	yes (also the 1st draft)
Project 2 (50%)	literature review	5		7	Oct 27 class	P2Literature	yes
	proposal		5	8	Nov 3 class	P2Proposal	yes
	oral presentation (rated by instructor, TAs and whole class)		10	11	Nov 23 noon Nov 30 noon	P2Update P2PresentSlides
	quality of the experimental work		5
	lab report		10	end of term		P2Report	yes
	Lab notebook		5	end of term			yes
	individual contribution to the group (rated by group peers)	10		end of term		P2PeerEvaluation
Project 3	neuroanatomy (sheep brain) test	15
Participation	rated by instructor and TAs	10				CourseFeedback

TOTAL		65	35

DETAILED REQUIREMENTS

Assignment Submission: In addition to the occasional hard copy requirements, with the exception of group lab notebook (P2), ALL documents should be submitted electronically using anonymous ftp to ftp://psyftp.mcmaster.ca. Upload the files to directory “sun”. You can use various software to do ftp. If, and only if, you have difficulty sending files through ftp, you could send the file through an email attachments to the instructor at sunhong@mcmaster.ca

Use expression "3L_AssignmentType_LastName_FirstName" in all of the following (if applicable):

in the file name (plus file extension, e.g., .xls or .doc or .ppt)
in the page heading in your Word or Excel file (plus the page number and total number of pages)
in the email subject heading, if you are sending through email attachment

replace "AssignmentType" with the proper identifier (see table above).
replace "LastName_FirstName" with "Group"# for the group project.

Assignments

the first 4 assignments due from week 2 to week 4 will be graded, but for most students, feedback may not be provided individually. Instead, general comments will be provided to the whole class. P1 lab report will be graded and feedback will be provided to each student.

Full Lab Reports (P1 and P2, for detailed requirement see guide)

All written reports submitted must be double-spaced, one-sided, 8.5x11 inch with 1 inch margins using a 12-point font.
Late penalty will imposed at 10% of that part per day.
You should submit both hard copy and electronic files, which include both text and figures (in Microsoft Word format, with figure copied from Excel graph) and data (in Excel format) for the analysis. The Excel should have clear label (e.g., create each chart in a separate sheet and rename the sheet into Fig 1) of the corresponding figure.
Project 1

You are required to submit the first draft of the lab report in two parts over a two-week period. The first part includes the introduction and methods (worth 11%) and the second part includes the rest of what is required for a full lab report (results, discussion, etc….) (worth 13%). Grades will be given according to style (APA format), grammar, and content. The lab report is worth 24% of your year’s total grade. However, after you have received feedback and a grade for this first draft, you will have the option (not required) to make revisions and hand in a second draft in its entirety. The second draft will be worth 1/3 of the 24% (8%) and the grade for the first draft will now be 2/3 of the 24% (16%). This revision will be graded with a much higher standard including previous requirements and also on the quality of the writing, coherency, and clarity of thought.

Project 2

The same criterion used for grading the report of project 1 will be used for project 2. In addition, the quality of the research (incl., how you conduct the experiments and perform data analysis) will also be graded separately.
You are required to append with your report a photocopy of important articles (at least 3) cited in your report.
The electronic version of the lab report will be posted on web. Thus preparation of the "web" version of the lab report is encouraged.

Detailed Requirement for Project 2

Progress

You are required to report the progress of your group project (2~3 pages, double space) at least twice before the start of the experiment:

Literature review

The literature review should be written individually by each member in the group (members in the same group can review the same or different articles). You are required to also submit a photocopy (or electronic file) of important articles (at least 3) cited in your report, if the articles are not included in the list of papers provided by the instructor. See instructor's guide on literature search and how to locate the articles after you find the citations.
You should provide detailed review of the articles closely related to your research, much like writing an introduction of a lab report. You should comment on how the research would be related to your project.
To demonstrate the work you have done, at the end of your literature review, you are also encouraged to list (and possibly provide a sentence or two of summary -- could be in point form) the articles that you have researched but eventually decide not to discuss in detail.

Proposal

The proposal should be submitted by the group as a whole.
The format of proposal could be a short version of the introduction and method of a typical lab report. You are encouraged to write in the format of a formal introduction and method (longer than 2~3 pages) at this point, as that will be required later anyway.

Data analysis should be performed during the process of running the experiment, rather than at the end of the experiment. You are encouraged to present your results often to the instructor or teaching assistants to seek feedback.

Each group is free to organize itself as it thinks best (e.g., dividing responsibility, working in sub-group, or working together). But it might be practical to designate one member of the group as the facilitator/organizer for each stage of the project and he or she will be eventually responsible for the performance of that stage.
Presentation

Before the presentation, an electronic file including background information regarding the project (updated since the last progress reports, e.g., literature review and proposal, and summary of the results if available) should be sent to the instructor electronically. This file will then be posted on the web for other students to review before the presentation.
Everyone in the group should participate in the final oral presentation and group members must try to participate equally in the presentations.
Oral presentation will be graded for group performance as well as for the performance of each individual.
Presentation should incorporate proper audiovisual aids (e.g., powerpoint slides) and handout (if necessary). The final version of the presentation slides (e.g., powerpoint file) should be sent to the instructor electronically afterwards.

Peer evaluation within the group

at the end of the project, each member should provide written evaluation on the contribution of each member of the group
both grades (in terms of %) and written justification should be provided for ALL the aspects of project (e.g. including intellectual contribution and contribution of time and effort, etc).
Normally, all group members will be given the same grade for the joint performance in project 2 (e.g., oral presentation, lab report, etc), but the instructor reserves the right to use the grades from peer evaluation as a factor to adjust other parts of the P2 grade for certain individuals (e.g., those who contribute very little to the joint effort).

Laboratory notebook (P2)

It must contain enough information to allow yourself or others to repeat the work exactly as you have done it. Record in your notebook everything that you did and observed as you carried out the experiment as well as each of the steps and the results when you analyze your data. Fasten copies of any graphs or images obtained during the course of the experiment or analysis into the book.
The first page of the notebook is reserved for a table of contents. All subsequent pages are numbered. The table of contents should indicate the title of the experiment and the page number in the book.
Recordings in the notebook should be written at the time when the experiment/analysis is carried out (NOT at the end of the term and right before the notebook is due!).

Participation grade will be given considering the student's performance in the following aspects:

Attend class and group meeting and arrive on time
Active learning

Contribute to class and group discussion
Contribute to LearnLink discussion
Contribute to experiment
Contribute to literature search (students are encouraged to share suitable articles to the group, possibly through learnlink)
Show initiative in organizing group activities

Provide extensive and informative feedback to the oral presentation of other groups.
Provide feedback and suggestion to the teaching of this course

Final Grade

The instructor reserves the right to adjust final marks up or down, on an individual basis, in the light of special circumstances and/or the individual's overall performance in the course. Furthermore, the instructor reserves the right to change the weight of any portion of this marking scheme.
Final grades will be assigned according to the following conventional scheme: