This course gives a bird’s eye view of how to apply scientific thinking to generate new questions and ideas in science. By studying relevant areas of contemporary neuroscience research, students will gain an understanding of how scientific knowledge is produced and expanded upon. Topics of discussion will include functional and structural analysis of ion channels, methods of investigating neuronal function, non-model organisms and visualizing protein expression. Primary reading material will be research papers, with references to textbook chapters for background and review.

The goal of this class is to provide students low-stress opportunities to delve into scientific thinking and learn how to apply the scientific method to academic science questions. Students will learn how to read scientific papers, extract essential details from these papers, interpret results, and learn to develop their own scientific ideas.

Key concepts include how to manage scientific controls, how to design experiments to generate a desired outcome, and how to apply entry-level statistical tests. It is important to note that the goal of this class is not to teach any specific scientific topics or the details of specific statistical analyses, but rather to investigate and understand how these aspects of scientific research inform one another.

This class will be on first-come first-serve basis. In the future I may shift this to an application if there are too many students trying to attend. There are 20 slots available currently. Enrollment for this class is complicated due to a scheduling issue - please email trevor_docter@berkeley.edu for information.