Synopsis

Students learn about the basic structures and relationships of the central nervous system. The course covers general principles of the development, connectivity, and blood supply of central nuclei and tracts, and the control over the peripheral nervous system. Review of selected degenerative or traumatic lesions emphasizes anatomical/clinical relevance of the material. The laboratory is an integral part of the learning environment.

Integration with Other Courses

Neuroanatomy is integrated with the teaching of gross anatomy, e.g. cranial nerve functions, and with neurophysiology, e.g. visual, auditory and vestibular systems organization.  The directed learning prepares students to understand the basis of reflexes elicited in a neurological examination, and, when the brain is damaged, the combination of deficits that may occur because functions are processed in close proximity to each other (e.g. they may share a common blood supply).  We introduce some of the strategies being developed to aid in recovery from nervous system disorders.  Clinical Correlation lectures reinforce the relevance of the material we teach, and while not expressely included in the exam questions, the lecturers certainly do talk about topics that are tested.

Competencies

Students should acquire the following competencies:

• Identify major landmarks of the central nervous system and correlate them with a known function.
  
• Identify the blood supply and patterns of vascularization of different parts of the CNS.
• Describe the basic structural and morphologic stages of the development of the central nervous system.
  
• Discriminate the relationships of the CNS to its bony and membranous capsules and the CSF.
  
• Explain the relationship of sensory and motor nerves to the CNS.
  
• Describe the anatomical organization of sensory systems.
  
• Describe the organization of the CNS as a motor effector and the proposed roles of the component parts.
  
• Differentiate the signs of strokes in cerebral cortex, internal capsule, brain stem and spinal cord.
  
• Explain how components of the limbic system mediate physiological, cognitive, motivational, and affective responses to external or internal stimuli.
  
• Understand the processes involved in the reparative response of the nervous system to injury and the role played by neurotrophic substances.

To ease the pain ...

These Web pages are one of the primary sources available to help you through this course.  Use the "Points to Remember" to introduce you to concepts before the lecture and to review the material following the lecture. Other supplemental material will be posted to the Neuroanatomy site on Blackboard. Utilize the review questions at the end of each "Points ...", the "Brainstem Slides of the Week", TLEs, videos found at the Week 8 Review and the Mock Practical to pace your studies

The UIC Brainstem program on this Web site is very important since you will be tested on this material at the end of the course. (This program uses Flash©; so for now it will not be available on your iPad or iPhone. With the release of iOS 4.2 the hope is that these utilities will one day be availalbe on these devices.)  If you want annotated or non-annotated snapshots of the images used in UIC Brainstem, you will find a link to these images in compressed folders under the "Lectures, Labs" tab or when you link to the Brainstem program. They are optimized for printing 4" x 6" photos and they also work well when downloaded to your MP3 or smartphone media player.

Other than these course-specific resources, another useful website for helping you with your studies is Hyperbrain© published by the Knowledge Weavers at the John C. Eccles Library at the University of Utah.

Try to use the latest version of your favorite browser. This site appears to work well in Internet Explorer©, Firefox© or Safari©. You may need to shut down pop-up blockers for this site in order to read the answers that will "pop-up" in many of the quizzes as well as enable java-script. You will have to log in using your email NetID and password if you access this site from outside of the UIC network. To avoid the annoying security messages, use Firefox© or Safari©. You may find some quirks in viewing this site in different browsers.