Teaching with Open Neuroscience Datasets
The Allen Institute for Brain Science has an amazing set of open data and resources for both researchers and educators alike. Here are some tools to help you integrate these datasets into your classroom.
Take a look at whole-cell patch clamp recordings from mice and human cells in order to compare cell types from these creatures.
Analyze viral tracing experiments in transgenic mice to investigate whether certain areas of the brain are connected.
Analyze two-photon calcium imaging data to investigate how different cell types in the mouse encode visual information.
Additional Resources For Teaching Neuroscience Online
Many folks have dedicated a lot of time and thought to the curation of online resources for neuroscience educators.
Here are a few, and please get in touch if you know of more:
Resources & Readings about the Allen Institute for Brain Science Initiatives
Koch & Reid, Observatories of the Mind, Nature.
Jones & Overly, Mapping the Mind, Scientific American.
About the development of these labs
These labs were originally developed by Ashley Juavinett for a Neurobiology Laboratory Course (BIPN 145) at UC San Diego. These have also recently been expanded into a Neural Data Science course (BIPN 162).
There are answer keys and solutions to everything you see here, just shoot me an email: ajuavinett[at]ucsd.edu.
You can also get in touch on Twitter (@analog_ashley) or GitHub.