What neurons make us eat or drink? The course offers a multidisciplinary perspective on how the brain generates appetite and consumption, including approaches from biology and psychology, and modern experimental paradigms such as optogenetics. It will focus on analysis of recent primary research papers illustrating a selection of fundamental discoveries in this field in the past few years.
Lernziel
Explain how specific neural circuits control eating and drinking, including insights from multiple experimental paradigms with appreciation of their limitations and solutions to these limitations.
Summarize detailed and specific primary research data into a more general picture, and communicate this process to a large audience in a clear way, including answering audience questions.
Voraussetzungen / Besonderes
This is an advanced neurobiology course, which is based on advanced research literature (academic reviews and original research articles), rather than textbooks. Knowledge of basic ("textbook-level") neurobiology is required in order to follow this course. Students who had basic courses in neurobiology during their bachelor (e.g. Physiology and Anatomy 1 and 2 of the ETH Food Science bachelor) will be sufficiently prepared for this course. Students without any background in neurobiology may need to do additional independent study in order to follow the course, since not much time will be dedicated to repeating basic neurobiology information during this course.
