About this Neuroscience Course
I can still remember the day I saw the book Brain Facts. A human brain with a lot of complex, colorful lines and nodes was printed on the cover. The picture captivated me immediately and I could not help opening it and starting to read. At that time, I was in my 8th grade in junior high school. The more I read, the more fascinated I became. I started reading advanced books, looking through research papers, and keeping up with the latest discoveries.
The curiosity in brain was carried on into my high school. I joined a Neuroscience Club and later became the leader. I organized activities such as lecture series and trivia events. It was great to see that many our club members were just as enthusiastic. Moreover, when I gave the lectures, even some junior high school students came to listen. Looking at them, I saw a reflection of my younger self.
I also held joint events with other clubs to explore the interdisciplinary aspects of neuroscience. We discussed brain injury with the First Aid Club, dissected pig brains with the Biology Club, and explored the connection between biological neurons and artificial neural networks with the Computer Science Club, etc. In this process, we have deepened our understanding of neuroscience.
In the meanwhile, I took part in the International Brain Bee, a teenager's neuroscience competition that aims to promote the subject. I did well in the competition and was invited to an international conference in Toronto, Canada, where I got to meet many neuroscientists, hear their stories, and learn about their work. I also met several passionate students from different countries who were also eager to explore the brain.
It was so great to know so many people stand with me in my journey of learning neuroscience. I also became increasingly aware that the brain still holds so many mysteries, waiting for us to discover. We definitely need more minds to join the journey. The idea of making an educational video about neuroscience came to my mind. I wanted to share what I’ve learned so far and hopefully, it would help invite more people into the exciting pursuit of neuroscience.
As I was giving lectures to my Neuroscience Club, I had already created many slides and recorded about 13 hours' videos. Building on these materials, I came up with an ambitious plan: to produce a series of rigorous, academic videos to cover the main parts of neuroscience. I gathered more resources, read more books, and went through more papers. I even drew all the illustration myself and made more slides for the videos. When filming the videos, I sat in front of a green screen, explaining the content while navigating through the slides. After filming, I edited and polished the video, removing the green background and editing myself into the final scenes with slides. I kept the length of each video between 15 to 30 minutes, with the longest one around 40 minutes, depending on how naturally the topic could be divided.
The filming process was both exhausting and incredibly fun. Sometimes I would forget to turn on the microphone, and other times I would start talking passionately before even pressing the record button. Once, I had even recorded for 15 minutes before realizing I had already recorded that episode. These accidents always made me wonder whether I should laugh or cry. I stuck to high standards. Even when I found any mistakes in my explanation or on the slides after filming, I would reshoot the video segments. Each time when I successfully completed an episode, I felt a real sense of accomplishment.
This course has 40 episodes in total. Episode 1 is an overview of the entire course, and the rest are divided into 3 parts:
- General neuroscience, which consists of episodes 2~25, covers the major aspects of neuroscience, including the neuron, sensory and perception, motor functions, metabolic control, and higher cognitive functions. This part is at undergraduate level.
- Neuroanatomy, which consists of episodes 26~32, covers the important anatomical structures of the whole nervous system at basic medical school level.
- Clinical conditions, which consists of episodes 33~40, covers many important neurological diseases and other neuroscience-related conditions at basic medical school level.
Each episode may be divided into 1 to 3 videos, depending on the topic and the amount of knowledge.
At the beginning of each video, I always have an "episode overview", which provides a roadmap so that the audience may find the episode easier to follow. There is a corresponding "episode recap" at the end of the video for a review. In addition, I also design some exercises and include them throughout the videos to help the audience consolidate what they have just learned.