Information on Neurophysiology Prelims Course

 

                                         

 

Useful links:

 

·         The PPP and EP handbooks contains information on your PPP or EP degree course as a whole, and how the Neurophysiology Prelims course fits within it.

·         There are further WebLearn pages relevant to the EP and PPP courses as a whole, as well as some with links to course materials for this Neurophysiology course.

·          Past exam papers can be found on www.oxam.ox.ac.uk. The relevant exam code is CPPP 4362 for the PPPists taking the exam in Hilary and CPSL 4352 for the Physiologists taking the exam in Trinity. Past exam papers are an excellent revision tool. It is strongly recommended that you use them for exam practice, and you should look at them regularly throughout your study, to get an idea of the sort of question you will be expected to be able to answer at the end of the course.

·         Lecture timetables (click the link)

 

Recommended textbooks:

 

·         The best textbook overall is probably Bear, Connors, Paradiso, Neuroscience – Exploring the Brain. This has recently gone into a 3rd edition. If your library only stocks edition 2, don’t worry, the 2nd edition is perfectly fine for this introductory course. (Personally, I almost prefer it to the newer, third one).

·         Also very good is Carpenter, Neurophysiology.

·         If you want to dig a bit deeper into the sensory aspects, you might look at Goldstein, Sensation and Perception

·         And if you want to dig deeper into cognitive and motor aspects, try Gazzaniga, Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind

·         These textbooks are relatively inexpensive, and many college libraries stock them. If your college library doesn’t, try the Hooke library or suggest to your college tutor that he might ask the fellow librarian to get them.

·         One popular book is the ‘fat Kandel’, i.e. Kandel et al Principles of Neural Science, but that book is too detailed for the needs of a first year course, and there is a risk of you getting lost in the detail and not seeing the larger picture. It is more suitable for more in-depth study at a later course.

    

 

Contacts:

If you are unclear about the contents of material in the course, what to expect in exams and how to prepare for them, etc. your first point of call should be your College tutor.  

If you are unclear / unhappy about the organisation of the lecture course, you should address your queries to either

 

Dr Paul Azzopardi, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Experimental Psychology

or

Dr Jan Schnupp, PPP coordinator, Physiology Department

 

 

                                                    -  Jan Schnupp, October 2007