Neuroscience

BAAS Course Block in Neuroscience

About the Neuroscience course block

Understanding the intricate correlations between neural mechanisms and behavior is an important area of contemporary scientific research. The Neuroscience courses allow you to explore biological, psychological, and clinical approaches to understand the nervous system as the biological basis of behavior. Classes cover topics in cognitive neuroscience, neurochemistry, and psychology as a basis for understanding human behavior, focusing on areas including perception, memory, motivation, and emotion.

Penn LPS Online courses in Neuroscience are offered on an accelerated (8-week) schedule. Courses in the block are largely asynchronous with some optional synchronous sessions to be scheduled by the instructors.

Students must first complete NEUR 100: Introduction to Neuroscience before enrolling in additional Neuroscience courses. When you enroll in Introduction to Neuroscience, you must take an online neuroscience learning assessment to determine your current level of understanding and help prepare you for the class. Read more about the required neuroscience learning assessment on the NEUR 1000 course page. All Penn LPS Online courses offer academic credit.*

Please note: Students completing this course block while enrolled in the online Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (BAAS) degree are awarded a Certificate in Neuroscience upon completion of the degree. If you are enrolled in the online BAAS program and don't complete the degree requirements to graduate, you are not eligible to receive this certificate.

*Academic credit is defined by the University of Pennsylvania as a course unit (c.u.). A course unit (c.u.) is a general measure of academic work over a period of time, typically a term (semester or summer). A c.u. (or a fraction of a c.u.) represents different types of academic work across different types of academic programs and is the basic unit of progress toward a degree. One c.u. is usually converted to a four-semester-hour course.

The Neuroscience course block prepares you to:

Learn the structure and function of the vertebrate nervous system and its application to the neurobiology of behavior
Understand the structures and functions of neurochemicals that are generated by and modulate the nervous system
Examine the various roles played by the nervous and endocrine systems in controlling physiological and behavioral processes, with a focus on sexual and parental behaviors, aggression, and ingestion
Learn the form, function, and pathology of the adult nervous system in terms of antecedent development processes
Critically evaluate research strategies and hypotheses in neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, neurochemistry, and neuropharmacology to understand psychiatric disorders from a biological perspective