Summary
Humans (and all animals) have the fascinating ability to learn and adapt their bodily movements and thoughts as they navigate their lives in a complex world. This three-activity unit introduces how engineers and scientists study the ability of our brain to learn in general, using the classic paradigm of Pavlovian learning where a dog can be subconsciously taught to associate a bell tone with a food reward after an initial training period. Or a rodent can be taught to learn to fear a tone after a training period where the tone is paired with a foot-shock.Engineering Connection
Biomedical engineers are beginning to explore how specific “neural circuits” in our brain control movement of all parts of our bodies, including organs, limbs, and even thoughts. This unit studies an important circuit, the mammalian fear circuit, and how that circuit enables a mammal to learn fear. Engineers are beginning to ‘reverse engineer’ the fear circuit because it is critically involved in a spectrum of anxiety disorders, including phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Unit Overview
There are three activities in this unit:
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Students build on their understanding of how the brain uses circuits to respond to external stimuli, learning about Pavlovian conditioning through the lens of neural circuits. By exploring Pavlov’s dog experiment, students connect their knowledge of neurons and neural pathways to understand how anim...
Students dive deeper into fear conditioning by exploring the neural pathways involved in tone and shock responses. They review the basics of synapses and neural pathways before using a virtual lab simulation to connect tone and shock pathways in the amygdala, aiming to create a circuit that results ...
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Other Related Information
The TE Activity What is Python? will be useful to illustrate the use of Colab. No coding using Python is included in any of the three activities of the unit, but because they are run using Colab, an introduction to Colab can be done, if needed.
Copyright
© 2025 by Regents of the University of Colorado; original © 2024 University of MissouriContributors
Alisha Hill (Biology teacher, St. Louis)*, Harmon Colvett*, Sachin Nair*, Gregory Glickert*, Hend Rasheed (Computer Science teacher), and Satish S Nair. [*-these authors contributed equally to the activity]Supporting Program
Research Experience for Teachers (RET), University of Missouri ColumbiaAcknowledgements
This work is based on work supported in part by the National Science Foundation under grant no. EEC-1801666—Research Experiences for Teachers at the University of Missouri. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
Last modified: February 21, 2025
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