Course name: Neurodevelopment and disorders
Course code: JNS 206
Course credits: 3:0
Course instructor: Dr. Achira Roy
Total course hours: 41 hours (including examinations)
Course Semester: Jan-Apr 2023
Course Modules:
- Neurulation and formation of neural plate and neural tube in vertebrates (3 hours)
- Neural patterning and fate specification (15 hours)
- Axes formation, basic compartmentalization of embryonic mammalian brain
- Early signaling centers in vertebrate brain, concept of ‘organizer’
- Signaling pathways
- Transcription factors
- Examples of developmental anomalies due to respective mutations
- Examples of techniques/technologies used to study the above processes in health and disease
- Genesis and localization of neural cells (10.5 hours)
- Types of neural cells
- Neurogenesis and gliogenesis – proliferation, differentiation, signaling
- Neuronal migration, axon guidance
- Circuit formation with emphasis on mammalian forebrain and hindbrain
- Examples of techniques/technologies used to study the above processes in health and disease
- Evolutionary perspectives related to conserved and altered gene functions across different vertebrate brains, with emphasis on signaling centres and cortical folding (3 hours)
- Introduction to developmental critical periods and spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders ranging from spina bifida, defects in cortical growth and folding to epilepsy and autism/ID; therapeutics and translational neuroscience (4.5 hours)
Tutorials/Exam/Student presentations:
- Mid-phase presentations on seminal papers in neurodevelopment (3 hours)
- Written examination (2 hours)
