NEUR 539 – Seminar in Neurobiology – Fall 2008
This seminar course is designed for graduate students with an interest in Neuroscience. While
learning about the recent advances in Neurosciences, including but not limited to Cell and Molecular,
Systems, Computational and Cognitive Neurosciences, students will also have the chance to practice how
to give presentations and critically evaluate scientific data.
Lecturer
Tansu Celikel
HNB 507
740-3461
celikel@usc.edu
Office hours
Any time by appointment, arranged via e-mail.
Lecture
12:30-1:30 pm
Thu
Hedco Neuroscience Building (HNB) 100
Course Materials including syllabus, reading assignments, online discussion forums (“blogs”) etc will be
available on Blackboard at http://blackboard.usc.edu/.
Course Overview
• Each registered student will present one topical neuroscience-related peer-reviewed research
paper.
• Presentations are to span a total of 20 min.
– 15 min for presentation.
– 5 min for questions.
• Choice of paper:
– Must not be from before 2003.
– Limited to those in Science, Nature Journals (Nature, Nature Neuroscience, etc.), PNAS,
Journal of Neuroscience, Cell Press (Neuron, Cell, etc.). If you would like to present a
Computational Neuroscience paper please contact Dr. Celikel.
– Each week one of the papers should ideally be from the invited
Neuroscience/Neurobiology speaker of the week. Frequently updated event calendar can
be found at http://www.usc.edu/programs/neuroscience/intranet/calendar
• Each presentation will be videotaped and the presenter will receive the only copy of the recording
for self-evaluation.
•
Suggestions on presentation prep:
– Each student shall choose two (2) faculty mentors to assist in the preparation of the
presentation.
• Choice of faculty is up to student. But the faculty must be member of NGP.
• Plan on meeting with the mentor twice.
– Steps in process:
• Contact prospective mentors and get them to sign on.
• Send them the paper ~1 week in advance of the first meeting.
• Meet with the mentors to go over the paper.
– Evaluate the important points of the research.
– Identifying the relevant background material.
– Which parts of the paper should be emphasized?
– Generation of the presentation materials (slides, etc.).
• Prepare your presentation.
• By the Friday before your presentation, have your mentors go over your
presentation materials.
– This can be either in person or via email.
•
Post-presentation feedback.
– At the end of the discussion section, if there is any time left, randomly selected one
student will be invited to ask a question to the presenter about the paper.
– A comments/questionnaire form (see below) will be filled out by each member of the
class regarding each presentation.
• These will be used to determine attendance and participation of each student.
• To be turned in the day of the presentation.
Grading
 Your grade will be determined by your level of participation.
o Attendance is mandatory. If you cannot attend, you need to contact Dr. Celikel
beforehand with a valid reason.
o Each day missed without reason or without contacting the instructor will result in loss of
½ a grade. Example: miss one day = A-; two days = B.
o You are also expected to complete the evaluation forms with constructive and relevant
comments to your peers.
Course Text and Schedule
There is no textbook for this class. Each presenter will determine a significant recent article to
present in the class. Electronic copies of these articles will be available on the Blackboard.
Date
09.04.08
09.11.08
09.18.08
09.25.08
10.02.08
10.09.08
10.16.08
10.23.08
10.30.08
11.06.08
11.13.08
11.20.08
11.27.08
12.04.08
Presenter (P) 1
Dave Herman
Kingson Man
Letisha Wyatt
Raina Pang
John Shen
Pinglei Bao
Feng Wang
Heider Araujo
Yukai Zhao
Jenny McGrady
Yerina Ji
Christi Evans
Aaron Warren
P2
P3
Erin Zomber
Tong Sheng
Bella Rozenkrants
Glenn Fox
Breyda Ortega
Sohila Zadran
Elizabeth Zuniga
Mona Sobhani
Dan Parks
Chao Huang
Shuyang Huang
no additional presentation
Anna Kamitakahara
no additional presentation
Yu-Tien Hsu
Megan Arnett
Rachel Millin
Chenjie Pan
Vilay Khandelwal
Leena Ibrahim Marosh
Xiaorui (Ray) Xiong
no additional presentation
Michele Frendo
no additional presentation
Thanksgiving break – no class -Angila Sewal
no additional presentation
Statement for Students with Disabilities
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with
Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved
accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to Prof. Celikel as early
in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Monday through
Friday. The phone number for DSP is (213) 740-0776.
Statement on Academic Integrity
USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include
the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be
submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own
academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students
are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the
Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/gov/. Students will be referred to the Office of Student
Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic
dishonesty. The Review process can be found at: http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/.
NEUR 539-Seminar in Neurobiology
Student evaluator
Presenter
:
:
Article presentation evaluation form
Date:
General comments:
1. What did you like about the presentation?
2. What did you not like about the presentation?
3. If you were asked to ask a question to the presenter (about the paper), what would it be?