Summer SAVY, Session 4 Day 4, “Intro to Neurobiology” (5th-6th)
We started the day with our students’ group presentations on Alzheimer’s disease and two amnesic patient studies! The first group introduced the definition, causes, and symptoms of Alzheimer’s. It was a very clear and informative presentation, and we learned about the symptoms, causes, and risk factors of Alzheimer’s. The team also did a very good job answering questions from the rest of the class, for example, whether people younger than 65 can also be affected by this condition, and how we can try to lower the risk of developing this condition.
Students in charge of the second presentation shared the current treatment of Alzheimer’s and how researchers may go about finding new solutions. The students included a moving and inspiring video, showing a real patient getting state-of-the-art care at Penn Medicine. The class asked some highly helpful questions, for example, the presentation said that doing meaningful activities could help Alzheimer’s patients recover, but what are considered meaningful activities? By discussing this question, we were able to connect this information with our learning from the past few days. That is, meaningful activities can be tasks or games that challenge our thinking. By engaging in these activities, we are helping neurons grow dendrites, making new connections, etc. – the essence of neuroplasticity.
The next group of students presented an amnesic patient (a person who loses their memory and/or can’t form new memories) – Clive Wearing. We learned that this is an extreme case of memory loss, with the patient only able to form a short-term memory of 7–30 seconds. We also took this opportunity to clarify the relationships between Alzheimer’s, the hippocampus, viral infection, and memory loss.
Last, but not least, we heard a presentation about another famous amnesic patient – Patient HM. The team gave a detailed description of how HM suffered memory loss, which resulted from the surgical removal of the temporal lobes, which contained the hippocampus, a brain region where memory is first formed. Surgery was necessary due to epilepsy caused by an injury sustained when HM was hit by a bike. Then we asked, “How did scientists find out the functions of each brain region in the first place?” This question led us to a meaningful discussion on the constraints and ethics of scientific research (e.g., patient consent, equality, etc.).
The next important topic we went into was metacognition. We began by asking ourselves, “What is learning/thinking?” and shared some examples. Then we discovered that many, if not all, of our examples were of the “object” level. In other words, it’s a more primitive learning, involving the creation of an association between a reaction in us and an object (stimulus) in the environment. For example, a student sees a red signal and stops walking. Even animals are capable of such learning. We watched pigeons playing ping pong and a dog doing math. Then we were ushered into the concept of metacognition – a higher level of learning. That is, thinking about how we are doing in school/any cognitive activities, and how we can help ourselves learn better. It’s thinking about thinking. We have to understand metacognition better by first monitoring our mind through various activities, for example, we first look at a question: What is the capital of Australia? a. Melbourne, b. Brisbane, c. Canberra. Then, we came up with an answer and also rated how sure we were of the answer on a scale of 1 to 5. By monitoring in this way, we can decide when we need help or how to allocate study time.
We then did an activity where we asked ourselves metacognitive questions like “What am I especially good at in learning?” and “Do I know any strategies that can help me learn better?”. We then moved on to learn about more strategies such as categorization, elaboration, and imagery. We wrapped up the metacognition topic with an activity about emotions in learning. Specifically, we reflected on the various emotions we may experience during learning and regulation strategies.
The day ended with students beginning to work on their final projects in a computer lab. We will resume that work tomorrow, and will also explore more interesting, novel topics!