How translational research applies neuroscience knowledge to seek to understand the pathophysiology, prevent, treat, and cure brain diseases.   After reviewing basic neuroanatomy, neuropathology, and neuronal cell biology, we will study Parkinson's, Huntington's, and Alzheimer's diseases, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, neurologic complications of AIDS and cancer, cerebrovascular disease, trauma, alcoholism and other intoxications, motor neuron disease including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and prion diseases.  Several Amherst alumni who are doing translational neuroscience r

This course will provide a deeper understanding of the physiological properties of the nervous system. We will address the mechanisms underlying electrical activity in neurons, as well as examine the physiology of synapses; the transduction and integration of sensory information; the function of nerve circuits; the trophic and plastic properties of neurons; and the relationship between neuronal activity and behavior. Laboratories will apply electrophysiological methods to examine neuronal activity and will include experimental design as well as analysis and presentation of collected data.

Evolution is a powerful and central theme that unifies the life sciences. In this course, emphasis is placed on microevolutionary mechanisms of change, and their connection to large-scale macroevolutionary patterns and diversity. Through lectures and readings from the primary literature, we will study genetic drift and gene flow, natural selection and adaptation, molecular evolution, speciation, the evolution of sex and sexual selection, life history evolution, and inference and interpretation of evolutionary relationships.

[US]  This course offers a systematic study of the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, drawing on the whole range of his life and writing in order to assess his importance for theorizing race, racism, and the human condition.

(Offered as BLST 331 [US] and HIST 353 [AF].)  Students will encounter the Black Freedom struggle through the literature, music, art, and political activism of the Black Arts Movement.  The artistic corollary to Black Power, the Black Arts Movement flourished in the 1960s and 1970s as artists/activists sought to put a revolutionary cultural politics into practice around the country.  The Black Arts Movement had far-reaching consequences for the way artists and writers think about race, gender, history, identity, and the relationship between artist production and political lib

(Offered as BIOL 310 and BCBP 310.) This course will concentrate on the structure of proteins at the atomic level. It will include an introduction to methods of structure determination, to databases of structural information, and to publicly available visualization software. These tools will be used to study some class of specific structures, (such as membrane, nucleic acid binding, regulatory, structural, or metabolic proteins).