By Jessica Lien

Every student in Jessica Wickline’s lecture hall shows up with the subject matter already installed.

That is the pitch for BIOL:1251 How the Brain Works (and Why it Doesn’t), a neuroscience survey course in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences built specifically for students who are not biology majors.

“We all have brains, and it’s powerful to begin to understand how they work,” said Wickline, assistant professor of instruction in the Department of Biology.

The course fulfills the Natural Sciences without Lab requirement in the CLAS Core, the general education curriculum every CLAS undergraduate completes.

Wickline keeps the focus of the course broad, covering the structure and function of the brain, consciousness, perception, memory, emotions, mental illness, degenerative disorders, and the link between genes and the mind.

“It is an understatement to say neuroscience as a field is complex, but I do my best to make sure my students learn the basic fundamentals without getting too into the weeds,” she said.

Wickline connects fundamentals to everyday experiences, using familiar situations to explain how the brain communicates with the rest of the body. She recommends podcasts for additional comprehension and pulls in current events when they fit into the curriculum, helping students understand the science behind topics they encounter in the news and their daily lives.

What your sleep tracker is trying to tell you

Many students wear a device that tracks their sleep every night. In class, they learn that those devices aren't actually measuring what happens in their brains.

Smartwatches and rings track movement and heart rate to estimate how much time someone spends in different stages of sleep. But determining those stages accurately requires measuring brain waves, which wearable sleep trackers don't do.

Wickline introduces students to electroencephalograms, or EEGs, which record electrical activity in the brain. She explains how specialists use those recordings to distinguish between stages of sleep, including rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and slow-wave, or deep, sleep.

The sleep-tracker lesson often surprises students, some of whom tell Wickline afterward that they had no idea their devices weren't directly measuring sleep.

One of the most surprising lessons for students is how sleep needs and patterns change throughout life. Younger people generally need more sleep than older adults, and the amount of time spent in different stages of sleep changes with age. For college students who may wonder why they need more sleep than the adults in their lives, learning the science behind those differences can offer some validation.

Wickline said students are often surprised to see the data behind something that otherwise seems intuitive. “I think students enjoy learning something that is so relatable and tangible to them,” Wickline said.

The neuroscience behind everyday experiences

Have you ever received a numbing shot at the dentist?

Wickline uses that familiar experience to teach students about action potentials, the electrical signals that allow nerve cells to communicate. She explains how lidocaine, a local anesthetic commonly used in dental procedures, blocks the transmission of pain signals along nerves before they reach the brain. That's why patients can still feel pressure, but not pain.

It's one example of how the course makes complex neuroscience concepts approachable to students who may not have studied biology deeply. Some students find explanations in her class for things they have felt or innately understood without having the vocabulary for them; others meet conditions they have never encountered, which shape how they understand someone they cross paths with later.

“Learning how the brain works opens a new level of appreciation,” Wickline said. “I think for some students, learning about their brain helps them go, ‘Oh, so that’s why that happens.’”

Neuroscience 101: Wear a helmet

Beyond understanding how the brain works, Wickline wants students to recognize the importance of protecting it. She hopes they hold onto at least two lessons from her own career in research: that brain cells other than neurons are just as important to brain health, and that they should always wear a helmet when riding a bike or motorcycle to protect the only brain they’ll ever have.

“I hope the course gives students a foundation they can build on throughout their lives, so when something becomes relevant to their own experiences, they have the knowledge to ask questions and explore it more deeply,” Wickline said.