Teaching Neurophysiology to Undergraduates using Neurons in Action

Neurons in Action, a set of 25 hyperlinked tutorials and interactive simulations on CD-ROM, provides the student with a completely different approach to neurophysiology from that of textbooks. Guided by the tutorials, by their professor, by the urge to test their understanding, or simply by curiosity, students specify the parameters of a patch of membrane, an axon, a postsynaptic membrane, or a cell and run virtual experiments. Parameters include geometry, the number and type of ion channels in the membrane, the number of myelin wraps of the axon, the ion concentrations inside and out, synaptic variables, and temperature. Hyperlinked explanations, historical information, and classic papers on the CD provide the “textbook” material. This article describes this learning tool and details several ways in which it is being used at the undergraduate level.