Exploring Our Brain’s Learning Process

There are three activities in this unit:

1. Wired to Think: Exploring the Brain as an Electrical Circuit (60-90 minutes)
2. Learning Fear: Exploring Pavlovian Conditioning and Neural Pathways (60-90 minutes)
3. Connecting the Circuits of Fear: Understanding Neural Pathways and Conditioning (60-90 minutes)

Biomedical engineers are beginning to explore how specific “neural circuits” in our brain control movement of all parts of our bodies, including organs, limbs, and even thoughts. This unit studies an important circuit, the mammalian fear circuit, and how that circuit enables a mammal to learn fear. Engineers are beginning to ‘reverse engineer’ the fear circuit because it is critically involved in a spectrum of anxiety disorders, including phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).