From ion gradients to memory, one short piece at a time
This course follows the nervous system from the biophysics of a single membrane to the systems that produce behaviour. It covers how neurons hold a resting voltage, fire, and signal to one another; how each sense converts physical or chemical energy into a neural code and maps it onto the brain; how movement is organised from reflex to cortex; how hormones and modulatory systems set the gain on motivation and emotion; and how activity reshapes synapses during development and learning. We compress the ground a full textbook covers and reorganise it into short, self-contained pieces, so you can work through the mechanism you need without reading a chapter around it. By the end you can trace a stimulus into a spike train, follow it to the cortex, and say what a described deficit tells you about the circuit behind it.
Coming soon
How a single cell builds a voltage, and how that voltage becomes a travelling signal.
How a single cell builds a voltage, and how that voltage becomes a travelling signal.
Synapses, transmitter chemistry, and the layout that all of it sits inside.
Synapses, transmitter chemistry, and the layout that all of it sits inside.
The senses that read chemistry and light, and the cortical machinery that interprets them.
The senses that read chemistry and light, and the cortical machinery that interprets them.
Sound, balance, touch, pain, and temperature, and the pathways that carry each one.
Sound, balance, touch, pain, and temperature, and the pathways that carry each one.
From a single motor neuron to the circuits that plan, start, and correct a movement.
From a single motor neuron to the circuits that plan, start, and correct a movement.
Hormones, autonomic output, and neuromodulators as the chemistry under behaviour.
Hormones, autonomic output, and neuromodulators as the chemistry under behaviour.
Sleep, language, attention, and consciousness, and what happens when these circuits fail.
Sleep, language, attention, and consciousness, and what happens when these circuits fail.
How experience leaves a physical trace, from wiring a brain to storing a memory.
How experience leaves a physical trace, from wiring a brain to storing a memory.
“A patient, diagram-driven route from membrane voltage to memory.”
The sequence never asks you to take a mechanism on authority: each claim arrives with the evidence that produced it, and the clinical asides keep the abstraction anchored. It is a demanding course, but the short format means you can absorb it in the order your curiosity dictates.
Nano College takes the standard university textbook for a course and turns it into short, self-contained pieces you can actually finish. We keep the ground the textbook covers and the rigour it insists on; what we leave out is the padding that only exists to fill a semester.