About the Open Neuroscience Initiative
The final version of the First Edition was completed on June 30th, 2021. Download it here or by clicking the image on the right toolbar.
Have you adopted this open educational resource for one of your classes? Please let me know by completing the form below.
The Open Neuroscience Initiative is a free to use undergraduate level neuroscience textbook. It is a collaborative effort on behalf of neuroscientists, undergraduate educators, science communicators, publishing experts, and artists.
Traditional educational textbooks can be prohibitively expensive for college students who are enrolled in neuroscience classes. By publishing the Open Neuroscience Initiative as a free to use textbook, my hope is that students will be able to use the information contained within as an alternative to other costly textbooks.
Additionally, I hope that fellow undergraduate educators will find this textbook helpful, and will consider adopting the Open Neuroscience Initiative as the primary course textbook in introductory neuroscience classes to help relieve the financial pressures that the students face.
I envision the Open Neuroscience Initiative as also serving a purpose outside of the academic setting. I believe an easily accessible textbook is a wonderful vehicle by which anyone in the general public is able to learn more about the brain.
The Open Neuroscience Initiative was conceived on May 27th, 2019. The project was officially funded by a grant from the Vincentian Endowment Fund of DePaul University on November 22nd, 2019.
June 16th, 2021: Chapter 1 complete
The final stages of this text are coming together! The introductory chapter, with cover art designed by Beata Science Art (http://www.beatascienceart.com/) and IG: https://www.instagram.com/beatascienceart/ .
March 31st, 2021: Chapter 10 complete
The chapter on the motor system was largely written by my awesome collaborators, Dr. Alex Rajan and Dr. Andrea Gaede. Special thanks to Dr. Katie Willis for her editorial comments. Download here or on the bar on the right. Chapter 10: The Motor System
March 18th, 2021: Chapter 13 complete
Thanks to David Graykowski, coauthor, who wrote the section on Alzheimer’s Disease as part of his NEU 399 Independent Study, and Dr. Alexandrina Guran for helpful comments on this chapter, available for download here. Chapter 13: Learning and Memory
March 16th, 2021: Final chapters to be completed
The last few chapters to be completed are in the hands of their editors as I exert the last push needed to get the project completed. Chapter 9, The Chemical Senses, co-written by Dr. Ben Marcus and myself is now available for download.
February 16th, 2021: Chapter 14 “Lateralization and language” complete
This chapter concerns itself with questions related to the two hemispheres of the brain and how they are slightly different. The major difference has to do with left hemispheric specialization for language production and comprehension. I’m pleased to have my awesome coworker Dr. Sandra Virtue as an editor for this material!
February 2nd, 2021: Chapter 8 “The Other Physical Senses” complete
Big thank you to Dr. Alex Rajan (Twitter) for his help with editing this chapter!
October 26th, 2020: Chapter 8 “The Physical Senses” draft complete
I’ve avoided the sensory and perception chapters since they are not my favorite topics to teach about, but I’ve finally completed the draft (preview it here) and it has been sent out to the editor.
October 20th, 2020: Chapter 13 “learning and memory” draft complete
One of my favorite chapters so far covering some very interesting topics, the draft for the “Learning and Memory” chapter is available for download here. Special thanks to David Graykowski, a co-author on this chapter.
August 21st, 2020: Chapter 16 Completed
The chapter covering four diseases of the brain (schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorder) has been finished, with help from Dr. Monica Javidnia. You can download the link from the image on the right, or click here.
August 4th, 2020: Chapter 6 Completed
This is certainly a beefy chapter, at a whopping 28 pages of text. The chapter covers four different categories of neuroscience research methods, from imaging to brain stimulation.
Special thanks to Dr. Katie Willis for her helpful suggestions. Download the chapter here.
July 16th, 2020: Chapter 6 “Methods of Neuroscience” draft published
One of the classes I teach is NEU 301, a lab-focused “Neuroscience Research Methods”, covering the different methods used to answer questions in neuroscience. It was only a matter of time that I finished this chapter in the Open Neuroscience Initiative! The chapter draft can be found here.
June 11th, 2020: Chapter 12 “Sleep and the Circadian Rhythm” Published
This chapter has been in limbo for a while, but I finally finished the edits, as sent to me by editors Dr. Dana Simmons (University of Chicago) and Dr. Ben Marcus (University of Chicago). You can download this chapter here, or from the navigation bar on the right.
June 6th, 2020: Chapter 4 “Electrical properties of neurons” published
It’s been a truly unusual year, but chapter 4 of the Open Neuroscience Initiative has been published online with help from Dr. Dana Simmons (University of Chicago). Download the chapter here.
February 15th, 2020: Chapter 5 “Signaling Between Neurons” Published
Happy Valentine’s Day, y’all!
Chapter 5, which describes the process of chemical signaling between neurons, has been published in it’s final form. Big thank you to Dr. Monica Javidnia (University of Rochester) for her help in editing the text. Download this chapter here, or find the current chapters on the toolbar on the right.
December 16th, 2019: Chapter 2 “Anatomy of the nervous system” published
With editorial help from Dr. Helena Ledmyr (Karolinska Institutet), the Open Neuroscience Initiative team was able to complete Chapter 2, which covers the the gross anatomy of the nervous system. You can find the download link here, or to the right where you can also download the other chapters currently available.
November 2nd, 2019: Chapter 4, 5 drafts completed
As can be expected, the beginning of the school year brought higher priority duties. While the quarter quickly trucks toward the end, I managed to squeeze in random bits of time here and there (usually with some Netflix / YouTube) to put a couple chapters together: Chapter 4, “Electrical Properties of Neurons” and Chapter 5, “Signaling Between Neurons”. Drafts to be made available soon!
august 22nd, 2019: Chapter 3 “cellular anatomy’ rough draft completed
Time is moving really quickly. Only a couple more weeks of summer before I start preparing for back to school season, and this has been a sort of a fire under my butt to get working diligently with my remaining hours. Once Fall quarter starts up, I’ll have significantly less time to devote to this project.
The Cellular Anatomy chapter has been finished, and sent out to a generous editor based out of the University of Oklahoma. The chapter focuses on the structures of the neurons and the functions of the glial cells.
August 6th, 2019: Chapter 2 “anatomy” rough draft completed
The rough draft for my chapter on the anatomy of the nervous system has been completed, and sent out to an editor!
You can find the raw text file here.
August 3rd, 2019: Chapter 11 completed
It’s been a slow process, but the first chapter of my free, open access neuroscience textbook has been written and published for public download! Check it out here:
Open Neuroscience Initiative: Chapter 11, Neuropharmacology and Substance Use
June 25th, 2019: Chapter 11 neuropharmacology draft complete
In the past, I have tried moving away from assigning a traditional textbook using a combination of online sources from various online open source textbooks such as Psychology as a Biological Science hosted at the Open Textbook Library or Neuroscience Online at University of Texas. While both of these resources were great, I couldn’t find a good chapter on neuropharmacology or drug abuse, topics that I spent a significant amount of time in graduate school studying through the support of the National Institute on Drug Abuse training grant.
The first priority was to write up the chapter on these topics to fill in that gap. With the text of this chapter completed during the summer, I’m able to use a combination of the above resources and my chapter in the syllabus for one of the fall quarter classes I’m teaching, Brain and Behavior. As an introductory level non-majors course, lifting the burden of having to buy a textbook will (hopefully) go a long way towards lowering the cost of education.
I sent out the paper to my neuropsychopharmacology professor from grad school, Dr. Harriet de Wit. Her work in studying human drug abuse inspired me to continue studying the topic after grad school and my postdoctoral research, and I hope to be able to incorporate some questions about drug abuse into my research in the future.
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Unless listed below, works cited are a work in progress.