Basic Information

 

From the perspective of a MEDSCI student, this paper is relatively "easier" when compared to other Stage II BIOSCIs and MEDSCI papers. Some of the content has been touched on in other classes like MEDSCI 142 and MEDSCI 206, and there is a lot of support from the lecturers and TAs in the workshops. 

 

This course has 3 hours of lectures per week: one 1 hour lecture, and one 2 hour lecture. In 2025, it was taught by 4 lecturers, each teaching a different module (modules topics do seem to differ between the years). There were 7 compulsory 2 hour lab/tutorials in 2025. There is no course guide, but lecturers provide lecture slides.

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Laboratory Component

 

There were 7 labs in total in 2025. These were 2 hours labs, in which the tutor usually reinforced lecture content or helped us with essay and exam preparations. The labs helped consolidate understanding in lecture content, and gave hints on how to do well in the essay assignment. Attendance was required, and you needed to attend 6/7 labs to pass the course. majority of them in order to be eligible for plussage.

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Overall, the labs were relaxed and a great space to ask any questions - the tutors were all very nice and supportive. There was a lot of video watching and content review, as well as group discussions too.
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Plussage

 

Your final grade could be calculated:

• 40% coursework + 60% Exam, or

• 100% Exam

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Plussage was available to everyone who met the lab attendance requirement.

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Essay

 

In 2025, the essay (1000 words) was on key aspects of severe traumatic brain injury (TBI), based on Kevin Pearce's documentary. The documentary was watched in the labs - group discussions and worksheets were also completed in-lab to help with essay writing. There was lot of content provided to support this assignment and instructions were very clear.

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Exam

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The exam was an online, in-person, closed book exam held on Inspera. 

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There were 2 main sections: 

• 12 short answer questions (48 marks)

• 4 long answer questions (52 marks)

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The SAQs consisted of 4 questions from each lecturer, each worth 4 marks. For the long answer questions, we had to answer 1 of 2 question choices from each lecturer (worth 13 marks each).

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Lecture Content

 

Prof. Ian Kirk's

Prof. Ian Kirk taught the first 6 lectures, covering the following topics:​

• Neurodevelopment

• Neuroanatomy

• Neurophysiology

• Neurophamracology

• Addiction

• Psychiatric Disorders

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As you can see in the list above, this section of the course is the one which overlaps the greatest with other medical science papers. The first few lecture topics are quite easy for any medical science student but the latter few topics start getting more foreign. Ian is hilarious and his lectures are always great fun to attend. His section, however, towards the end can become increasingly complicated as he goes through experiments that certain researchers have done and what they mean. His lecture slides are thus a lot of graphs and can be difficult to understand without referring to the original source information (please watch the lectures!). 

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Prof. Lynette Tippett 

The second block of lectures in 2025 contained 6 lectures, and covered the following topics:

• Approaches to neuropsychology

• Mechanisms of injury: TBI

• Disorders of Consciousness

• Hemineglect

• Language and Aphasia

• Memory

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I found this module very interesting as it provided a great introduction to a lot of interesting different neural deficits. This module also linked to the essay topic (TBI).

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Dr. Reece Roberts

Reece's block of lectures in 2025 contained 6 lectures, covering the following topics:

• Hippocampus

• Memory and Imagination

• Mental imagery

• Theory of Mind/Autism

• Sleep

• The Cultural Brain

This module was very content heavy, but I found the content very fascinating - it integrated abstract concepts like memory and mental imagery with scientific basis. This did mean that we looked at a lot of research studies, and were expected to be able to describe them for the exam.

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Dr. Eileen Lueders

Eileen's module was new in 2025 and covered the following content (2 lectures each):

• Hunger, Eating & Health

• Brain Plasticity

• Emotion, Stress & Health

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There was also an optional lecture on anorexia given by a guest lecturer which was not assessed. This module was very fun to learn as content was very relevant to our daily lives, and Eileen was great at explaining concepts.

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Updated: 2025