Open@VT
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Announcing New Open Textbook: Neuroscience for Pre-Clinical Students
Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and Virginia Tech Publishing are pleased to announce the second open textbook publication in a series, Neuroscience for Pre-Clinical Students, by Renée LeClair, Ph.D.
Neuroscience for Pre-Clinical Students (https://doi.org/10.21061/neuroscience) is a USMLE-aligned text designed for a first-year undergraduate medical course, and covers neuroenergetics, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and selected amino acid metabolism and degradation. It is meant to provide the essential biochemical information from these content areas in a concise format to enable students to engage in an active classroom. Hence, it does not cover neurophysiology and neuroanatomy; and clinical correlates and additional application of content are intended to be provided in the classroom experience. The text assumes that the students will have completed medical school prerequisites (including the MCAT) in which they will have been introduced to the most fundamental concepts of biology and chemistry that are essential to understand the content presented here. With its focus on high-yield concepts, this resource will assist the learner later in medical school and for exam preparation.
The 49-page text was created specifically for use by pre-clinical students at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and was based on faculty experience and peer review to guide development and hone important topics.
Instructors reviewing, adopting, or adapting parts or the whole of the text are requested to register their interest at: https://bit.ly/interest-preclinical.
Table of Contents
- Neuron and astrocyte metabolism
- Neurotransmitters — ACh, glutamate, GABA, and glycine
- Neuropeptides and unconventional neurotransmitters
- Amino acid metabolism and specialized products
Free Access to Neuroscience for Pre-Clinical Students
- High and low-resolution PDF versions of this book and additional information are freely available at: https://doi.org/10.21061/neuroscience.
- Accessible, online versions of this book are also freely available via
- the Pressbooks platform at https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/neuroscience and
- LibreTexts at https://med.libretexts.org/@go/page/35685.
- An ePub version will be shared at https://doi.org/10.21061/neuroscience when finalized.
- The book is also listed in the Open Textbook Library, OER Commons, VIVA Open, and Merlot.
Acknowledgments and The Series
This work is the second in a five-volume series of open textbooks for pre-clinical medical education by Renee LeClair and Andrew Binks. Publication is expected by mid-2022. The series is supported in part by funding and/or in-kind contributions from VIVA’s Open Course Grants, Virginia Tech’s Open Education Initiative, Virginia Tech Publishing, and LibreTexts.
Other titles in this series include:
Cell Biology, Genetics, and Biochemistry for Pre-Clinical Students (LeClair)
Cardiovascular Pathophysiology for Pre-Clinical Students (Binks) (forthcoming)
Pulmonary Pathophysiology for Pre-Clinical Students (Binks) (forthcoming)
Pulmonary Physiology for Pre-Clinical Students (Binks) (forthcoming)
To request email notification of new releases in this series please register at https://bit.ly/interest-preclinical. Virginia Tech open textbook titles are hosted in VTechWorks and listed as Virginia Tech Open Education Initiative projects.
Share your original work
Instructors and subject matter experts interested in and sharing their original course materials relevant to pre-clinical education are requested to join the instructor portal at https://www.oercommons.org/groups/pre-clinical-resources/10133.
Suggested citation:
LeClair, Renée J., (2022). Neuroscience for Pre-Clinical Students, Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Tech Publishing. https://doi.org/10.21061/neuroscience. Licensed with CC BY NC-SA 4.0.
Unless otherwise noted, this work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY NC SA) 4.0 license which allows adaptation and redistribution with attribution for uses which are not primarily commercial. Many figures are available under CC BY 4.0. See the license terms and best practices for attribution for additional information.
About the Author
Renée J. LeClair is an Associate Professor in the Department of Basic Science Education at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, where her role is to engage activities that support the departmental mission of developing an integrated medical experience using evidence-based delivery grounded in the science of learning. She received a Ph.D. at Rice University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Maine Medical Center Research Institute in vascular biology. She became involved in medical education, curricular renovation, and implementation of innovative teaching methods during her first faculty appointment, at the University of New England, College of Osteopathic Medicine. In 2013, she moved to a new medical school, University of South Carolina, School of Medicine, Greenville. The opportunities afforded by joining a new program and serving as the Chair of the Curriculum committee provided a blank slate for creative curricular development and close involvement with the accreditation process. During her tenure she developed and directed a team-taught student-centered undergraduate medical course that integrated the scientific and clinical sciences to assess all six core competencies of medical education.
