This class is probably the hardest class I have ever taken, and the fact that it was taught by Professor Avi made that even more complex. This professor does not lecture clearly and just goes over the slides without any additional information. I also did not like the format that the class was going with, there was only one final with no midterm, and he expected us to know everything and every small detail in every slide is a fair game of the final. The final was not handled greatly as online, it was probably the hardest final. Since they knew it was going to be online, they made the final as hard as possible. I do not recommend taking this class, wait another quarter for a different professor if you have to.

This class is cakewalk compared to the other two in the series. The professors for this course are Wassum, Adhikari, and Suthana (in that order).

Wassum's module is all about motivation - why we do what we do. And she explores this topic through hunger and reward-seeking behaviors which she maps to brain circuitry from a buttload of mice/rat experiments. All of her slides are just figures of graphs and a lot of them say the same in thing in different ways, which is core part of behavioral neuroscience - converging evidence is IMPORTANT!

Adhikari is hands-down the BEST neuroscience professor in the department. He cracks jokes so frequently it sometimes feels you're watching a stand-up comedian, rather than a lecture, which makes it super engaging. His module covers long-term potentiation and depression (LTP/LTD), a lot of stuff on memory (Patient H.M.), you dive into the circuitry and cell types of the hippocampus (trisynaptic circuit, place cells, etc.) - and again all of this is through many, many experiments that have been done on rats.

Suthana is also a really sweet professor (she was an undergrad here and did her PhD here, as well) and her module is on cognitive neuroscience. You go through all the different techniques used in Cog Neuro, like fMRI, EEGs, single-neuron electrodes, etc. And you learn about experiments using each of these, and their pros and cons. I found this one the least interesting, because it was too computational for my liking at times, but that's what CogNeuro is all about and it was cool to see a different side of neuroscience than previously seen.

The class is structured as such:
- 75% Exams (25% each module) - each exam is 30 MC with 1-2 bonus points. They also give practice MC questions that are very similar if not the same prior to the exam (this was nice because 101A/B didn't do that)
- 20% Weekly Write-Ups - you have a research paper assigned each week to write about in a creative way (this can be like a blog post, Twitter thread, or press release) and you just summarize the experiments done in the paper and tie it back to lecture that week (lowest TWO are dropped)
- 5% Clinical Correlation - lowest one is dropped so you can just skip one of the two offered.

It's SUPER easy to do well in this class, the test are fair, there's EC, and it's overall such a confidence boost, if you're like me and didn't do so hot in 101B.

I was really nervous coming into this class because I do not have a strong background in science, especially in neuroscience. However, Prof Avi made the material accessible! He posts pre-recorded lectures (each around 1 hour and 15 mins long) along with slides and relevant chapters of the textbook. He encourages asking questions on the discussion forum and attending office hours as well as in-person lectures. Personally, I found the in-person lectures nice so that I can get a quick recap about the lectures and add to my notes. During lectures Prof Avi is funny and includes pop-culture references (ex: star wars, power puff girls, etc). Also, I highly recommend going to the optional discussion sections b/c the jeopardy gives you a gauge of what you know / need to review. The weekly quizzes (6 questions and 12 minutes timed) and exams (50 questions w/ 2 hours and 3-4 extra credit questions as a buffer) were fair! The material can be dense, but if you take detailed notes on the lectures, review the lecture slides, and do the jeopardies then you will be solid! Overall, I really enjoyed this class!!

P.S. highly recommend going to his office hours at least once.. his office has some pretty cool Beatles memorabilia!

Honestly this class is not as bad as the reviews say!! I think he just had a hard time transitioning with COVID, but taking him in 2021 he got his sh*t together. His lectures were long and they had a lot of info, but his weekly quizzes and tests were open note/book/everything which was super helpful for this course. FOR THIS COURSE YOU NEED OPEN BOOK!! I also took Kennedy's 115 and failed with a D- because she used respondus and her tests were crazy hard. I really do recommend taking this class with him over anyone else!!

*This class was asynchronous*
Despite his previous harsh reviews, I thought Adhikari was great. This course requires a lot of memorization, so if you plan on taking this class in-person be prepared to study hard, but I felt that Adhikari is a pretty engaging lecturer. Although the lectures were very dense, I was never really bored and I actually found that material to be quite interesting. However, I will admit that this class would be much harder with in-person exams because there's so much to know. This is probably what frustrated students who took this class pre-covid, but Adhikari was very helpful and understanding the past 6 weeks so hopefully he won't change once things are back to normal. Ultimately, I would definitely recommend that you take Psych 115 with Adhikari!

this was a pretty good class! recorded lectures twice a week, pretty understandable lectures, open book quizzes and tests. while i wish he was a more organized lecturer (i spent a lot of time reorganizing notes because his lecturing was kind of all over the place) it wasn’t that bad tbh. also quizzes are at a specific time period of like 20 minutes so that’s really frustrating but he does drop the lowest two scores so i was able to do decently on those. just be prepared to manage some logistics and the class isn’t bad at all, the prof is super nice!

I don't understand the other reviews on this page, I took this class W22 and it was asynchronous but had in-person lecture review and discussion options! Professor is DEFINITELY a much better alternative than the other professor teaching this class. There is no homework, modules (pre-recorded lectures) with all the information is uploaded early, there are very fair weekly quizzes, one midterm, and one final. There is a lot of material, but Professor made sure to let us know that we don't have to memorize all 2324 brain structures, we just have to know in general how they interconnect. He was interesting, funny, and also had clean and informative slides. Definitely take this class with Adhikari!

Prof. Adhikari is such a great and funny professor! Im bummed we only got a few weeks in person to listen to the lectures because he's a great lecturer. The class is not hard as long as you keep up with the variety of the material. Would recommend!

Highly recommend for anyone interested in neuroscience or looking to fulfill a Psych/Cog Sci/Psychobio requirement! The class consisted of quizzes, a midterm, and a final, and all of them were not bad if you watched lecture and understood the material. Lectures were really clear and informative.

I've seen a lot of bad reviews for Professor Adhikari, but I have never had a more engaging and caring professor. Even though lectures were online for half of the quarter, I would always look forward to watching his lectures, as his personality and way of teaching made it fun to learn the content. His class was the only class that I wanted to go to in person and it proved very helpful. He kept the online option open even when classes in person opened up, which gave lots of people freedom to choose which style they liked more. He made sure that the class taken online would balance out the class taken in person, which is something I didn't get the privilege of having for my other classes.

The content is indeed dense, which may contribute to why Professor Adhikari has a low rating, but it is just the nature of the class, and he does his best to cover everything in detail and tie them together.

His quizzes and tests are also extremely fair. There was not one question on the test that we had not covered in class. As long as you review his slides and take good notes, you will succeed in this class. It's a lot of memorization and hard work if you take it in person, and a lot of note-taking online.