In winter 2025, Neuroscience M101B was split into three modules: Dr. Orkun Akin (Module 1 Neurodevelopment) and Dr. Jeremy Trott (Module 2 Transmembrane Signaling and Module 3 Synaptic Transmission). This review will talk about the class in general and each professor.
Overall, this class felt quite straightforward and was definitely easier than M101A. Unlike F24 M101A where exams were taken online from home and were open book and open note, the M101B exams this quarter were taken online, although on Respondus and physically in the lecture hall, and we were only allowed a 1 page cheat sheet (so not completely open book and open note). Like M101A, there were 3 exams. Each exam covered its respective module and nothing else; therefore, the Module 3 exam, which was during finals week, was not a comprehensive final, but rather only an exam on Trott's synaptic transmission material.
Class Logistics: 65% for Exams (equally split amongst the three exams, so around 22% per exam), 20% for Discussion Section Attendance and Weekly Quizzes, 15% for Seminar and Clinical Correlation Writeups. There was 2% extra credit offered on each exam for answering a short bonus question quiz on the Respondus software before the real exam. This was participation-based EC; if you answer, you get the 2% boost to your exam score (capped at 100% though).

Module 1 Neurodevelopment by Orkun Akin:
Dr. Akin's module was all about neurodevelopment, starting with gastrulation and into synaptogenesis, all in six lectures. Dr. Akin is an extremely knowledgable, clear, and detailed professor, taking time during lecture to clearly explain all diagrams, experiments, and figures and answering questions during office hours. His lecture slides were the most helpful that I have seen in the neuroscience core series, as they included enough informative text that clearly spelled out the main results and findings of each slide (as a lot of this module was discussing experiments). While the figures and experiments conducted were often complex, Dr. Akin's summary text on the slides was very helpful to understand the big picture concepts, and his explanations in class were also very clear. Dr. Akin's quizzes and exam were extremely fair; he was straight to the point and there were little to no tricky questions/wording. There is quite a lot of content to remember, but with the one page cheat sheet, this was certainly doable! Dr. Akin was great!

Module 2 Transmembrane Signalling and Module 3 Synaptic Transmission by Jeremy Trott:
In W25, Dr. Trott taught both Module 2 and Module 3 of M101B. Module 2, which was about transmembrane signalling, felt very similar to Schweizer's Module 1 from M101A. We reviewed a lot of what we already learned about ion channels, Nernst, action potentials, and then added new concepts about ionotropic (ligand gated ion channel) and metabotropic (GPCR) transmission. Dr. Trott was very enthusiastic, lively, and captivating. He is a very nice guy and answers questions methodically and is receptive to student feedback (i.e. A few times, there was confusing wording on a quiz question, so he would accept multiple answers as correct). His quizzes and exam for both Module 2 and Module 3 did feel harder than Dr. Akin's but maybe this is because the material is more challenging to understand. Both exams for Trott were 15 questions: 10 multiple choice questions and 5 long paragraph answers. Once again, the cheat sheet was very helpful for all the different details that we learned throughout Trott's modules. I would highly recommend Dr. Trott; he is clear and methodical with his lecture style.

Overall, I thought this class was interesting and engaging, and both professors were fantastic! All three modules focused heavily on discussing pathbreaking historical experiments that revealed important findings that we now hold to be true, so understanding and recalling experimental methodology, the importance of the experiment, and any limitations was crucial for the exam. Other than that, there are a lot of proteins/molecules to remember for all three modules, but having them on the cheat sheet helped a lot. This class was enjoyable and not too difficult! Akin and Trott were great!