Advanced Seminars in Physiology (PHYS90008)

This subject uses Research Seminars as a vehicle to teach students the experimental approach to contemporary physiological questions. The seminars will be presented by a mixture of Physiology Department faculty, invited speakers from outside the department, and postgraduate students. The seminars will be chosen to cover each of the three main research areas of the department; Cardiovascular Physiology, Neurophysiology, and Muscle and Exercise Physiology. Students will engage with a diverse range of physiological questions and the experimental strategies used to address them. Students will learn to critique seminars and to focus on the scientific essentials, i.e. what question is being addressed? What led up to this question? What strategies are being used to answer the question, and how well have they succeeded? Three seminars will receive particular attention. Questions and recommended reading, set by the speaker, will be distributed several days in advance, to assist the student to start thinking along helpful lines before each of these three seminars. After attending each of these seminars, students will participate in workshops in which directed questions and structured discussion will be used to engage students further with the scientific issues arising from the seminars.