โ The textbook is not Bear โ this changes most of this site
The required text is Watson & Breedlove, The Mind's Machine 5e, delivered through Oxford Insight inside Canvas. The syllabus is explicit: "We will only use the Oxford Insight version available on Canvas and not any other source."
This hub was originally built against Bear, Neuroscience: Exploring the Brain โ a different book with a different structure. The Textbook page is now fixed: it holds the full text of The Mind's Machine (4th ed.) with a chapter-grounded AI tutor. Still Bear-aligned and awaiting rebuild: the Study Guide, Cheat Sheet, and Flashcards โ treat those three as supplementary material, not a map of this course. The chapter list further down is the real one.
Why it matters: Bear is cellular/systems neuroscience; The Mind's Machine is behavioral neuroscience. They overlap heavily on neurons, synapses and sensory systems โ the core of this course โ but diverge sharply after that. The overlap is why the existing pages are still useful; the divergence is why they cannot be trusted for scope.
Do these before the semester starts
Three setup steps, in order
- Read the syllabus โ Canvas โ Syllabus tab.
- Complete "Start here โ Module 0" โ Canvas โ Modules tab (direct link).
- Register the Oxford Insight textbook โ Canvas โ Module 1 โ the Oxford Insight link. That redirects you to oup.junction.app where you set a password and register with your school email. Setup video.
Go through the Canvas link, not straight to the registration URL โ the Canvas handoff is what ties your Insight account to this section.
๐ต First Day Access billing โ there is a deadline you can miss
The e-text cost is billed to your student account about 3 weeks after classes start. You may opt out and buy the electronic text elsewhere, but the syllabus warns this likely costs more โ and since the course uses the Insight version exclusively (assignments, graded activities, quizzes all live in it), opting out is close to unusable here.
Course-specific opt-out dates arrive in student email and appear under the B&N Course Materials tab in Canvas. Classes begin Aug 24, so expect the billing around mid-September โ watch your email in early September.
Quick start
Textbook + AI Tutor
The full book, readable here รขยย all 15 chapters, with a tutor grounded in the chapter you have open.
MM Reader
Whole-book search + original PDF pages โ jumps to the exact paragraph.
Study Guide
โ ๏ธ Bear-aligned โ rebuild pending.
Study
Browse or review what’s due — one deck.
Practice Exam
MC with explanations.
Books
Free references + chapter maps.
Course facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Course | NEUR 1520-850 โ Introduction to Neuroscience I ยท 3 credits |
| Format | Fully online, asynchronous โ no scheduled meeting time |
| Canvas | mynu.instructure.com course 21198 |
| Instructor | Ernest Chivero ยท ernestchivero@unomaha.edu ยท Allwine Hall 419A |
| Required text | Watson & Breedlove, The Mind's Machine 5e โ Oxford Insight, via Canvas only |
| What is in the e-text | E-book ยท assignments ยท graded activities ยท videos ยท quizzes ยท readings ยท an AI study assistant |
| Semester | Aug 24 โ Dec 18, 2026 |
Note the e-text is not a passive reading โ graded activities and quizzes live inside Oxford Insight, so it is part of the gradebook, not a reference you can skip.
Your teaching team โ 5 office-hour blocks a week
This is an unusual amount of live human access for a fully async course. Three people, five windows. Use them โ async courses punish silence.
| Day | Time | Who | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | 11:30 am โ 1:00 pm | Charlotte Clark (TA) | Zoom |
| Tue | 9:30 โ 11:00 am | Sayka Alam (TA) | ASH 404G |
| Wed | 3:00 โ 4:00 pm | Ernest Chivero (instructor) | Allwine Hall 419A |
| Wed | 4:00 โ 5:30 pm | Charlotte Clark (TA) | ASH 404b (in person) |
| Thu | 1:00 โ 2:30 pm | Sayka Alam (TA) | ASH 404G |
๐ฏ Wednesday afternoon is the block to protect
3:00โ5:30 pm Wednesday runs continuously โ Chivero 3:00โ4:00 in Allwine 419A, then Charlotte Clark 4:00โ5:30 in ASH 404b. Bring the hard conceptual question to Chivero first, then walk over and grind the mechanics with the TA. If you protect one recurring slot all semester, protect this one.
| Contact | Office | |
|---|---|---|
| Ernest Chivero โ instructor | ernestchivero@unomaha.edu | Allwine Hall 419A ยท Wed 3โ4 pm or by appointment |
| Sayka Alam โ TA | saykaalam@unomaha.edu | ASH 404G |
| Charlotte Clark โ TA | charlottecharliecl@unomaha.edu | ASH 404b (Wed) ยท Zoom (Mon) |
โ ๏ธ Two details in the syllabus contradict themselves โ verify before relying on them.
- Charlotte Clark's email โ the text displays
charlottecharliecl@unomaha.edu, but the link behind it points toamccartney@unomaha.edu, likely a leftover from a previous TA. Send the first message to the displayed address. - Sayka's surname โ written "Alum" in the syllabus, but the email is
saykaalam@unomaha.edu("Alam"). The email is the safer bet for spelling; confirm in office hours before writing it on anything that matters.
The real textbook โ The Mind's Machine 5e
โ ๏ธ Chapter โ week mapping is not confirmed yet
Below is the actual chapter list of the 5th edition. What is not yet known is which chapters this section covers and in what order โ that lives in the Canvas Modules tab. The "I" in Intro Neuroscience I plus the course description (cellular/molecular, neurons and glia, neural communication, sensory processing) points strongly at the front half, roughly Ch 1โ7, with the behavioral half likely belonging to NEUR 1530. Treat that as a reasoned guess, not fact, until Module 0 and the Modules tab confirm it.
| Ch | Title | Fit to this course's stated scope |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Structure and Function: Neuroanatomy and Research Methods | Core โ anatomy + methods |
| 2 | Neurophysiology: Generation, Transmission, and Integration of Neural Signals | Core โ communication within/between neurons |
| 3 | The Chemistry of Behavior: Neurotransmitters and Neuropharmacology | Core โ synaptic transmission |
| 4 | Development of the Brain | Likely โ cellular/molecular |
| 5 | The Sensorimotor System | Core โ sensory processing |
| 6 | Hearing, Balance, Taste, and Smell | Core โ sensory processing |
| 7 | Vision: From Eye to Brain | Core โ sensory processing |
| 8 | Hormones and Sex | Probably NEUR 1530 |
| 9 | Homeostasis: Active Regulation of the Internal Environment | Probably NEUR 1530 |
| 10 | Biological Rhythms and Sleep | Probably NEUR 1530 |
| 11 | Emotions, Aggression, and Stress | Probably NEUR 1530 |
| 12 | Psychopathology: The Biology of Behavioral Disorders | Probably NEUR 1530 |
| 13 | Memory and Learning | Probably NEUR 1530 |
| 14 | Attention and Higher Cognition | Probably NEUR 1530 |
| 15 | Language and Lateralization | Probably NEUR 1530 |
Sanity check on the guess: the course description names "the anatomy and function of neurons and glia, communication within and between neurons, and how neurons interact to perceive and process sensory information." That sentence maps almost one-to-one onto Ch 1, 2, 3, and 5โ7.
Still missing from the syllabus
๐ What this page cannot tell you yet
Everything above comes from the course welcome page. These pieces are still needed before this hub can be genuinely exam-useful โ most live in Module 0 and the Syllabus tab:
- Grading breakdown โ how Insight activities, quizzes, and exams are weighted
- Exam schedule โ how many, when, proctored or not, cumulative final or not
- Module โ chapter mapping โ the one that turns the table above from a guess into a plan
- Late work + attendance policy โ and whether async means hard weekly deadlines
- Generative-AI policy โ worth checking directly. Insight ships its own AI study assistant, so AI is clearly permitted inside the courseware, but that says nothing about outside tools. Confirm before using the AI chat on this site or Quiz Me for graded work.
Send these over and this page gets rebuilt around them.
Know your instructor
Ernest Chivero
Neuroinflammation and substance use. Works on microglia, the NLRP3 inflammasome, and HIV-Tat โ how immune signaling in the brain is altered by drugs of abuse and viral infection.
What to expect from that: glia are unlikely to be the throwaway half-lecture they are in many intro courses. When The Mind's Machine covers neurons and glia (Ch 1โ2) and neuropharmacology (Ch 3), expect the immune-brain angle and drug mechanisms to get more airtime than the book alone would suggest.
Working an async course
- Student reviews rate him highly (~4.7/5 RMP) for clarity and organization, while flagging the course as content-dense. Both can be true: kind instructor, lots of material.
- Async is the real difficulty, not the content. Nothing forces you to keep pace โ build a fixed weekly slot before week 1.
- Two TAs is a lot of support for a 3-credit online course. Silence is the failure mode; there are five windows a week where it costs you nothing to ask.
- Accessibility accommodations run through ASC (104 H&K ยท 402.554.2872) โ request early.
Free supplementary references
Graded work comes from Oxford Insight only. These are for building understanding when a chapter refuses to click.
- Oxford Learning Link โ The Mind's Machine 5e student resources (publisher, free)
- NCBI Bookshelf โ Purves Neuroscience (full free text)
- MSU Open Textbook โ Introduction to Neuroscience (free, closely matches this course's scope)
- Noba Project โ free behavioral-neuroscience modules (matches Mind's Machine framing)
- MIT OCW 9.01 Intro Neuroscience โ full lecture course
- MIT 9.01 lecture notes (PDFs)
- Khan Academy โ Neural communication (doubles as MCAT prep)
- Ninja Nerd โ Neurology lectures
- Ernest Chivero โ faculty profile
- Oxford University Press โ The Mind's Machine 5e (publisher page)