School Visits and Lab Tours

The Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory has been committed to community outreach in brain sciences, since its founding in 1983 and has reached thousands of Orange County children through school visits and laboratory tours programs. By hosting school visits and lab tours, students are connected with CNLM professors, scientists, researchers and staff and exposed to neuroscience, brain health, mental health and brain research. The CNLM serves Orange County students from pre-school through high school, providing them with the opportunity to:

• touch real brains
• manipulate brain models
• tour neuroscience labs
• conduct dissections

Students get to learn about:

• the safety rules that scientists must follow
• the rest of the nervous system - the spinal cord and nerves
• not only about the general areas of the brain dive deeper into the functional anatomy of the lobes, discussing areas like the hippocampus, amygdala, ventricles, thalamus, medulla, pons, corpus collosum, etc.)
• the different types of neurons and are introduced to glial cells.
• how the brain learns new information.
• the pleasure system of the brain and learn about the neuroscience of addiction.
• the neuroscience of mental illness.
• what happens to the brain during neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's Disease, Huntington's Disease, Parkinson's Disease and other dementias.
• the tools that are used in the neuroscience laboratory to study the brain.
• The CNLM welcomes Orange County students of all ages to tour the laboratories, interact with UC Irvine Faculty and students and learn about brain sciences. Students have the opportunity to learn about UC Irvine brain sciences. They learn about scientific inquiry, how experiments are carried out and how science is communicated to move the field forward. Students have the opportunity to learn about brain anatomy and are even able to touch and compare various types of brains from different organisms.