title: A proposal for undergraduate students' inclusion in brain awareness week: promoting interest in curricular neuroscience components.
abstract: Brain Awareness Week (BAW) is a global campaign aimed at raising awareness of neuroscience and the progress and benefits of brain research. Our proposal was to include undergraduate physiology students in the organization and presentation of BAW activities. In this sense, we proposed the BAW as a neurophysiology teaching strategy. BAW 2013 occurred between March 11-17, and physiology students in the Nursing, Pharmacy and Physiotherapy programs of our university were involved in the organization of and participation in the activities. To evaluate student perceptions of their participation, a questionnaire was used to establish whether their involvement increased their interest in physiology/neuroscience. Our results indicated that this strategy was successful and increased the students' interest in neuroscience and physiology. In addition a survey of undergraduate and graduate students participating in BAW established their interest in the various activities available. The attention and reaction time workshop and the neuroanatomy workshop were the most popular of the eight activities available.
authors.affiliation: Physiology Research Group, Federal University of Pampa, Uruguaiana/RS/Brazil.
authors.forename: Alexandre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Martins
authors.affiliation: Physiology Research Group, Federal University of Pampa, Uruguaiana/RS/Brazil.
authors.forename: Pâmela Billig
authors.initials: PB
authors.lastname: Mello-Carpes
keywords: education; neurophysiology; popularization of science