What Is So Difficult About Neuroanatomy

[JackD]

I know a few people that are a semester ahead of me and they are all in neuroanatomy right now, and they make it sound like it is harder than trying to learn advanced calculus....in Chinese....underwater. Neuro seems to be the class that everyone fears the most (i have heard this about other schools too) but I don't quite understand what is so difficult about neuroanatomy.

When I was in histology, we touched on neuroanatomy and it didn't seem that bad. We had two weeks of neurophysiology in my cellular physiology class, again, nothing too intense. And every other anatomy class i have had has talked about nerves and innervation, always seemed straight forward.

What am I missing here? Why do people talk about neuroanatomy as if they are reminiscing about their time in Vietnam? What makes neuro so much more difficult than other anatomy courses?

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[sideways]

I think what's hard at your school is going to be curriculum dependent. In other words, maybe it's not neuro that's the devil, but neuro at your school. That said, neuro has more of a conceptual element I guess in that it's not as easily visualized as other aspects of anatomy. But I found gross anatomy to be much more annoying than neuro.

 

[namethatsmell]

The brainstem: we had to know everything...it was horrible...I lost 6 good buddies that week.

Seriously though, memorizing every nuance of every level of the brainstem just plain sucked.

 

[MilkmanAl]

Anatomy is awful, and you can always see the structures you're supposed to know the name of. Neuroanatomy is a lot more complex, has more complex function, and is often invisible without some sort of doctored image drawing a colored box around a certain area or whatever.

 

[hrandani]

I wouldn't say the material is necessarily more complex, but more that it lends itself far more handily to epic levels of mental masturbation by the professor that just really make you want to start drinking at 11 AM.

There's zero reason for it to not be taught in a reasonable and logical fashion though.

 

[christina30]

I know a few people that are a semester ahead of me and they are all in neuroanatomy right now, and they make it sound like it is harder than trying to learn advanced calculus....in Chinese....underwater. Neuro seems to be the class that everyone fears the most (i have heard this about other schools too) but I don't quite understand what is so difficult about neuroanatomy.

When I was in histology, we touched on neuroanatomy and it didn't seem that bad. We had two weeks of neurophysiology in my cellular physiology class, again, nothing too intense. And every other anatomy class i have had has talked about nerves and innervation, always seemed straight forward.

What am I missing here? Why do people talk about neuroanatomy as if they are reminiscing about their time in Vietnam? What makes neuro so much more difficult than other anatomy courses?

neuroanatomy has to be learned in brain sections - it's much more difficult to visualize where these structures are/would be 3-dimensionally if the brain were whole. then the differences in the appearance of structures between coronal, sagittal, and transverse sections? UGH. it sucked.

2/3 of the way through my nervous system block, can't wait for it to end. i'm gonna have ptsd, i can see it already.

 

[mmmcdowe]

Studying page by page a combined neuroanatomy text book taught me more in one hour than every lecture combined. It's just hard to learn from an orater when there are so few visible landmarks to help you keep track as you work your way through cross sections.

 

[DrYoda]

I think what's hard at your school is going to be curriculum dependent. In other words, maybe it's not neuro that's the devil, but neuro at your school. That said, neuro has more of a conceptual element I guess in that it's not as easily visualized as other aspects of anatomy. But I found gross anatomy to be much more annoying than neuro.

Co-signed.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I wouldn't say the material is necessarily more complex, but more that it lends itself far more handily to epic levels of mental masturbation by the professor that just really make you want to start drinking at 11 AM.

Cheers.

Studying page by page a combined neuroanatomy text book taught me more in one hour than every lecture combined. It's just hard to learn from an orater when there are so few visible landmarks to help you keep track as you work your way through cross sections.

👍 It's damn near impossible to learn anything without a clear picture of what you're trying to learn in front of you.

 

[mdeast]

I agree, neuro can be terrible. Brain stem and thalamus are annoying, just a lot of abstract memorization and looking at tissue sections over and over again to find some obscure nuclei. There are just so many tracts, and minute connections you need to memorize...and to a certain extent you sit there going...why do I need to know this? It does get pretty cool though once you do actually put everything together. The CNS is pretty ridiculously cool from the viewpoint of a nerdy science geek like most of us are.

My school is particularly bad htough because it's integrated with the PhD graduate program, so we take the same intro course as the graduate students. We end up learning things in much greater detail than is really required for the Step 1....so there's a lot of extraneous information thrown in. Our med school is also pretty big in the neuroscience world, so we end up getting a lot of talks on obscure research, or end up with unpublished information being taught in our classes as if it's already accepted religion in the field (even though it isn't).

You'll survive (and neuro is important...it relates to just about every specialty). It's usually thought poorly of by med students because of the complexity and large amount of memorization...mixed with the fact that it's next to impossible to see most of the details of the CNS on gross anatomy...so you have to rely on diagrams and complex tissue sections (that can be really confusing) to learn everything.

I ignored neuro for a while this quarter without really wanting to study it...but once you start doing the cranial nerve exam on PE, you realize that it's actually super relevant to what you need to know.

 

[sideways]

^nerd alert

 

[cpants]

For me the hard part was that more than any other subject it was rote memorization. There is no logic to the pathways through the brain and spinal cord. They go where they go and they cross back and forth at different levels for no reason. It's not like phys or pharm or path where you can understand mechanisms and logic through stuff. You just have to memorize it. After you get a good foundation the localization problems are kinda fun.

 

[21CentSouldier]

eye heart brainz. 😀

 

[bomgd3]

I loved spending lots of time learning the tracts and the anatomy/histology, then using it to isolate lesions. Did it for the first time on a real patient this week!

 

[da8s0859q]

Some things are harder than other things for some people. And some things are harder for more people than other things.

The More You Know™.

Neuro was well taught for us, but I was happy to see it end. There's just quite a bit to know, and it gets a little tricky, imo.

 

[LRAccord624]

I loved spending lots of time learning the tracts and the anatomy/histology, then using it to isolate lesions. Did it for the first time on a real patient this week!

👍 Can't wait to do the same!

 

[celkon]

Seems like there are so many more words for everything.

Alot more voacb to learn then musculoskeletal.

 

[unsung]

I know a few people that are a semester ahead of me and they are all in neuroanatomy right now, and they make it sound like it is harder than trying to learn advanced calculus....in Chinese....underwater. Neuro seems to be the class that everyone fears the most (i have heard this about other schools too) but I don't quite understand what is so difficult about neuroanatomy.

When I was in histology, we touched on neuroanatomy and it didn't seem that bad. We had two weeks of neurophysiology in my cellular physiology class, again, nothing too intense. And every other anatomy class i have had has talked about nerves and innervation, always seemed straight forward.

What am I missing here? Why do people talk about neuroanatomy as if they are reminiscing about their time in Vietnam? What makes neuro so much more difficult than other anatomy courses?

What's funny to me is that our neuro course was harder than our actual neuropath course 2nd year. That said, neither of them were too bad at all.

Neuroanatomy was much easier for me than anatomy of the extremities (i.e. musculoskeletal). All those frickin' muscle insertion points KILLED me. Not to mention it was boring as hell. At least neuro "makes sense" (i.e. the defect from any given lesion is pretty specific), and the whole "hunting down the lesion" game made learning the material both more interesting & more relevant.

Frankly, I find endocrinology, etc. a LOT harder than neuro. (It's like riding a merry-go-around! All that feedback inhibition, stimulation stuff makes my head hurt...) In comparison, neuroanatomy is pretty straightforward.

 

[unsung]

For me the hard part was that more than any other subject it was rote memorization. There is no logic to the pathways through the brain and spinal cord. They go where they go and they cross back and forth at different levels for no reason. It's not like phys or pharm or path where you can understand mechanisms and logic through stuff. You just have to memorize it. After you get a good foundation the localization problems are kinda fun.

I felt this way about the musculoskeletal system. So, many, muscles.

And this year, I feel that way about CANCERS... whether they are cancers of the ovaries, thyroid, or whatever... it's just this endless blue ocean of crap. No explanation for "why" some cancers like to present bilaterally, or why some likes to strike particular age groups. Result: pure, unadulterated, memorization.

 

[hurdlepup]

for us, it WAS taught in Chinese... (like the prof, but terrible accent)

and it was crammed in along with neurophys--all in a lovely 5 week period with tests or quizzes every week. there was not time for slacking and i didn't see the sun for the entire 5 weeks (it was cloudy every day). and even if it wasn't--literally had to schedule my day down to the minute just to make sure i read all the notes twice before the test. (that meant averaging about 3-5 minutes per page, no room for daydreaming--for 5-6 hrs after sitting in class for 4-5 hrs. also meant i didn't have time to go outside other than walking to the library.

needless to say, this winter was much better without that class.

 

[DoctwoB]

At my school micro is the killer class, and comes right before neuro. Neuro is much easier in comparison.


Our hardest classes are anatomy, micro, and cardio.

 

[UAAWolf]

I felt this way about the musculoskeletal system. So, many, muscles.

And this year, I feel that way about CANCERS... whether they are cancers of the ovaries, thyroid, or whatever... it's just this endless blue ocean of crap. No explanation for "why" some cancers like to present bilaterally, or why some likes to strike particular age groups. Result: pure, unadulterated, memorization.

Funny how we all have our different strengths. I though musculoskeletal was extremely easy..since I like working out etc and enjoy muscles/nerves.

On the other hand, head and neck is pure hell and some of my friends love it.

 

[DrVanNostran]

I though neuroanatomy was easier than gross. Like someone else mentioned, this may have been curriculum dependent. However, to me Neuro made sense conceptually. I could visualize where things were happening and the science behind it. However, when learning the pelvis and perineum, everything just became whack! I guess becoming a Neurosurgeon would be easier than becoming gigolo for me.

 

[shiftingmirage]

a) the brain stem is evil, though required for life.
b) The tracts - some are straight forward, others are easy to confuse, if you ask me. Vision- images hits the retina - optic nerve - optic chiasm (some cross) - optic tract - lateral geniculate nucleus (not to be confused with the medial geniculate nucleus) - optic radiations (where some fibers go higher than others so a lesion here affects upper fibers , lesion there the lower ones) - occipital lobe (i could be wrong, it's been a while, but I think the regions where the upper and lower radiations go in have different names).
That's a whole 1 pathway. And that doesn't even include fun things like direct and indirect light reflex. Vision is more complex than most of the pathways, but hopefully it gives some insight.
c) have to know where things cross...and they cross in different places.
d) more school specific, but I never felt that we were taught the big picture. One read through HY neuro connected a lot of dots for me.
e) brain stem deserves to be mentioned twice.

 

[gravitywave]

Some things are harder than other things for some people. And some things are harder for more people than other things.

The More You Know™.

it's this. different schools are different, different students are different. i didn't particularly enjoy anatomy, but i didn't have the trouble with it that other people did - and then we had micro and i understood what anatomy had been like for them; i was LOST.

Our hardest classes are anatomy, micro, and cardio.

haven't had cards yet but according to the MS2s this is true here as well. immuno was no picnic either.

 

[ScronCron]

Neuroanatomy + Neuropharmacology + Head and Neck anatomy + Neurophysiology = Hundreds of structures + hundreds of functional and spatial relationships + about 100 drugs = 5 weeks of hell

Interesting and important stuff, though...

 

[HelloGoodbye]

lol....the hardest class in M1 at my school is epidemiology, believe it or not! Mainly due to the professor and the fact that the whole class has 45 questions (30 MC plus 15 open format). Not a lot of room for error.

 

[cher25]

Neuroanatomy + Neuropharmacology + Head and Neck anatomy + Neurophysiology = Hundreds of structures + hundreds of functional and spatial relationships + about 100 drugs = 5 weeks of hell

Interesting and important stuff, though...

I'm suddenly feeling a little less envious of the systems based curriculum! The Neurophys/neuroanatomy we're doing right now make my head hurt and studying for my other courses are a nice break from it. We get Neuro for the entire semester, however.

 

[osumc2014]

At my school micro is the killer class, and comes right before neuro. Neuro is much easier in comparison.


Our hardest classes are anatomy, micro, and cardio.

osu?

 

[justdoit31]

At our school is was the faculty- the couple who taught 80% of the course had been teaching for over 30 years (retired after our class). They were just very tough but every year when our class took the NBME Neuro shelf we scored over class average. On our lecture exams they would have a huge paragraph with 8+ symptoms then a list of 8-12 vessels and ask which one is damaged- overwhelming! I had talked to friends who were at other schools (some more prestigious) and they didn't think neuro was any harder than their other course work- it all comes down to the professors.

 

[mdeast]

a) the brain stem is evil, though required for life.
b) The tracts - some are straight forward, others are easy to confuse, if you ask me. Vision- images hits the retina - optic nerve - optic chiasm (some cross) - optic tract - lateral geniculate nucleus (not to be confused with the medial geniculate nucleus) - optic radiations (where some fibers go higher than others so a lesion here affects upper fibers , lesion there the lower ones) - occipital lobe (i could be wrong, it's been a while, but I think the regions where the upper and lower radiations go in have different names).
That's a whole 1 pathway. And that doesn't even include fun things like direct and indirect light reflex. Vision is more complex than most of the pathways, but hopefully it gives some insight.
c) have to know where things cross...and they cross in different places.
d) more school specific, but I never felt that we were taught the big picture. One read through HY neuro connected a lot of dots for me.
e) brain stem deserves to be mentioned twice.

Haha interesting. I always thought of vision as the most straight-forward pathway. It's the lingual and cuneate gyrus from what I remember...the more superior one actually controlling lower visual field info, the more inferior one actually controlling upper field visual info.

I've been trying to go to neuro clinic to see patients....and some of it makes more clinical sense once you learn the neuro exam and can understand why you need to know each pathway and the sensations/etc. that it controls. But it does run into the quintessential problem of neurology: you sit there an academician to find the exact location of a lesion or disruption...but don't really have an medication or procedure to recommend to help the patient get better.

 

[unsung]

Haha interesting. I always thought of vision as the most straight-forward pathway. It's the lingual and cuneate gyrus from what I remember...the more superior one actually controlling lower visual field info, the more inferior one actually controlling upper field visual info.

I've been trying to go to neuro clinic to see patients....and some of it makes more clinical sense once you learn the neuro exam and can understand why you need to know each pathway and the sensations/etc. that it controls. But it does run into the quintessential problem of neurology: you sit there an academician to find the exact location of a lesion or disruption...but don't really have an medication or procedure to recommend to help the patient get better.

Neurological exam: "the 10 minutes of song & dance guesswork before getting the CT scan"

 

[Untraditional]

Everything has 3 or 4 names. I can't cross-reference anything because no one uses the same terminology. I spend 30% of my study time just organizing all the different names people have for tracts and structures.

You neuro guys need to have a conference and create a standard.

 

[shadowfox87]

Everyone's different. For me, courses like Neuro, Physiology, Pathology, etc. are the best because they're all about understanding. While courses like Microbiology, Immunology, Parasitology, etc. are HARDER for me b/c they want memorization. I would rather take Calc 3 again and Differential equations than take Parasitology.

 

[gravitywave]

Everyone's different. For me, courses like Neuro, Physiology, Pathology, etc. are the best because they're all about understanding. While courses like Microbiology, Immunology, Parasitology, etc. are HARDER for me b/c they want memorization. I would rather take Calc 3 again and Differential equations than take Parasitology.

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