Online course in Health & Psychology

Good Brain, Bad Brain: Parkinson's Disease

Learn the fundamentals of Parkinson's disease with this online course. What causes it and what we can do to treat it?

Good Brain, Bad Brain: Parkinson's Disease

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Overview
Topics
Start dates
Requirements
Educators
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  • Duration 3 weeks
  • Weekly study 3 hours
  • Learn Free
  • Extra benefits From $69 Find out more
This course is part of the Good Brain, Bad Brain program, which will enable you to explore the human brain, for CPD or as a gateway to further study.

Understand Parkinson's Disease

This online course is aimed at anyone who wants to find out the fundamentals of Parkinson’s disease. We will look at how Parkinson’s disease affects people; what causes it; what we can do to try to ameliorate the symptoms of Parkinson’s; and what we don’t yet know about it.

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What topics will you cover?

  • Neurobiology of movement
  • Pathology of Parkinson’s disease
  • Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease
  • Treatments for Parkinson’s disease
  • Current research for Parkinson’s disease

When would you like to start?

Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts. Find out more

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

  • Identify the key regions of the brain involved in movement control
  • Explain how disruption to basal ganglia function can lead to the signs and symptoms of Parkinson's disease
  • Investigate the rationale behind current areas of research
  • Apply a knowledge of the pathology of Parkinson's disease to explain how current therapies work
  • Explore some of the current areas of active research

Who is the course for?

The course is aimed at anyone who wants to find out the fundamentals of Parkinson’s disease.

You will need to have a basic knowledge of what the brain is made of, how these component cellular parts are organised and the principles of how these cells function normally. It will be suitable if you have taken the Good Brain, Bad Brain: Basics course or who studied neuroscience in the early years of an undergraduate degree.

What do people say about this course?

Thank you to Dr Alison Cooper for your very prompt and active support of us participants in this course. Thanks also to the many participants who contributed, and especially to the PD sufferers who openly and freely posted about their personal experiences. You gave this course a depth and authenticity that other courses rarely achieve.

Anonymous learner

A very interesting course, well presented, very informative and with prompts for us to do some looking up of information ourselves. I found week 3 became a bit more technical and as a complete beginner I felt a bit out of my depth. However, I still managed to complete the quiz, almost all questions right first time so I must have learnt something! It was a really useful introduction to Parkinson's and the complexity of the human body. Thank you.

Sue Partridge

Who will you learn with?

Alison Cooper

Alison Cooper

Alison Cooper is a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham, where she teaches neuroscience and pharmacology.

Who developed the course?

The University of Birmingham is a public research university, consistently listed as a leading UK university and ranked among the top 100 in the world.

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