BBB Minor Requirements

Although College students are not required to complete a minor, students may choose to do so bring an element of cohesiveness to their electives. Students may choose to complete one or more minors to pursue secondary areas of interest or develop skills and a knowledge base which complements their major.  A minor is usually half of a major, generally 6 to 8 courses, depending upon the program.

A Minor in BBB
The minor consists of eight courses. All students are required to take BIBB 109, three additional BIBB courses and four additional courses from the approved course offerings list. Students must earn a minimum grade of C- in courses taken to fulfill the minor requirements. Students in the Class of 2010 and following must have a minimum of 3 courses that they count towards the minor and not towards any other major of minor.

Any modification in the requirements (e.g. course substitutions) must be requested by the student no later than the first semester of their junior year. Course substitutions are not encouraged and must be brought to the attention of the Director or Associate Director. If such a petition is granted, it is the student's responsibility to ensure the exception is entered on their Penn InTouch worksheet. Any student requesting credit away or abroad credit to count towards the major must contact the Director or Associate Director for pre-approval. No credit will be considered after completion of a course taken elsewhere.

Four (4) BBB Courses Required:

BIBB 109 - Introduction to Brain and Behavior

Three Additional BIBB Courses: BBB 217, 227, 231, 240, 249, 251, 269, 270, 310, 320, 321, 350, 399, 410, 420, 421, 423, 441, 451, 460, 475, 480, 481, 482, 492, 499

Four (4) Additional Courses from the AREAS OF INTEREST:

BIOL 202 - Cellular Biology and Biochemistry
BIOL 442 - Neurobiology of Learning and Memory
BIOL 451 - System Neuroscience
BIOL 521 - Population Genetics
CHEM* 241, 242, 245 or 251 - Organic Chemistry       
MATH ** 104, 114 or 115- Calculus
PSYC 107 - Introduction to Cognitive Science
PSYC 111 - Perception
PSYC 121 - Learning
PSYC 123 - Motivation
PSYC 151 - Cognitive Psychology
PSYC 155 -  Attention and Memory
PSYC 159  - Human Memory
PSYC 162 - Abnormal Psychology
PHYS# 101 & 102 or 150 & 151 or 170 & 171  -  Physics
STAT  101, 102 or 111. 112 - Statistics

*Students may count only 1 c.u. of advanced chemistry towards the minor

**Students in the Class of 2009 and prior must take two semesters to count toward the minor. Students in the Class of 2010 and 2011 may count one or two semesters toward the minor. Students in the Class of 2012 and Following may count only one semester toward the minor.

# All students must take two semesters to count toward the minor. Only two credit units of physics may be counted toward the minor. The lab portion of this course (1 c.u.) may be used to satisfy general SAS elective requirements

BBB Student Research:
Control and AD cases were stained for Nrf2 (green), neurons (MAP2-blue), and DNA (red). Nrf2 exhibits predominantly nuclear staining in normal aged CA1 region of the hippocampus, but predominantly cytoplasmic stain in AD CA1. As Nrf2 localizes to the nucleus in response to oxidative stress, these findings indicate that Nrf2 is not responding to the abundant oxidative stress prevalent in AD hippocampi. Work was performed by Charles Glass with Dr. Kelly Jordan-Sciutto.