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Course Description

Title: Gut Check: The Neuroscience of How Your Gut and Brain Talk Format: Free interactive online textbook (20 chapters, 20 MicroSims, 7 appendices) Audience: High school students in grades 9 to 12; also teens living with gut conditions, their families, biology and health teachers, and science-club members Prerequisites: One year of high school biology (cells, organ systems, basic genetics). No chemistry beyond the basics. From Neuron to Bedside (book #1) is helpful but not required. Duration and pacing: About 40 to 60 hours of study. One chapter per week fits a semester elective or club; individual chapters stand alone for a 1 to 2 class period unit.

Course overview

Your gut contains its own network of hundreds of millions of neurons, trillions of microbes, and much of your body's immune system, and all three constantly exchange signals with your brain. This course teaches the neuroscience of that conversation: the enteric nervous system, the vagus nerve and brainstem, gut hormones and neurotransmitters, immune signaling, the stress (HPA) axis, and visceral pain pathways.

It then applies that science to real conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis), irritable bowel syndrome and other disorders of gut-brain interaction, celiac disease, and the links between the gut and anxiety, depression, autism, ADHD, Parkinson's disease, and Alzheimer's disease. Each condition chapter includes the mind-body side of living with it.

Throughout, students learn to judge evidence. Every popular claim gets a Hype Meter grade (Strong, Moderate, Preliminary, or Hype), and every study is examined for whether it was done in mice or people and whether it shows correlation or cause. The final chapter turns these skills into a method students can use on any health claim.

Main topics covered

Part Chapters
I. Two Nervous Systems, One Body 1 The Brain in Your Belly; 2 The Vagus Highway; 3 Meet the Microbiome; 4 The Immune System as a Sense Organ
II. How the Signals Travel 5 Chemical Messengers and the Serotonin Myth; 6 Fiber, Fatty Acids, and the Blood-Brain Barrier; 7 Stress and the Gut; 8 Pain, Sensitivity, and the Gut
III. When the System Goes Wrong 9 Inflammatory Bowel Disease; 10 IBS and Disorders of Gut-Brain Interaction; 11 Anxiety, Depression, and the Gut; 12 Celiac Disease and Food Reactions; 13 Autism, ADHD, and the Gut; 14 Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and the Gut
IV. What Can Actually Help 15 Food and Mood; 16 Probiotics, Prebiotics, and "Psychobiotics"; 17 Medicine for the Gut-Brain Axis; 18 Sleep, Exercise, and Therapy
V. Living With It, and Thinking Clearly 19 Culture, Food, Family, and Stigma; 20 Be Your Own Scientist: Reading Health Claims

Topics not covered

  • Personal diagnosis, treatment plans, diets, supplement choices, or drug doses (this book teaches; it does not give medical advice)
  • Detailed digestive chemistry (enzymes, bile, nutrient absorption beyond what the gut-brain story needs)
  • Liver disease, GI cancers, eating disorder treatment, and obesity medicine (mentioned only where they touch the gut-brain axis)
  • General brain anatomy and cell neuroscience already taught in From Neuron to Bedside (linked instead of repeated)
  • Lab techniques beyond the level needed to read a study (no wet-lab protocols)

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

Remember

  1. List the main parts of the gut-brain axis: the enteric nervous system, vagus nerve, spinal afferents, microbiome, gut immune system, and HPA axis.
  2. Define key terms such as peristalsis, cytokine, short-chain fatty acid, visceral hypersensitivity, and dysbiosis.
  3. Identify the main features that distinguish Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, IBS, and celiac disease.
  4. Name the four Hype Meter grades and the six questions for reading a gut-brain claim.

Understand

  1. Explain how the enteric nervous system can run digestive reflexes without input from the brain.
  2. Summarize the routes by which gut signals reach the brain (nerves, hormones, immune molecules, microbial metabolites).
  3. Explain why most of the body's serotonin is made in the gut but does not directly change brain serotonin.
  4. Describe how stress, inflammation, and pain signals can form feedback loops between gut and brain.

Apply

  1. Use the Rome IV criteria to classify sample symptom descriptions (as an educational exercise, not a diagnosis).
  2. Predict how a change such as an antibiotic course, a stressful week, or a flare might affect gut signals, sleep, and mood.
  3. Apply the Hype Meter to grade a real social-media health claim.
  4. Use a MicroSim to test how changing one variable changes a gut-brain feedback loop.

Analyze

  1. Distinguish correlation from causation in gut-brain studies, including reverse causation and confounding.
  2. Compare evidence from germ-free mice, small open-label trials, and large randomized trials.
  3. Analyze a data table from a published study to identify what it does and does not show.
  4. Differentiate structural gut disease from disorders of gut-brain interaction.

Evaluate

  1. Judge the strength of evidence for probiotics, diet changes, and fecal microbiota transplant for mental-health outcomes.
  2. Critique a supplement advertisement or headline for overstated claims.
  3. Assess the risks of unneeded restrictive diets and unproven treatments for teens.
  4. Evaluate competing hypotheses, such as gut-first and brain-first routes in Parkinson's disease.

Create

  1. Design a small study that could test a gut-brain claim, including controls and outcome measures.
  2. Write a plain-language explainer that correctly grades a popular gut-brain claim.
  3. Propose a supportive plan for talking with family, school staff, or a doctor about a gut condition.
  4. Build an evidence summary of one gut-brain topic for a school club presentation.

How the course is assessed

  • A 10-question multiple-choice quiz per chapter, with explanations (200 questions total)
  • Your Gut Check practice in every chapter: a claim to grade, three scenarios, and a data-reading question
  • 12 exercises per chapter across all six Bloom's levels
  • A 50-question mock exam (Appendix A)
  • A capstone claim-checking project (Chapter 20) and an optional student research project