PEP-593-007 : Exercise Endocrinology

Pre-requisites

Purpose

To provide content on the cellular and systems physiology of the neuro-endocrine system, as well as present research-based findings of how exercise alters neuro-endocrine function.

Rationale

The stresses of exercise instigate a myriad of control regulation responses that are designed to allow the human body to cope with the stresses as best as possible.  A vital component of this regulation involves the release of specific hormones that alter cellular, organ and systemic physiology.  As there are a multitude of hormones that are or can be released during exercise, and that the release of these hormones varies with different environmental, nutritional, training, gender and disease states, the academic and research content of exercise endocrinology is immense.  Consequently, a course that is specific to the endocrine adaptations of the body prior to, during, and after exercise is essential to do justice to the volume and importance of academic and research content on this topic.

Objectives

To acquire and/or experience,

Alliance With College Mission and Conceptual Framework

There is an increasing need to justify how academic courses "fit" within the theoretical framework of the college they are located within.  Explanations of the College of Education Mission and Conceptual Framework are found within the College section of the UNM website.

This course provides pertinent knowledge that extends the academic training in exercise physiology of the graduate students of UNM.  While primarily serving the needs of Exercise Science students, students from the School of Medicine, Nursing, and Biology could also justify the inclusion of this course into their program of studies.

Academic Dishonesty

Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism, will not be tolerated.  The College of Education, as with the entire university, has policies on how to handle such infractions.  All faculty are required to abide by these rules and punishments, and students should read about such issues at the following sites:

Format

This course is taught by lecture using computerized Powerpoint slide projection.  Powerpoint lecture/slide notes are found linked to this page, organized by the topics listed on the course calendar.  Lectures are each 120 min in duration, structured as two 50 min sessions separated by 10 min of "break time", finishing with a 10 min question/answer session.

The coverage of specific sub-topics are to be done by students as PowerPoint presentations during week 4.

As there is no suitable text, content is based on classic and recent published research, as well as sections from key texts.  Many images concerning background content will be taken from both of my texts in exercise physiology, hence these books are listed as background reading.

Key references, grouped by topic, are found linked to the main page of this class site.

A compilation of reading will be available for purchase from the College of Education copying center, located in the COE Administration Building.  This material should be available during the later half of week 1 of the course.

Textbook and Other Required Items

As previously indicated, there is no suitable text for this course.  Thus, reading from my text books, additional text content, as well as the original research packet will be mandatory if you want to do well in this class.

The textbooks from which recommended reading will be assigned are;

Robergs RA and Roberts SO. Exercise Physiology: Exercise, Performance and Clinical Applications. Mosby, St. Louis, 1997  (note, this book is now published by McGraw-Hill, Dubuque, Iowa)

Guyton A. Textbook of Medical Physiology. 8th Edition, W.B. Saunders, 1991.

Griffin JE and Ojeda SR. Textbook of Endocrine Physiology. Oxford University Press, 1988.

These additional textbooks will be available from the secretary of the Exercise Physiology Laboratories (Deb Giron), and are only allowed to be borrowed for 2 hour periods during the day.  Overnight loan is available after 4:30 pm, and books must be returned by 9 am the next morning.  Failure to adhere to these requirements will remove your borrowing privileges.

You will need to;

Assessment

Student assessment is based on the scores from,

The point and percentage contribution of each assessment item is summarized in the table below.

Note that the presentation and participation components almost add to half the points for the class.  You are in class to learn, so do the reading and participate in discussion.  Prove to me that you have done the reading.  Thus you need to budget appropriate time to reading the recommended readings and reviewing lecture material, as well as doing your best on the presentation, quizzes and exams.  This is especially important given the summer school format of this course.  Do not fall behind in reading, as it is too difficult to make up this reading with a 4-day/week lecture schedule.

Your final grade will simply be based on the weighted sum of your point totals for each item.  I do not grade on a curve.  You are responsible for learning the material I cover in class, and this content represents the standards required for becoming competent in knowing and understanding the function of hormones in exercise physiology.

The grade letter and points distribution is provided in the table below.

Exams

Each exam will require half a class session, and consist of approximately 30 multiple choice and 10 short answer/figure interpretation questions. Some questions will require calculations, so a calculator is needed for all class sessions.  

Quizzes

The two quizzes will be given during the initial 30 min of the Thursday lecture of weeks 1 and 3.  The content of each quiz will be the material covered in the Monday to Wednesday lectures of that week.  There will be 20 questions consisting of multiple choice and true/false.

Presentation

The presentation will be graded using a standardized items sheet.  You can download a copy of the grading sheet, linked to the "Presentation" page of this website.